On 18^th April all children in Year 3 took part in a very special musical workshop.  Chris Cranham and Stewart Death entertained us by playing a wide variety of instruments, including the tuba, trumpet, sousaphone and didgeridoo.

The day started out with a wonderful show about the Olympic Games involving different instruments from different countries, starting with Greece and the panpipes.  The programme also reflected, through suitable music, some of the Olympic activities including rowing, equestrian events and gymnastics.

Following the Olympic Show, the remainder of the day consisted of three workshop sessions – one for each class.  Lions based their rhythm work on the Mexican Salsa, Tigers prepared a Brazilian Samba piece, whilst Panthers took us to Spain with its famous Tango.

All Year 3 pupils were able to concentrate on perfecting their special rhythm to match the number of beats in their particular dance.  The Salsa, for example, had a steady eight beats, whilst the Samba and Tango had four each.

We are very fortunate at Five Ways to already have most of the percussion instruments we played, e.g. claves and afuche casaba.  Mrs Carder was particularly impressed with the Suzuki Tone Chimes and hopes that Five Ways will be able to purchase a set of these one day.

Each group worked really hard and listened so well to all the instructions.  The individual class performances in front of parents at the end of the afternoon demonstrated just how much each child had gained from the experience.  The children’s playing was superb, as was their rendition of the special song which they practised with Mrs Carder beforehand.  “The Tuba has Landed” was a song specially written by a local composer and is a song from an opera for children.  Year 3 pupils sang the song really well and are a credit to our school.

On Tuesday 27^th March the Five Ways School football team played in an away-tie league match against Pye Green School.  The 7-a-side team was made up pupils from Year 6 and the match was played for 15 minutes each way.  The match was very tight, with Five Ways scoring and Pye Green equalizing, Five Ways scoring again and Pye Green equalizing again.  Excitement mounted with this end-to-end play and Five Ways came out on top with a score of 3-2 when the winning goal was put safely away.  The match was played throughout with a good spirit from both sides.  Well done to all the players!

On Monday 12^th March a range of exciting activities took place during Reading Day, the latest of our termly Enrichment Days.  Each year group chose a book or author to study before the day and then explored related themes throughout this special day.

Nursery

In Nursery we brought in books to share by the author Mick Inkpen.  We made puppets of the characters in Kipper and looked at patterns in Kipper’s special blanket.  We put the story into sequence and painted a favourite character.  We had a wonderful time acting out the story in the Nursery Garden - wasn’t the weather kind to us?  We made nests of sticks, stood on one leg like a duck, sat on lily pads like the frog and crawled through the tunnel like a badger.  What an absolutely super time we all had!

Reception

Reception listened to stories by Jill Murphy, with a special focus on the book Whatever Next?  This tells the story of Baby Bear’s travels from the top of the chimney and out into space.  Lots of exciting things were made, including sounds from the story using a sound box, a circuit with battery, wire and a light bulb and pictures of Baby Bear popping out of the chimney.  We made a story map, owl pictures decorated with handwriting patterns and beautiful collages of Van Gogh’s famous picture, Starry Night.  Because the book was called Whatever Next? we joined in the writing of a Whatever Next? follow-up story!

Year 1

Year 1’s chosen book was The Gruffalo, the very popular story by Julia Donaldson.  The highlight of the day was the party, but before anyone could go to the party special invitations had to be written.  We created masks of our favourite characters from the book and created collages of the characters to bring them to life.  We made the Gruffalo, Owl, Mouse, Snake and Fox.  We had the most wonderful food you could image at our party, including roasted fox, poisonous warts, tusks, Gruffalo eyeballs, snakeskin and Gruffalo blood!

Year 2

Year 2 chose to study the author Martin Waddell who has penned a staggering total of over 220 books!  Everyone read The Toymaker and then made a puppet, just as the toymaker in the story did.  Now we know what it feels like to be a toymaker ourselves.  We wrote a review on one of his books and wrote a letter to Martin telling him which books we liked and asking him some questions about his life as an author.

Year 3

Year 3’s author was Dick King-Smith and the books chosen for study were Dinosaur Trouble and Dinosaur School.  Both of these stories were read beforehand.  On the day, each pupil in the year group wore the badge of an official palaeontologist.  When they arrived in school they saw a trail of dinosaur footprints and read the notices warning them that dinosaurs were on the loose and should not be approached.  During the day they searched in sand for fossils and identified the dinosaurs from the remains, went on an orienteering-based dinosaur hunt, drew pictures of chosen dinosaurs, sang dinosaur songs, used the Internet to conduct research and made an ammonite, fossil or dinosaur model from clay.  At the end of the day our palaeontologists went home tired but happy after their special investigative work.

Year 4

Year 4 can barely wait for the Olympic Games in July, so they were delighted to study Out of a Rainbow by Michael Morpurgo, which tells the story of how the official Olympic mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville were created.  As part of their work the children used the computer to create a poster which would persuade people to buy one, or both, of these mascots.  They made clay models of the mascots.  They wrote a character description of one of the mascots and even created a new story for Wenlock and Mandeville on a storyboard.

Year 5

Year 5’s chosen book was Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling.  The day included art and music as well as reading and writing.  Diagon Alley was recreated as a huge frieze of wizards’ shops and other buildings that appear in the Harry Potter books, bringing alive as a visual representation the descriptions in the story.  Exciting drama was created around the theme of spells and everyone made a unique wizard’s wand and wrote a description about it.

Year 6

Year 6 spent the day immersed in Roald Dahl’s fabulous creations, notably those with a chocolate or food connection!  Niles’ classroom turned into a kitchen for the day and was busy with food preparation and tasting.  Inspired by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and other stories they made Lickable Wallpaper, Banana Birdy-bites and apple animals made from fruit dipped in chocolate.  They produced pictures of a Roald Dahl character, presented as a tile, in the style of Quentin Blake, the illustrator of Roald Dahl’s books.  One of the highlights of the day was making an origami frog and a lily pad and then racing the frog to see which got to the lily pad first!  On a more serious note, the children chose their favourite Roald Dahl book and reviewed it and also considered why the author’s books are still so popular.  They completed Roald Dahl anagrams and finished by writing a review of the whole day.  Fun, creation and consideration!

Five Ways School Upper Choir, led by Mrs Bowers and Mrs Carder, took part recently in the Cannock Schools’ Talent Show held at the Prince of Wales Theatre in Cannock.  The two hour event also featured the St Luke’s Signing Choir and choirs from Heath Hayes, Gorsemoor, West Hill and St Luke’s Primary Schools.  Funds were raised for the Water 4 Life charity and the expenses of the event were paid for by donations from local businesses.  This meant that every penny of ticket and programme sales as well as further donations went directly to Water 4 Life.

Five Ways Upper Choir performed two spirituals, “By and By” and “Chariots Comin’”.  Spirituals are special songs which were sung in America by African slaves to give them joy and lift their spirits.  The third song, “Believe”, is about positive thinking, encouraging belief in ourselves and the achievement of dreams.

After the Talent show, CS, member of the Upper Choir said:

When I went to the Prince of Wales Theatre I enjoyed it so much.  All the songs we heard were amazing.  My favourite song was “Can you feel the love tonight?” by Gorsemoor Primary School.  My favourite song that Five Ways sang was “Believe”.  I enjoyed the Grand Finale when we all sang “I turn on the tap” together.  That was great fun!  I enjoyed it so much I can’t wait until the next time we perform in a show.

KB wrote:

It was interval time and our school went upstairs to get ready.  We were the last school on and we were all quite nervous.  Different schools had gone up and then a steel band went up.  We had the opportunity to see where the lighting was controlled.  A couple of schools later and we were backstage waiting for the school in front of us to finish.  When that school had finished Mr Tyrell, who was the presenter of the show, came out and announced that Five Ways Primary School were next.  We all took our places on stage and started to sing.  It was one of the best nights ever.

Year 4’s Tudor Day took place on Tuesday 7^thFebruary.  As in previous years, the Diversions group visited the school, bringing costumes and a range of activities so that the children could learn and understand more of what life would have been like in Tudor times.  At the start of the day the children were asked what they knew about the Tudors and the people of Diversions were very impressed by the depth of the children’s knowledge.  Pupils in Year 4 were able to name all the Tudor monarchs, name each of Henry VIII’s six wives (in the correct order!) and state what happened to each of these wives. In addition, the children could share facts about daily life in Tudor times, such as how the ordinary people disposed of their waste!  During the day, everyone dressed in Tudor costumes.  This was a very interesting experience and most people thought it was much easier to get dressed in modern times, even in winter, because we don’t have lots of fiddly strings to tie and boys don’t have to wear hose (tights).  Two children were chosen from each of the two groups to be Lord and Lady Five Ways for the day and wore special costumes with more decoration.  When they were dressed in their costumes the children learned the special manners and behaviour of the Tudor Court and performed a slow dance called the pavane, also known as the peacock dance, which was danced to the music of the time in a large circle.

All the children sculpted fruits from marchpane, a paste made from almonds and sugar, which we know as marzipan.  Treats like these would have been eaten only by the wealthy because sugar was scarce in Tudor times and poor people could not have afforded it.  Other typical marchpane sculptures of the time would have been animals, castles, people and trees.  The children also made a box decorated with a Tudor rose to hold the marchpane fruits so that they could be taken home.

Diversions brought a range of craft activities from which the children could choose.  They could make a French hood (the headdress made popular by Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife), a bookmark using Tudor-style calligraphy, a meat knife in a sheath or a fan.

Meeting Diversions, dressing in costumes, learning a dance and preparing food brought the whole Tudor period to life.  All agreed that the occasion was extremely enjoyable and everyone expects to remember this special day for a very long time.

This year’s Safer Internet Day is on Tuesday 7^th February.  All Internet users need to be aware of the consequences of their online actions, both good and bad.  The children of Five Ways will be taking part in the day by discussing in their year group assemblies the importance of Internet safety.  Safer Internet Day is organised by Insafe each year in February to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people across the world.  Insafe is a European network of Awareness Centres promoting safe, responsible use of the Internet and mobile devices to young people.  This year’s theme is Connecting generations and educating each other, together with the slogan: "Discover the digital world together... safely!"

For more information about Safer Internet Day visit www.staffsscb.org.uk/besafe .  This page of the Staffordshire Safeguarding Children Board’s website provides information about free e-safety and e-learning modules for professionals and parents.  The site has links to the UK Safer Internet Centre which has further advice for parents and activities for children.

On Monday 23^rd January Mr Downs, from the Electricity Outreach Programme at Rugeley Power Station, came to school and held workshops for all the pupils in Year 5.  The sessions were organised for the three classes as part of the science curriculum work on electricity.  The children were given a Jitterbug Kit and a special lesson in how to turn the various parts of their kit into a working model bug which moved by vibrating on the tabletop.  The kit contained a plate for the bug’s body, legs, a counterbalance wheel, a choice of colourful stickers to personalise the bug, a motor, a battery, wires and insulating tube.  The children were given step-by-step instructions in how to assemble their bug, creating an electrical circuit with wires, battery and motor, resulting in a classroom full of brightly-coloured models jittering and vibrating at the same time.  The bugs were able to move because of the counterbalance wheel attached to the motor which caused its movement to be irregular.

When asked how they had enjoyed the experience Dolphins used terms such as “Brilliant!” “Fun”, “Amazing!”, “Cool” and “Excellent”.  AW said, “We got to make things.  I would like to do it again.”  PM said, “When we’d finished, I liked how the bugs moved when they were switched on.  I didn’t expect that.”  A great time was had by all!