Week Ending 9th March 2018

Please enjoy some photos from Otter's lovely trip to Wenzel's Bakery last week.

   

 

 

 

Normal service has been resumed at EBA this week, with no snow, freezing temperatures, or other weather related disruption.  Our postponed World Book Day dress-up day went ahead on Monday, and was a wonderful celebration of books and reading, with some really amazing costumes on display. 

Children from Hamsters right through to Deer Class dressed up as a character from a book, and took part in a costume parade in the hall.  Costumes included wizards, superheroes, queens and witches, Gangsta Grannies, Mary Poppins and Paddington!  And staff dressed up too - what a fun day.

 

 

 

On Thursday of this week, a team of Year 5 girls took part in an after school football tournament at All Saints Academy.  They faced some tough matches in rather cold conditions, losing two  and drawing two. 

Despite not coming near the top of leaderboard, Mr Whall was extremely pleased with their performance.  This is a group of girls who haven't had much opportunity to practice together, but the team morale shown was something to be very proud of.  The girls kept one another's spirits up with cheering and good humour, and no discontent or frustration shown when things didn't go their way.  A special well done to the Year 5 girls football team!

Next week we have Science Day to look forward to on Wednesday, and a further round of the EBA Bake Off.  The children will also be having some cricket taster sessions, so we hope it will be warm and dry enough to play on the field!

Week Ending 2nd March 2018

What a week!  Just as we were beginning to look forward to some spring sunshine and pleasant warmth, the weather forecasters told us all that spring had been "postponed" this year and that we were in for some rather low temperatures... and they weren't wrong!

Much of the week was spent watching the skies, checking the weather forecast, and hoping that the frequent snow showers weren't going to disrupt all of our plans!  It's been Book Week this week, so plenty of literacy based activities lined up for the children to enjoy, culminating in our celebration of EBA World Book Day, planned for Friday.

Otters Class in particular were keeping their fingers crossed that roads would be safe and snow free, because they had an exciting trip planned on Tuesday.  They were off to Watford to visit Wenzel's Bakery, where they were to become mini-bakers for the day, and make bread and decorate cakes.

Happily, despite temperatures of around -6°C, and a bitter wind, the heaviest snowfalls did steer clear of this part of the country at the beginning of the week, so Otters were able to head out on their adventure, and had a really wonderful day out. There will be some photos to follow - watch this space!

By Wednesday however, the forecast was worsening, and with blizzard conditions and a fair amount of snow on the ground on Thursday, we took the decision to send the children home early, and to remain closed on Friday.

What a shame, when all the children had their World Book Day costumes all ready to dress up in on Friday! However, no-one will miss out, as we will now have our celebration on Monday of next week.  In the meantime, everyone has an extra long weekend to enjoy playing in the snow!

Keep safe and stay warm, and we will see you on Monday...

Week Ending 23rd February 2018

The week started with an exciting new competition for the children to enter - the Eaton Bray Academy Bake Off!

Every Monday from now until Easter, children will be invited to take part, and bring in home-made cake or cakes, which will then be judged on taste and appearance.  Everyone who enters will receive a small prize, and a winner from each class will be selected to go forward to the final at the end of term.  The overall winner will be crowned EBA Bake Off Champion and receive a certificate and trophy.  Each Monday afternoon, there will be an after school cake stall where the cakes will be sold to parents, to raise some welcome funds for the HSA.

This week it was Foxes and Deer Classes' turn, and the children set a high bar with their delicious home cooking!

Everyone has returned to school refreshed and recharged after a welcome half term break, and we are looking forward to lighter evenings and (eventually) some warmer weather.  Even the school building itself is looking refreshed, following a lovely spring clean over the holiday, and it was a pleasure to come in on Monday morning to sparkling floors and freshly shampooed carpets.  The challenge is of course to keep it that way, and to try and keep muddy shoes and trainers outside!

Foxes Class children did some excellent homework over half term, as a follow up to the Greek Day that they enjoyed before the holiday.  They researched and wrote about various themes linked to the Ancient Greeks, including democracy, the Olympic Games, Greek food and Greek myths.  The projects were beautifully presented, and children obviously put in a lot of time and effort to produce their best work.

Squirrels Class also touched on democracy this week, when they found out about the Houses of Parliament as part of their work on "Legendary London".  During their Art lessons, they looked at the work of Claude Monet, who painted a series of paintings of the Houses of Parliament, all from the same viewpoint but in different weather conditions and at different times of the day.  They then produced their own eye-catching versions using a silhouette template of the buildings against bright coloured backgrounds.  Can you tell which were painted by Claude Monet, and which by Squirrels Class?

    

    

    

Badgers Class children meanwhile, have been learning how to write a persuasive text, and tying this in with their Wonderful World topic.  They created a shared piece of writing to persuade people to visit the wonderful Lake District - which was quite a lengthy process, as the children had to carefully consider the language they used - and used this to create their own Lake District advertisement suitable for the English Tourist Board.

On Thursday, Squirrels and Otters Class had a rather exciting afternoon.  As part of the Primary Engineer programme, which bring engineering learning to the classroom, they were invited to join in a web chat with a graduate civil engineer, Mark Barthorpe, who works for Transport for London.  He spoke to the children about his training and his career, talking about the different projects he has worked on, and explaining why he decided to become an engineer.  Before the web chat, the children had completed research about civil engineering, and thought of lots of questions for Mark.

This has now inspired Otter and Squirrels children to enter an engineering competition: "If I were an engineer I would...", which involves them identifying a problem and then designing an invention to overcome it.

Also on Thursday, Eaton Bray Academy children took part in another after school sports tournament, at All Saints Academy.  This time it was hockey, and once again it was a terrific performance from some of our Year 5 and 6 boys and girls.  Three games were played, with an extra game to decide the winners... and EBA won with a golden goal in extra time!  

Fierce determination and team spirit were much in evidence again, as our children gave their all - attacking, defending, covering each other's positions.  We were delighted to come away the winners, but even better than that was the demonstration of positive play and skills shown by all players.  Well done EBA!

Next week is "Book Week", and we have lots of activities planned around reading and sharing our love of books.  We are all looking forward to celebrating World Book Day by dressing up as our favourite literary characters!

Week Ending 9th February 2018

A rather busier week this week at EBA!

Tuesday was Safer Internet Day.  All the classes worked on different activities around this theme, talking and thinking about the games they play and apps they use online, and considering how to stay safe when using them.  Everyone was tasked with creating a poster, featuring their own e-safety super hero, and the older children wrote stories about their super heroes' adventures.

The posters were judged on Friday by our EBA e-cadet team, and prizes and awards were handed out to the winners in assembly.

Squirrels Class children have been learning how to write instructions in their English lessons this week.  Its Shrove Tuesday next week, so what  better opportunity for instruction writing could their be than pancake making for Pancake Day?  Having written (and illustrated) their instructions, of course the children had to put them into practice, so a wonderful afternoon was spent on Tuesday in Squirrels Class, making pancakes!

 

Also on Tuesday, after school, a group of EBA Year 5 girls took part in a netball tournament at All Saints Academy in Dunstable.  They put on a wonderful perfomance over the three matches they played - for a group of girls who haven't yet had much chance to practice together, they showed a great team spirit and real determination both in attack and defense.

The girls won all three of their matches and were announced overall winners, coming away with medals for their achievement. Well done once again EBA!

Children in Rabbits Class have been working hard on their "Wondrous World" topic work.  They have been finding out all about mountains, and this week have written mountain poems and done some fantastic mountain themed artwork. 

On Wednesday, Foxes and Deer Classes enjoyed a rather special day.  As part of their work on "Gruesome Greeks", they were visited by a "performing historian" from the Portals to the Past team, who came in to run a day of immersive activities based on the Ancient Greeks.  

All the children and their teachers came in dressed in Grecian costume, and took part in a series of workshops, learning about Ancient Greek life and culture.  This included Greek myths and legends, the Ancient Olympic Games, Greek philosophy and mathematics and much more.  In the afternoon, they were given a demonstration of Ancient Greek weaponry, and witnessed a reenactment of the Battle of Gaugamela.  

It was a fun and exciting day for the children, who all appreciated the opportunity to learn about history in such a lively manner.

Children in Hamsters Class have been finding out more about "People Who Help Us".  This week they have been thinking about soldiers, and all that the armed forces do to keep us safe.  They found out that soldiers have to be very fit, and that they train by completing challenging assault courses.  The children took part in their own assault course in the classroom, crawling under and climbing under obstacles, just like real soldiers!

On Friday, our Year 6 Enterprise children had another very special day.  The money that they raised following their "Bray's Graze" restaurant evening last term was put to good use, allowing them to pay for a visit from the Young Enterprise team.  This is an charity that offers business skills education to children, providing them with the opportunity to learn more about the world of work.

The children spent the day setting up and running their own businesses.  They were split into teams, and each team had to assign roles their members - Creative Director, Marketing Manager, Financial Director and so on - thinking about their individual strengths and weaknesses.  Then they went into business, producing items of jewellery from beads, which had to be quality controlled, before going on sale.  Every step of the process was recorded in workbooks, with profits (or losses) calculated and noted at the end of the day. 

It was a fascinating day for the children, and one which taught them an enormous amount about teamwork, communication, problem solving, and all that is involved in working successfully with others.  

We hope everyone has a lovely half term holiday, we will see you back on Monday 19th February!