​A huge thank you to all the parents, families and friends who came along to our Year 6 Christmas craft fair last night.
It was amazing to see so many of you enjoying the handmade crafts, decorations and delicious baked treats. The Year 6 children worked incredibly hard over the past few weeks, designing, creating and perfecting every item on the stalls. From Christmas ornaments to sweet baked treats, they put in amazing effort, showed great teamwork and creativity! We are all so proud of what they achieved.
Thanks to your generosity and support, we raised an amazing £355 for our fundraising pot! This is a fantastic start and will go towards helping us plan a very special end of year school trip.
Thank you once again to everyone who attended, donated and encouraged the children. Merry Christmas!

On Wednesday, Year 6 took part in an exciting and informative trip to Crucial Crew, where we learned all about staying safe in a variety of real-life situations. Throughout the day, we moved around different workshops run by the police, the court service, the fire service, and other emergency services. Each session helped us understand what to do in tricky scenarios and how to make sensible choices to keep ourselves and others safe.
One of the highlights was the police workshop, where we explored how to stay safe in the community. We also visited a mock courtroom and discovered what happens when someone breaks the law. The fire service taught us about fire safety at home, and we even had the chance to practice what to do in an emergency situation. Every activity was hands-on and engaging, and the children asked brilliant questions throughout.
We are incredibly proud of how Year 6 represented our school. Staff from Crucial Crew commented on how polite, sensible, and enthusiastic the children were. They took part in every task, listened carefully, and showed great maturity when discussing important topics. There were lots of volunteers during the demonstrations too—everyone was eager to get involved!
Overall, it was a fantastic day full of learning, teamwork, and new experiences. Year 6 came away feeling more confident about staying safe and knowing how to respond in different situations. Well done, everyone!

This week, Year 6 have been taking on our new hexagon tasks to help consolidate everything we’ve learned in our History and Science units. As we come to the end of our work on World War II and the circulatory system, the hexagon activity has been a brilliant way for pupils to show what they know — and to make meaningful connections between key ideas.
Each group was given a set of hexagons, each one labelled with an important word, event, person, or scientific term. Pupils had to choose which hexagons to link together and then explain the reasoning behind their choices. This meant thinking carefully, using accurate subject knowledge, and justifying how ideas connect — whether it was linking evacuation to the Blitz, or showing how arteries, veins, and the heart work together to transport blood around the body. I have been incredibly impressed by the thoughtful discussions, clear explanations, and confident links pupils made. 

Our Year 6 pupils had a fantastic day visiting Eden Camp as part of our World War II history topic. They explored all the fascinating exhibits, bringing their classroom learning to life as they experienced what it was really like during the war through immersive sounds, lighting, and displays. The children were fully engaged, asked thoughtful questions, and showed great respect and curiosity throughout the visit. We are incredibly proud of how well they represented our school — it was a truly memorable day that everyone thoroughly enjoyed!

​Well done to all of our rugby players that attended the Barnsley rugby finals on Wednesday. They were superb and became the 6th best school in the whole of Barnsley. There were some tremendous individual performances and all children should be very proud of themselves. We played a total of 8 matches. We won 4, drew 1 and lost 3. I am very happy with that. We will keep working hard in this area and prepare well for next year's competition. 

Year 5 and 6 have taken part in an ENTERPRISE day at school. Within this day, the children were given a task to do in their groups. They were told that they had to design a sensory nook that would be ideal to be placed in schools. The brief said that the nook should be a supportive and safe place for children  to regulate, unwind and relax. 
In their groups, the children had to create a group name and logo then had to set to work designing the nook based on one of the following themes: underwater, beach, jungle or space. Once they had decided on their basic design idea, they had to create a sensory space (using a budget) to carefully decide what technology and kit would be included and why it would be beneficial for children to have access to this sort of equipment and safe space in school. 
​Throughout the day, the children worked brilliantly in their teams, shared their creative ideas, designed and planned a basic drawing, then created a model of their nook. All day, the children showed enthusiasm, kindness, teamwork and resilience. What an AMAZING group of children!

This week, we were fortunate enough to have a visitor in school - Joseph Bower - who came in to work with Year 6. Within this session, the children discussed the current conflict in Ukraine. The children had many questions about this and showed a great level of understanding about the events discussed. The children were able to show empathy and imagine how it might feel to be living in Ukraine throughout this period of time. After discussions and time to reflect, the children composed poems based around this subject. 

World Book Day is always a special occasion, but this year, our Year 6 students took on an exciting challenge: to become authors!
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The Challenge: Writing a Children's Story
To celebrate the magic of storytelling, Year 6 were given just one hour to plan and write their very own children's story. Using a guided structure, they had to choose a character, a setting, a problem, and a resolution to create a fun and engaging tale. From mischievous dragons to clumsy monkeys their imaginations ran wild as they crafted unique stories suitable for a younger audience.

A Special Audience: Year 2 Listeners
But writing was only the first step! Once their stories were complete, Year 6 had the wonderful opportunity to share their creations with Year 2. In a heartwarming paired reading session, our older students read their stories aloud, bringing their characters to life through expressive storytelling.

Year 2 children were completely captivated, hanging on every word. After listening, they shared their thoughts on the stories, offering fantastic feedback and plenty of smiles. Many of them even had favourite stories that they wanted to hear again!

Reflections and Exciting Next Steps
This fresh approach to paired reading was a huge success. Both year groups loved the experience – Year 6 enjoyed the chance to take on a leadership role, while Year 2 relished the opportunity to hear brand-new stories written just for them.

Many of our Year 6 students were so proud of their work that they asked if they could publish their stories! We are now exploring ways to share their wonderful tales.

World Book Day was not just about reading this year—it was about creating, sharing, and inspiring a love of storytelling. A huge well done to all our young authors and their enthusiastic listeners!

In PE, Year 6 have been focussing on dance.  Within these lessons, the children have met the following objectives:

• To demonstrates strong movements throughout a dance sequence.
• To move appropriately and with the required style.
• To begin to show a change of pace and timing in their movements.
• To be able to move to the beat accurately in dance sequences.
• To dance with fluency, linking all movements and ensuring they flow.
• To demonstrates consistent precision when performing dance sequences.

Throughout the 6 weeks of lessons, the children have choreographed their own movements to music, worked with partners to complete a joint piece and have learned a whole class dance. They have been amazing throughout!