Performing Poetry

Following on from Newport's wonderful Christmas production "Squeak", Year 6 pupils were keen to showcase  their acting,speaking and listening skills this week whilst studying the humourous poem entitled Colonel Fazackerley Butterworth -Toast by Charles Causley. 
A makeshift set was assembled in the library and with the minimum of rehearsal time, Mrs Fieldgate's group  produced two videos-we do hope you enjoy watching them.

Do you feel sorry for the poor old spectre? Or do you admire the cunning Colonel for the clever way in which he evicts the spectre from his new home?

Year 4- Hungry for Hockey!

This week year 4 participated in an inter-house hockey tournament. Our team colours competed against each other in a series of matches for the honour of year 4 hockey heroes!

Take a look at our photos which show some of the new skills that we have learnt in our PE lessons this half term. 

Creating hand puppets!

Year 3 have been getting creative this week and making our own hand-puppets to go alongside the story of the 3 Little Pigs. The children could choose whether they were going to make a wolf or a pig.

Firstly, the children had to draw their designs. Once this had been done they had to choose the which felt they would use and start cutting and sewing the pieces together. For some of the children it was the first time they were independently sewing without adult help, so a very proud moment for them! All of the children produced fantastic hand-puppets that they can keep and be very proud of.

We will be displaying the puppets at our exhibition at the end of this term for the parents to come in and see.

Year 3 say 'No' to bullying!

We have had a busy week again in year 3! Last week was Anti-Bullying week so we have done lots of work on how to stand up to bullies and how we can be a good friend.

Some of the activities we did this week including:
-Writing acrostic poems
-Anti-bullying posters
-An anti-bullying graffiti wall!

Here are some top tips from Grace and Jason in year 3 on how to be a good friend:

1) don't fight, be nice
2) listen to each other
3) share with one another

How can you be a good friend?

Anti-Bullying Week Poetry Competition

Last week all children entered the poetry competition in aid of anti-bullying week. The entries were really high this year and the healthy school councillors found it difficult to choose their winners. Despite these difficulties, we managed to decide on our first, second and third place winners in each year group.Well done to everyone, because I know how much hard work went into creating each poem. It is a shame you could not all be winners. See the pictures below of the winning entries:

Look at all the fun things we did last week:

Bullying is cruel, not cool!

Last Monday, Alice and Anjesh (our anti-bullying officers) led a whole school assembly which was fantastic. Both children spoke very clearly and Alice even designed the powerpoint! I was very impressed with their confidence and they worked really hard to promote the motto of 'Stand up, speak out' for anti-bullying week. I think we did a great job of raising awareness this year. Well done Alice and Anjesh, you did a great job and Miss Cooke was really proud of you.

Victorian Day

As part of our Victorian topic this half term, year 5 children had to follow strict rules during a visit from a Victorian school teacher. Have a look at the pictures below to see our Victorian costumes and to see what we got up to on Victorian day!

That's the way to do it!

Year 3 were lucky enough to have a visit from a live puppet show! Tony the Puppet Man showed us the different types of puppets you can have, gave us a demonstration of how to create your own puppet, showed us a Punch & Judy show and even performed some magic tricks!

 

Tony was showing us string puppets - they were quite tricky to use!

 

The crocodile puppet could snap his jaws together. Tony explained how using different materials could create different effects, by making the crocodile's jaws out of wood it meant that they would make a great cracking sound!

This cheeky dog puppet kept eating the props for the magic trick! Luckily, we had a magic wand to keep order.

The magic tricks included a psychic monkey puppet...Some of the children were able to become magicians themselves to help out!

Altogether we had a fantastic time and have been inspired to create our own puppets which we will be showing at the exhibition at the end of term.

Year 6 design their own computer game app.

Since the launch of "be the best you can be" initiative in September, Newport pupils have been thinking about ways in which to achieve their goals in their dream books. Today some talented pupils in ICT had the opportunity to become app game designers. Travelling Cherrywood school in Farnborough, the Year 6 pupils worked with Mrs  Pang, a secondary ICT specialist, to create an exciting,entertaining and fully inteactive computer  game. The software, Kodu Game Lab from Microsoft, allowed the pupils to create a fantasy world. Using precise instructions, they designed a range of challenges for their sprites to tackle even adding in voices for their cute action characters!
Kai, Molly and Finn showed themselves to be more than capable of giving those more popular apps like crazy birds a run for their money.

Mrs Pang also gave the children some advice on getting to grips with HTML (Hyper text mark up language) using a brilliant programme called Mozilla Thimble.
Sadly, the workshop had to come to an end nevertheless the children saw how their new programming skills could be used to control a Robosapiens.
The workshop proved a great insight into how computer programming skills can be applied in the world of work and play. The children had gone from users to programmers in just one morning. A further workshop is being planned by Mrs Fieldgate and Mrs Pang for later in the year. So watch this space....

Tough challenge brings out terrific year 6 teamwork .

Do you know what Big Ben ( properly known as Elizabeth Tower) and Tower of  Pisa have in common? Yes, they are both  structures that lean. Aleiska Smith, from the Institute of Civil Engineers, spoke about the wide variety of different project that civil engineers can become involved in whilst briefing local schools on a bridge based challenge. Some of Newport's Year 6 pupils learnt about the  three different types of bridge: suspension, arched and beam and the different forces that act upon them. Making a bridge appealing to eye is a important factor when designing a feature will be part of the landscape for a long period of time.
Then came the tough task to actually design, build and test a bridge using just glue, paper and a few Meccano nuts and bolts! The pictures below clearly show how brilliantly Newport pupils worked as a team when faced with a tough challenge and  extremely tight deadlines.

Triangles proved to be the key to adding strength to the bridge; as you can see Newport super strong structure was up to the task of carrying heavy trucks!

"The bridge building challenge was lots of fun and the engineer's advice very useful. I thought we worked very well as team. Although we didn't win I think we just missed out", commented Lucy.

"We didn't win however it is the taking part that matters", reflected Faheem.

" It was an awesome and exciting task" , stated Rupesh.

Well done to all the team -Rupesh, Faheem, Katie, Beth, Lucy and team leader, Louie who were a real credit to Newport School.

 Mrs Fieldgate

Step up and stop bullying!

On thursday, years five and six had the opportunity to participate in a workshop led by childline. The children learnt that bullying can happen to anyone, at any age. It can leave you feeling anxious, lonely, worthless and scared - but it doesn't have to be like this if they talk to someone. Everyone really enjoyed themselves and the children's behaviour was impeccable.

Thank you,

Miss Cooke.