Jack and the Beanstalk

This week we have been putting on our Christmas production of 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. Y2 from Belle Vue Infants came to watch...

This is Jack and this is Daisy... He's the Hero, She's the Cow and She's very lazy....

Ok well actually it was Daisy and Jack's Mum who is played exceptionally well by James.

Y2 really enjoyed the show. Thank you to all the parents who have helped making the costumes and we hope you enjoyed the play if you came to see it! Watch our for our photo in the Aldershot News next week!

Victorian 5P!

Today we all enjoyed 5P's class assembly. This term their topic has been 'We are not amused' However we actually were amused by their assembly...

All the children came to school in Victorian outfits and they looked very good. Rebecca played the part of a very strict teacher, here she is inspecting the cleanliness of the children's hands...

5P rounded off their assembly with a game of 'Victorian Who wants to be a Millionaire' . Thank you 5P we all really enjoyed it!

FONs Christmas Fair

Today we held the annual Friends of Newport School Christmas Fair. The evening began with the Choir singing some Christmas carols at 6pm. By 6.30pm the Fair was well underway. Thank you to everyone who came to support our school. We raised just over £1000.

It was also nice to see Miss Peacock and Mrs Thorndike demonstrating to us their excellent hot dog cooking and selling skills. We love the hats ladies but don't give up your day job!

6E Assembly

On Friday 30th November, 6E held their class assembly as a Newsround report on 'GERMS' yuk !!

They talked about micro-organisms or microbes, which we generally know as BACTERIA, VIRUSES and FUNGI.

These are strange organisms, as most of them are only one cell. They are tough and some can survive for a long time in extreme or harsh conditions. Most people don't take them seriously, but if you don't take care, they can make you seriously ill or even kill you.

It is important to keep food cold and refrigerated or bacteria can multiply very rapidly. Never keep uncooked and cooked food together. Bacteria can multiply every ten minutes if conditions are warm and moist. The Mad Professor Octopus told us that :

• In one hour one bacterium can multiply to 64 bacteria.
• In the next hour, these can multiply to over 4000 bacteria.
• In 3 hours these will multiply to 262144 bacteria.
• After 4 hours these can then multiply to over 16 million bacteria.

So, if you leave food unattended and open to the environment, the risk of food poisoning increases very rapidly. You should therefore, keep things clean and hygienic and always refrigerate and wrap your food.

6E were also studying biographies and told a little about 'The Father of Microbiology' Louis Pasteur, who discovered that heating food would kill off microbes. This process is still used today. We know it as PASTEURISATION.

So we must all take care.

Children in Need

Today is Children in Need and everyone at Newport has got into the spirit of things and come in to school in Mufti. Thank you for all the donations, we have raised over £140. which will go to help children less fortunate than ourselves.

Wish you were here!

Today we all enjoyed 4E's assembly on St. Lucia. The children are learning about St. Lucia this term and shared some of their work with us.




The children performed a dance about a hurricane.

We listened to some poetry about the sea.

And saw some other performance poetry. Well done 4E!

Civil Engineering-More than just bridges.

What links Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Year 6 Newport Juniors and the Aldershot based company Card Geotechnics?
Not sure then read on.....

Well, all the above were involved in the inter schools bridge building challenge held at St Joseph’s primary school on Wednesday 14th November. The event began with a very visual presentation by Hailey Tamblin and Keisha Smith, from local company Card Geotechnics, on the role of civil engineers.

Civil engineers are vital in the construction projects that affect all aspects of modern life including transport such as the development of new road rail links together with the designing of bridges to overcome physical barriers water/valleys. The new Wembley stadium and all the infra structure 2012 London Olympics made the teams aware about how this branch of engineering can influence leisure time. The impact of global warming also means the building of new hydro electric dams, wind farms and nuclear power plants will also provide new engineering challenges.


However, the challenge for the Year 6 pupils was to design, make and build a bridge to cross a 30 cm ravine made from just paper, glue and nuts and bolts within the time constraint of just 1 hour. The bridges would then be “road tested” to see if they would withstand the weight of a rather large toy dumper truck crossing the ravine. (The link with Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s famous bridges Tamar Bridge that links Devon and Cornwall and the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol is now perhaps a little clearer).

The hall was soon filled with the noise of the teams discussing their possible designs. James and Daniel of the Newport team quickly came up with a bridge constructed using triangle -shaped trusses. Triangles were chosen because this shape is very strong and can withstand a lot external pressure. Alice, Warren and Nara then set about transforming the flat paper into stronger rolls and using the nuts and bolts quickly assembled the basic side frames. Lily and Daniel carefully measured the dimensions of the truck so that the bridge would be wide enough to allow it to move across easily.

Time sped on and the construction of the bridge deck went through several modifications before the Newport team settled on a cradle design attached to side struts of the bridge frame. Everybody pulled together and it was all “hands on deck” to ensure all the tiny nuts and bolts were aligned correctly as the Newport team were keen to have a functional but attractive, symmetrical design.


















All too soon the hour past and the school teams, in turn, nervously approached the judging area to see if their bridge was up to the job. The civil engineers from Geotechnics probed the team members as to their construction techniques and possible design modifications to improve their bridge. Newport’s bridge was praised for its innovative design and despite a slight swaying motion the truck passed safely over the ravine.

WE ARE NOT AMUSED !

This week Year 5 were...

Year 5 have been studying the Victorians and had a chance to experience a day in the life of a Victorian school child. The children, and teachers, dressed in period clothes and conducted a lesson as they would have done in the Victorian era.

They were visited by Miss Reid from Farnham Museum who assisted the children with writing in copperplate on slate boards, participate in exercising and singing and even had a Victorian playtime using chalk to mark out and play hopscotch.

All those that took part really enjoyed their day and understood the difference between what we do now and how things were then.

On 1st November we held an Art Exhibition in our school hall where all pupils exhibited art work relating to topics they have been covering in class. The children had an opportunity to view their work before friends and family attended. It was a great success as pupils could show off their work to their families and could purchase originals and prints.

Images School Art Exihibitions, mounted and framed each individual picture and these can still be purchased until 14th November by contacting the school office. The cost is £7 with the school receiving £2. You can visit Images website by clicking HERE.

We would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to all the pupils and everyone that attendended. Who knows, there could be a Picasso amongst us !

New Musical Instruments!

We would like to say a big thank you to FONs for buying us some new musical instruments. FONs have donated over £1000 to give us lots of new types of instruments that we have not had before...

Ask your children to tell you about the frog güiro and the cabasa! *



This is just a selection. Your children will be making excellent music with them soon.

* Or you can find out yourself here and here...

Newport's Construction Experts!

The construction challenge was organised by First Partnership, an organisation aimed at linking industry and education. The competition was aimed at able year 6 children with the purpose of challenging them with tasks with a “real world” application and to raise awareness of the skills needed for careers within the construction industry.

Ten schools from North East Hampshire were invited took part in the event held at Westfields Junior School in Yateley on 16th October 2007.

Our team took on roles of a:
• Planner
• Quantity Surveyor
• General Foreman
• Project Manager
• Site Engineer

The challenge was to build an exact replica of a model building and submit an exact costing and design brief.

However, only the project manager, James, and the site engineer, Warren, were allowed to see the model in the architect’s office for just a few minutes.

Our teamwork was excellent, everybody cooperated brilliantly and listened carefully to the project /site engineer as they tried to remember all the details of the model-shape of bricks, colour, position and layout of the model.

The planners, Alice and Deni, then drew up an accurate replica of the building. Gaby in her role of quantity surveyor had to interpret the plan and order and cost all the correct supplies.

Only the general foreman, Ben, was allowed to construct the model. The rest of the Newport team looked on with intense concentration clearly evident in their expression on their faces.

Result
Once the costings had been submitted and the model building constructed the judges examined all the teams’ entries. Time penalties and fines were added to those teams that had requested extra visits to view the model building and had over ordered supplies. Each team then had to devise a company name and give a short presentation highlighting the key skills they had developed during the session and how they could have improved.

The Newport team were awarded runner up to All Saints School in Fleet, as they had an exremely accurate model that was cost effective. Only one brick separated the two teams!

Very well done to the Newport team who were a real credit to the school.
The Newport Team:
James
Ben
Gaby
Alice
Deni
Warren

Comments from the team:

“I learnt to be more confident in a speaking to a crowd of people and to be myself”.
“I enjoyed the challenge because it was fun and taught me to work in a team and cooperate with other people”.
“I enjoyed making the model because it showed us how to work as a team. My advice to other children is not to spend too much time planning!”

Harvest Time

We would like to say a big thank you and well done to all the children and parents for their generous donations. This year, our Harvest collection is in support of the Hampshire Youth Bureau, based in Aldershot. This group helps and supports young people up to 25 and we are sure that the collection will be well received. Thank you all again.

A New way to Newport News!

We want to tell you much more regularly about things that are happening at Newport and let you see news about each year group.

To make this easy we have started our blog. It's easy to find from our school homepage - just click the school blog button.



This will take you to the page you are on now!



Also, you can click other buttons on our school homepage to take you to news about each year group, clubs and FONs.

We hope you like the new blog - if you do, please leave us a comment!