We support Water Aid

Earlier in the year, Tony from Water Aid came to speak to Green Council about how many people around the world don't have enough water to stay healthy. he challenged us to raise money for Water Aid.  we asked Costco to donate some cups so we could fill them with water and make some money but instead they gave us a cheque for £50 for Water Aid.

Last week, Tony came in to be presented with the cheque. He had the opportunity to share more about Water Aid with every class in Key Stage 2, so we all have more awareness of Global Issues around water.

Here is the cheque Costco sent.

Test on Volcanic Eruptions By CA

Today Class 6C did an experiment about volcanoes in our playground, so that we wouldn't cause too much mess in the classroom!

So we took a bottle of Coke and some polos. Then we set everything up, making sure we had a bucket of water for afterwards.

We used the bottle to represent the crust. The liquid coke we used to represent the magma. 

Then we all went a safe distance away from the experiment and our teacher dropped in the polos to create the eruption.

The experiment ended up being successful, although I think next time we would add something so we could drop in the polos quicker, as you can see from the video how we didn't get it in quick enough.

By CA in 6C

British Values and Rights Respecting

Over the last few days in 1L we have discussed everyone's right to learn and how we can uphold British values in school:

• We learnt the definition of Democracy - whilst reading 'Farmer Duck' we found that the farmer was unfair to the Duck as he made him do all the work. So his friends hatched a plan to change this situation and make it fair! What good friends he has to look out for him!
• We know we all have a right to learn (liberty) -  so we recapped on the right and wrong choices we can make at school.
• Also how to respect others who are different than us -  we worked in pairs and drew each others faces, then we labelled the similarities and differences between us. 1L understands that even if we are different to our friends, it is okay because we are all unique.

Upholding these values ensures we can be the very best version  of ourselves, whilst respecting others.

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Rights Respecting and Global Learning in Reception

Today in Reception we thought about how we can make the World a better place. 

Children thought really hard about what we could do to make our environment a happier place for everyone; these are the ideas they came up with...

• Put rubbish in the bin and recycle
• Save water and remember to turn off taps
• Be kind to each other
• Keep rooms clean and tidy
• Always try our best
• Look after toys, equipment etc.
• Be nice and share with others
• Help each other

Didn't they do well!!? We are all going to remember to do these things in Reception from now on.

Parliament Week at Shirley Warren Primary school!

This week we have been celebrating democracy following an National Initiative called Parliament Week.  The idea is to show young people how a ballot box works and have them participate in a vote.

Mrs Mann asked the question: Do we want to buy equipment so that people can play Tag Rugby in the MUGA? This is an important question for our school because a lot of people like to play football in the MUGA and if Tag Rugby is introduced the rotas will have to change and there will be less time for football. So everyone in the school had to think carefully before they voted.

Here is a picture of Green Council putting their class votes in the ballot box.

After that, everyone in Green Council received a free badge, pen, balloon and stickers to take home.
It will take a little time for the votes to be counted. What do you think the results will be?

The Big Switch Off at Green Council

Today we had a a special visitor in Green Council.
Zaki from the Environment Centre came to talk to us about The Big Switch off.

He gave an introduction to energy saving in the school/home.  We now understand that some things use more power than others. Equipment on standby can be using power. We thought about what is using energy in the school, how much energy it uses and what we could do to reduce it.

We learned about the Big Switch Off, taking place in Shirley Warren on Sunday 19th November, where they are asking people to use as little energy as possible between 6-7 p.m. that evening. The amount of energy being used will be monitored on the network

We decided that we will ask our friends to try and save energy by trying to use a slow cooker, using the washing machine or other machines in the morning and putting on the dishwasher after 8pm

Here is a picture of Green Council testing the effect of a hairdryer and a lightbulb on the energy meter. With everything on, the meter reached 1,700 watts. What a lot of energy.

Runners-up in Recycling!

Yesterday, we had a visit from Becky and Hazel from Southampton City Council recycling team. They came to an assembly to present our school with 5 Mini Greenhouse Growing Kits from IKEA because our school has put the right things in the right bins.

We decided that Green Council will design a "Recycle-Off" competition to decide which classes will have the kits in their classrooms. At our next Green Council meeting on Monday we will decide the rules of the competition and at the meeting after that we will announce the winners.

We are so pleased to be recognised for our recycling. Go Team Shirley Warren!

We're supporting Send My Friend To School!

Last week our whole school took part in 2017's Send My Friend to School initiative.

One Year 6 student said, "We had the outline of a school and then we had 5 jigsaw spaces on the school and we had about 10 jigsaw puzzle pieces and we had to think which 5 were the most important.  For example I put equality for both sexes and I put toilets and I put school lunches, I put trained teachers and books.

It was hard to choose because they were all really important. There was soap, sinks and hygienic classrooms, but I think those were the most important.

We coloured them in and we wrote what was most important about education and then our MP Alan Whitehead came in and we gave him our Send My Friend jigsaws. He kept them to take to London to tell the other MP's about it. We hope to achieve that all schools - even if they're not in England - have all of those things."

Meeting Nelson Mandela's Bodyguard.

Yesterday, 14 pupils from Year 5 were invited to hear Chris Lubbe speak about his experiences working for Nelson Mandela when he was President of South Africa.  It was very inspirational so here are the pupils' views in their own words.

  

"Yesterday, I learnt that in the past black people didn't have the same things as white people so the black people were treated unfairly because of their black skin. In trains, black people had very little space and white people were sitting very comfortably and when a black person was sitting on a white persons' bench, a policeman could very easily arrest you or take you down very brutally. Chris's mum tried to sit down because she was very ill and sick and a bad policeman found out she was sitting on a white persons bench. He didn't help her to get to hospital, he just put her down on the cold floor. Chris started crying very much. When he called another black person to help to go to a phone to call and ambulance but he found a call box after half an hour. This ambulance finally came and took her to the hospital. The hospital man found out she was in a come. How horrible was the white people in the past and how sad. It's not important what colour skin we have. Everyone is important."

"I learn that black people and white people were separated and it was called apartheid.  Chris Lubbe told us he went on many trips around the earth with Nelson Mandela and met people like Michael Jackson and Beyonce etc.  

"I learnt that if you try your best and try to change something that's not supposed to be around then you can achieve it if you try and if you want to do something with your life then do it and don't give up.  My favourite part was when he said about how he went against apartheid and tried to get rid of it and also I liked it because when he met Nelson Mandela they came together to destroy apartheid and that's why I want to do something with my life and to change the world in a good way."

"Yesterday I learnt that apartheid was really bad and when a policeman came near a person near a white person's bench if they were coloured a really bad thing happened.  Chris Lubbe went to prison for standing up to apartheid and he had a very good friend who got shot because he stood up  to apartheid and a lot of other people got shot.  I also learnt that Chris because Nelson Mandela's bodyguard because of how tall he was and how big his shoe size was."

Visit from our Link School

We were honoured to have Ethel, who is the Headteacher at Tukela School in Zambia, visit us with her two daugters last week.  They were in the UK and came to meet the children and celebrate our fundraising of £100 for their toilets, as well as talking to our Green Council about how we could work together.

First, some members of school gave them a tour. Next the two girls experienced life in Year 4 and Year 6.  After that Ethel and her daughters led a very interesting assembly about life in Zambia.

Here are the Green Council with Ethel, her daughters and our pages of fundraising ideas.  Look out for events later on in the year.

Send my Friend to School Day 2016

This morning we had a special assembly to show the work we had been doing for the Send My Friend to school campaign 2016.

We had made backpacks with items which we would like our friends to take to school and we wrote messages for world leaders to ask them to help support the campaign so that all children can have free access to education.

Our MP, Alan Whitehead, came in and toured the school and then we presented him with our backpacks to take to parliament.  He promised to send a photo of some of them in front of Big Ben, where he works in the House of Parliament.

Thank you for coming, Alan.

World Water Day 2016

Today Shirley Warren Primary School helped to celebrate the 23rd United Nations World Water Day.

We started off with a very interesting assembly from Ashleigh from Southern Water who challenged us to think about where we could save water.

We then heard from Stella Typhoon (Mrs Bullas) and Aqua Lakes (Mrs Williams) who were hosting Shirley Warren News, about water around the world.  But they kept getting crackly screens! There were no reports!  So every year group found out about an aspect of water during the day. Here are some games from Year 3.

From Environmental Health correspondents to Weather Reports via songs and lots of practical activities, Shirley Warren News was finally aired at the end of the day.

Then we saw some photos of our link school, Tukela, in Zambia.  They need to raise money for flushing toilets.  Maybe you can just about see "boys" on the left and "girls" on the right on the corrugated doors in the picture. Can you see any water nearby?

As we have just had Sports Relief we are going to fund raise next term but we need your ideas for interesting ways we can raise money.  Please tell your Green Council rep any ideas you have.

Mrs Williams

Year 6 Topic: Mountains

Year 6 have been learning about mountains and how they are formed.









This is a volcano.  Volcanoes can form from the seas and also make islands out of ash and fire.  The white piece on top is not snow, it is ash: the ash turns into stone or earth but starts off as burning ash and then begins the transformation.



This is a folded mountain.  It is formed by the plates pushing together to make mountains and valleys.  Folded mountains are very good for hiking or maintain climbing because they are extremely steep and they also have cliffs which are good for rope hooks that grip on to the side of the mountain.

Here is a question for you: Do you know how plateau mountains are formed? Put your answers in the comments below.

By EB
Year 6

Creating mountains in Year 6!

Year 6 have been learning about how mountains are formed around the world. Did you know that they can be formed in five different ways? These are fold, fault block, plateau, dome and volcanic formations.

We pushed two folders together. These represented the tectonic plates that make up the Earth's crust. The towel represented the land which folds up, creating fold mountains. The Canadian Rockies and the Alps are example of fold mountains!