Year 1 visited a rather wet and windy Corfe Castle. We had to abandon our (slightly ambitious) plans for lunch in the castle, but we did learn about how many soldiers could defend Corfe Castle (only 40), how long Oliver Cromwell’s men spent blowing it up (9 months) and where King John did his business!
The children showed great resilience and good humour and Mr Wollen and Mrs Dunster were very proud of them.
This is before we went in and were still relatively dry!
Year 1 had a brilliant trip to Swanage Brickworks as part of our science topic, Everyday Materials. We saw the quarry where the clay is dug, watched it being pounded and mixed with water, then saw how each brick is made by hand. Then we followed the bricks through the drying process and felt the heat outside the kilns. It was a fascinating and enjoyable morning; we even knew some people who worked at the brickworks!
Year 6 enjoyed an excellent day Southampton Art Gallery – travelling by train added to the excitement! We spent time exploring the Perseus collection of paintings by the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Edward Burne-Jones. The paintings tell the story of Perseus and the Gorgon Medusa and were a perfect introduction to our learning about Greek myths. Not only did we unpick the story, we also had a chance to look really carefully at the pictures – discussing the artist’s choice of colours and exploring some of the different techniques he used. We the had the opportunity to create Medusa heads as wire sculptures. We will be finishing these at school – watch out for them on display soon. Finally, we had the opportunity to look at some of the other artwork in the gallery. We saw a fabulous range of pictures from those painted in the 1350s right up to ‘wall art’ – where the image created by the artist is projected onto the wall, then drawn onto the wall and re-created in paint by artists at the gallery every time they want to exhibit the piece. Thanks to all the adults who came with us helping to make the whole day really enjoyable for everyone.
Year 5 had a brilliant day out at the Science Museum, Winchester. We learnt a lot about space as well as enjoying all the brilliant activities in the museum.
Year 6 visited Tyneham as part of their topic learning. They explored all the buildings that they had been finding out about on the internet and by looking at public records. They even visited the school house and farm and pretended that they were performing at the Tyneham Theatre.
Year 6 visited Fort Henry in Studland. They found out about the important role the Fort and Studland played in Exercise Smash – the rehearsal for the D-Day Landings.
A group of children from key stage 1 have been attending beach schools sessions with Fore Adventure to enjoy being active outdoors, and to develop confidence and speaking and listening skills.
Last Thursday, Year 6 enjoyed an exciting and interesting trip to London. We visited the Houses of Parliament where we went into both chambers and listened to the debating, toured the rest of the palace of Westminster, and learned about how our country is governed. In our Law and Debating workshop we passed a law which saw the end of school uniform for all pupils; however, an amendment introduced a uniform for staff!
A ‘flight’ on the London Eye followed before we headed home on the train. A big thank you to all the children for their excellent behaviour and to all the adults for their help.
The school Green Team recently visited the Budgens and Coop supermarkets in the town to look at how much unnecessary packaging is being used. They also asked members of the public what they thought and they agreed unanimously that it should be reduced. Next the Green Team will be writing to the supermarkets to ask if this is possible.
Year 6 enjoyed a very exciting and interesting visit to our friend, Chris, at the Keep Museum in Dorchester, to support their learning about World War 1.
As you can see from the pictures we had the opportunity to try on and handle many original artefacts and they used this experience to produce some pages for non fiction texts about the Great War.
We also trialled the Dorchester Poppy Trail, a route around the town with information boards explaining how that place or object was connected to World War 1.
