This week, we enjoyed an exciting Sports Day, taking part in a variety of events in our house groups: Tyne, Angel, Baltic and Glasshouse. We were also delighted to welcome parents and family members, who came along to support and cheer us on throughout the day.
Throughout the event, we showed determination, teamwork, and excellent sportsmanship as we competed in a range of activities. These included:
Everyone worked hard to earn points for their house while encouraging and supporting their teammates. It was wonderful to see pupils trying their best, celebrating each other's successes, and demonstrating resilience when faced with challenges.
The obstacle relay and egg and spoon races brought plenty of excitement and laughter, while the running events gave us the chance to show our speed, stamina, and determination. The speed stacks and throwing events tested our coordination and accuracy, and the howlers flew impressively across the field!
A huge thank you to all the parents and family members who came to watch and support us. Your encouragement helped to make the day even more special.
We are incredibly proud of the effort, enthusiasm, and positive attitudes shown by everyone throughout the day. Sports Day was a fantastic celebration of teamwork, perseverance, and having fun while being active. Well done to all of our pupils for making it such a memorable event!
W/b 01/06/26
PE - Tennis
On Wednesday afternoon, we welcomed a tennis coach to school for the first of our tennis sessions. We are excited that the coaching will continue for the rest of the half term, giving us lots of opportunities to develop our skills and confidence.
We started by learning the ready position, making sure we were balanced, focused, and prepared to move quickly in any direction.
Next, we worked on our ball-tracking skills. We practised by dropping a ball and carefully watching it as it moved. We called out “bounce” when the ball hit the ground and “catch” when we caught it. This helped us improve our concentration, timing, and hand-eye coordination.
We then moved on to working with a partner. Using a pretend net between us, we practised sending and receiving the ball, focusing on control, accuracy, and communication. It was great to see everyone encouraging each other and persevering as they developed their skills.
We had a fantastic first session and are looking forward to building on what we have learned over the coming weeks.
This week in English, we celebrated Poetry Week and explored lots of different ways poems can be written, performed, and enjoyed.
On Monday, we began by learning about the structure of poems. We explored rhyme schemes and identified patterns in different poems, thinking carefully about how poets organise their ideas and words.
On Tuesday, we used our five senses to inspire our own poetry writing. After being given a title, we thought about what we could see, hear, smell, taste, and feel to help make our poems more descriptive and imaginative.
Wednesday was all about performance! We practised reading poems aloud with expression and confidence. We especially enjoyed performing Walking with my Iguana and The Sound Collector, using our voices and actions to bring the poems to life.
On Thursday, we wrote creative poems beginning with If I Were A… We used our imaginations to think about what life would be like as different animals or objects. Some of our ideas included:
Throughout the week, we developed our creativity, performance skills, and understanding of how poets use language to entertain and paint pictures in the reader’s mind. We have loved expressing ourselves through poetry and sharing our ideas with one another.
In Guided Reading this week, we explored the book 'Viking Longship' and used a collaborative learning strategy called jigsaw groups to help us become experts on different topics.
First, we worked in our home groups to think of questions we wanted to answer about the text. We focused on different areas linked to Viking life and longships.
Next, everyone who had the same topic joined together in an expert group. In these groups, we carefully read the text, discussed ideas, and searched for answers to our questions. We worked together to become “experts” in our special area.
After gathering our information, we returned to our original groups and shared what we had learned. By teaching each other, we were able to build a much bigger understanding of Viking longships and life in Viking times.
Through this activity, we practised:
We enjoyed learning from one another and discovering how teamwork can help us understand a text in greater depth.
W/b 4/5/26
Science – Celery Experiment
This week in Year 3, we carried out a fun science experiment to help us understand how plants move water from their roots to their leaves.
We placed fresh celery stalks into cups of water mixed with red food colouring and made predictions about what might happen. At first, we couldn’t see much change, but after leaving the celery for a while, we noticed something exciting — the tiny tubes inside the celery had turned red, and even the edges of the leaves started to change colour!
This helped us see that water travels through tiny tubes inside plants called xylem. The coloured water moved up through the celery just like water moves through a real plant stem.
We enjoyed making predictions, observing changes, and discussing our results together. It was wonderful to see science happening right in front of our eyes
This week in history, we explored the fascinating world of Anglo-Saxon beliefs and gods. We learned about the different deities that were important to Anglo-Saxon culture and discovered how they were connected to both Roman and Viking gods. It was interesting to see how these belief systems overlapped, with many gods sharing similar roles or characteristics across different cultures.
We compared the Anglo-Saxon gods to their Roman and Norse counterparts, noticing both similarities and differences in how they were worshipped and understood. This helped us build a deeper understanding of how ancient societies explained the world around them.
To bring our learning to life, we created our own Top Trumps cards based on the gods we studied. We included key information and ranked their powers and attributes, which made the activity both creative and fun. It was a great way to review what we had learned while also enjoying a bit of friendly competition.
Overall, it was an engaging week where we combined history, creativity, and comparison to better understand Anglo-Saxon beliefs.
Friday 24th April 2026
Library Visit
This afternoon, we enjoyed a wonderful visit to Crawcrook Library. We began by listening to a story read by the librarian, Kyle. He chose The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt, and the children listened beautifully, showing great focus and enthusiasm.
After the story, the children worked together in groups to create their own imaginative crayons, each with a unique set of superpowers. They showed fantastic teamwork and creativity! Here are some of their ideas:
Following this, the children had time to explore the library and enjoy browsing the children’s section, choosing books that interested them.
Kyle was very impressed with the children’s behaviour, praising how sensible they were and how well they listened throughout the visit. The adults were incredibly proud of everyone—it was a fantastic trip!