Entries Tagged 'Towcester Primary' ↓

As it was the last week of ‘PfS on the Road’ with House Martins, Mrs Weedon set the groups a challenge of speed cup stacking. This improves hand-eye co-ordination, quick reactions and certainly gets your brain working! The children took to it straight away and after some serious practice timed themselves using the stopwatch mat. Ellie, Thomas and Rebecca were crowned king and queens of the cup stacking with the fastest times.

Participants of speed stacking stack cups in pre-determined sequences, competing against the clock or another player. Sequences are usually pyramids of three, six, or ten cups. Players of the sport say participants learn teamwork, cooperation, ambidexterity and hand-eye coordination.

To find out more about this ’sport’ visit: http://www.speedstacks.com/ and to see some crazy videos of children doing a variety of stacking tricks and skills and the world chapionships, check out utube.  Or alternatively, ask Helena Weedon who is our resident expert for the study centres!

Other activities during the session included marvelling at the speed stacking DVD of the world championships,  watching a few more clips of ‘Bend it Like Beckham’ DVD and discussing body language, facial expressions and football terminology. Player/team anagrams and evaluations.

Here are some of the children’s comments for their evaluations for the project. For full evaluations, visit the Towcester page.

“I like all of the games that we played outside and all the fun I had.”

“I enjoyed it because you were learning but in a different kind of way so we didn’t notice it.” Rio

“All the lessons were fun, especially the cup stacking.”

“I think it’s been fab I’ve loved every part of it, thanks.” Farren

“This was really fun and I am sorry you have to go.”

“I liked it when we went to the Saints Study Centre.”

“I liked the whole thing.”

“To sum up these lessons, I would say 10 out of 10! Miss Letts and Mrs Weedon you’re great! I’m going to miss you.” Lucy

“I liked it when we had to get rid of something in ICT, Room 101 lesson”

“I like everything because it’s fun and the two ladies are good.” Chandler

“PfS was fab. It made me learn more about sport. It was fun learning.” Ellie

“The time with Mrs Weedon and Miss Letts was fun but educational which makes it better!” Chloe B

“I love all of it except when we went to the study centre and HAD to play tag rugby.” 

“It was amazing to have fun.” Thomas

“I liked it when we went outside.” Connor

“Thank you.!”

“I think we could have done more games although it was very fun.”

“I’ve enjoyed all of it because we do fun maths and ICT, it’s all good.”

“Amazing because we did normal stuff in a fun way.” Luke

“I love PfS on the Road, we learn although we don’t know we are.” Tommy

“I think we went to the ICT suite too much” Luke S

“It has been fun, especially the cup stacking and hoops.” Chloe

“I think we had a great time doing all of the activities.” Becky

“It’s fun and you don’t realise you’re learning.” Monty

 “It was very fun and we did a lot of activities.” Jack

“It has been fun and I enjoyed you both teaching me that things aren’t boring.” Shannon

“I liked everything we did and there’s nothing you need to improve.” Sammy

House Martins visited the Saints Study Centre for a reward day as part of the ‘PfS on the Road’ project they have been taking part in this term at Towcester Primary School. Previously Ravens class visited and Wrens are due next month.

Activities included: rugby practical with community coach Ross Stewart, (it was freezing! Miss Lipinsky and Mr Skeers will testify this) ICT: name badges, poster of the stadium tour, stadium tour with literacy quiz and brainteaser puzzles.

It was great to see the children enjoying themselves (and funny for Anna to be there with them not in school) out of school and thanks to Pete, Vicky and Jeanette for running these days. Barclaycard supply volunteer mentors for such days too.

The class watched ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ DVD and listened to famous players talking about their attitudes towards racism, their experiences of it and examples. The group then completed some literacy work on the computers outlining suggestions for how to kick racism out of professional football, school, young people’s minds and amateur football. They came up with a variety of consequences if people are heard being racist, ranging from mild to harsh.

In the playground, the group had to work together to form lines in relation to height, birthdays, house number order. Without using their voices! They developed a range of ways to communicate instead.

Dice games helped improve the chidlren’s maths and spelling skills. The groups mainly encouraged each other, whereas others needed to work on their sportmanship values! A class discussion during and after the mental maths game revealed the wide range of strategies were used. These included: partitioning, column, grid, multiplication tables, counting in beads/fingers, counting on/up methods.

Brenda Scoble from Northamptonshire County Council’s ICT in Schools team visited Towcester Primary School to see what ‘PfS on the Road’ is all about and the kind of activities we do to help boost maths, english and ICT skills. She was a very helpful mentor and the children took to her straight away.

Lewis: “The games were fun, they are educational. I improved because I got my spellings right.”

Jordan: “It was fun, it’s not stuff that we usually do. It was cold outside.”

House Martins had a look at photos of sports players to see what could be seen as ’success’ and what is ‘failure’ in the sporting world. Some of the photos weren’t clear cut. On the computers, the children wrote about their ideas on this subject and why they thought their photos were in either category.

After the hoop team game, they did some drama, acting our stadium scenarios. Like the other two classes, the children took to this enthusiastically with lots of different interpretations! 

Only the year 5 children took part in the PfS lessons this week. We played some team games which focus on co-ordination, teamwork, communication and social skills. The group struggled a bit with group juggling but soon got the hang of it. They enjoyed ‘click clacks’ too.

The ICT lesson was around the Olympics logo, and the group looked at past media coverage of when the logo was launched and the reaction to it. We talked about why we liked/disliked it, the cost, risk of epileptic seizure, London icons and whether we could have designed a better one.  The children used color magic to design their own, thinking of ways to encourage people to come to London 2012.  They used sporting images as well as London’s sites and the Olympics rings. They had to think of a catchy slogan. For more on this, visit http://www.london2012.com/ and for the controversy, visit GoLondon’s pages

For literacy, the students used some ‘Tackle Learning’ resources to exoplore the qualities of a good captain. (such as motivating others, respect of others, good knowledge of the game, most skillful player, being patient…) After a group ‘mind shower’, they had to discuss and agree in their pairs the priority they would give to the various qualities. They were asked to report back to the class and explain/write down their choices. There were some really good ideas and explanations and it was agreed that some of the qualities had equal importance. The pairs found it difficult prioritising the qualities.

Next we looked at preparations for a rugby match. The pairs were asked to sort cards into three categories: items/actions needed before a game, items/actions needed during a game and items that would be needed at hand. These included: knowledge of the rules, letting injuries heal, first aid kit, trimming finger nails (!), drink plenty of water, get some rest, referee, pitch inspection and so on. Everyone came up with a list, usually finding one category to be much larger than the others. A group dicussion found that several of the items could fit in more than one category and we talked about why, using examples. The children showed some complex thinking and were able to relate to the context of a rugby game.

On Saturday 7th March, students from House Martins’ class (and a few ‘returners’ from Wrens and Ravens) attended a NTFC match with their parents/relatives as a reward for their hard work in ‘PfS on the Road’ sessions. The game was against Tranmere Rovers, ending in a 1-1 draw. The action was end to end, with exciting near misses. It really could have been anyone’s game.

For the full match report, visit NTFC’s homepages

House Martins yesterday read a chapter from the famous book ‘Bend it Like Beckham’ and took part in a literacy activity on how the main character Jess felt at particular points during it. The children analysed her reactions to racist language and how she dealt with falling out with her friend, the opposition fouling her, the manager Joe having a go at her and scoring a goal. Everyone came up with some really good explanations about Jess’ feelings and emotions.  They examined the chapter’s text and used it to back up their ideas. Afterwards we watched the corresponding DVD extract, which confirmed our ideas. Watching out for facial expressions and body language was key as the extract is quite short.

In ICT, the group created their own version of ‘Room 101′. They used persuasive language to explain why they wanted to banish certain items/people into Room 101. These included everything from boys, to dogs, swans, bendy buses, school, jellyfish, homework and teachers! The children were very good at putting in excellent adjectives to sway Miss Letts and Mrs Weedon when it came to voting ‘yay or nay’ about what went in. About half of the pairs got their way and after each person read their work out, lively discussions were held.

House Martins used teams in the European Champion’s League to do their geography work yesterday. In ICT, they put together factsheets about various teams and cities like Barcelona, Munich, Liverpool, Manchester, Inter Milan, Roma, Juventus, PSV Eindhoven, PSG Paris. They had to research facts on the internet and create a powerpoint factsheet covering famous buildings, famous events/festivals, club logo, city motto, language and so on.

Back in the classroom, students used atlas’ to find the locations of the European teams on a map. They used indexes and grid co-ordinates to estimate where to place the teams’ logos. Mrs. Weedon and Miss. Letts were very impressed with their geography skills and many pupils commented that doing geography this way made them more interested in the subject.

Check out their blog to see what they had to say about the sessions so far…

When asked how the children had been getting on in their ‘PfS on the Road’ sessions with Miss Letts and Mrs Weedon, they had this to say…..

Jack: “The football was good, we did some passing and 2 balls keeping still. It helped me and the coach told some jokes.” (zip it .com)

Sammy “I think the lessons are fun, we learn while having fun so that’s more fun. I have learned more things about football.”

Farren “When we did the trying on rugby stuff it was really funny. We learnt about what they wear.”

Max “The football was really cool. The lessons are fun because you don’t do lessons, you talk about football.”

Sam “This has made me more interested in football, I have started watching football and collecting Fifas. The lessons have helped me concentrate, know more things and feel more confident.”

Chloe D “The lessons  are fun, they have built my confidence because it isn’t boring where the teacher talks a lot. It has boosted my confidence in writing, I find my thoughts hard to put down on paper and I am not very good with my imagination. I have to think more in these lessons.”

James “I think I have become more confidence as the lessons are fun. We do stuff about sport, helps me learn as we learn about where teams are.”

Thomas “I am getting more confident in my work and generally with people. I am a quiet person, I am now a lot more chatty”

Shannon “I have been learning that football isn’t so dangerous. The rudgy kit isn’t as heavy as it looks on TV. The lessons help me realise that I thought geography was boring but it’s not because we don’t just sit there, we do stuff.”

Lucy “I think that learning like this has helped me, learn with other people, not just my friends. I have started working with Shannon. The learning is fun, better than learning learning. We get motivated because usually in normal lessons we write a lot. Here we get into it a bit more than usual. I like the breathing lessons, they calm me down at the end of the lesson when I am excited”.

Connor “I have been learning about football, what clothes rugby players wear, where they play. I like working with different people.”

Caroline “I think that it’s different to other lessons. It’s fun, I didn’t like sports before but I’m getting into it now. It’s not just kicking a ball around, it means something different to supporters.”

Luke “The football was fun, we played a game where we ‘did this, did that’ (Simon says). The lessons are different, its things you know about. Normal maths and english not so fun.”

Tommy “I think we are learning but we don’t realise we are, I like the lessons because it doesn’t feel like lessons, its fun.”

Lewis “We do stuff in a  fun way, where places are, maths. Using sport is better for me as I like sport and I don’t get bored.”

Luke “We held cards with adding, taking. It was mental maths, we had to do it quickly. We did PE, we learned how to pass, score goals. The coach was friendly, I enjoyed the matches”

Jordan “I like how you can do maths in a different way. It has helped me learn more things I like.”

Ellis “The football PE was great as the coach taught us to play, even those people who couldn’t play.”

Monty “The lessons are fun, ICT, book work.”

Rebecca “The lessons are fun in many ways, you get taught in a fun way.”

William “I think it’s interesting because I learn. I like working with different people. It makes me a bit more interested in sport. ”

Charlie “Quite fun, it’s not like normal lesson, we do exciting things. I like it better than normal ICT.”

In ICT today, (week 3) the children analysed, compared and contrasted sports adverts. They had to examine the persuasive language used in the slogans, the layout and colours as well as thinking about who would buy the items and why. Adverts included Tetley’s beer, Coca-Cola, tickets for women’s football games, trainers, Guiness and sponsorship deals.

After a note-taking exercise about the Saints rugby kit, the class designed their own adverts about a piece of the equipment. They used the information they had recorded to sell the items based on safety, comfort, design, flexibility and materials used. Of course they tried on the kit to make sure it could stand up to all that they were claiming.