Soccer Aid in Year 4

Today we put on brightly coloured sports tops to raise money and awareness for Socer Aid with Unicef.

If you look sideways at this lovely work by three girls in 4C, you can see what they consider to be "wants," "needs" or not sure.  They also listed some of their own.

 

4D thought about designing a perfect playground.

Here are just a few of their great ideas.



What would you like to see in a perfect playground?

Discussing Elections at Shirley Warren

Today we had a visit from our new councillor, Sally Spicer, who is also a governor.

She told us that she got elected for the Labour Party for the city council. She is looking after an area which is called Redbridge Ward which is Millbrook, Maybush and Lordshill.

We had questions to ask her:
Why did you want to be a councillor?
I like helping people and I want to make the area better for people.

I want the park to be better in Millkbrook, there is going to be a big new park in Mansel Park.
Another passion is housing, I want more council houses.
We can't always do the things we want to do because we don't have lots of money.
I am on committees like the licencing committee.
There is a new Lidl being built so I have been working on that and residents are happy they have a different shop to go to as well as Tesco and Sainsburys.
Recently a bus stop that elderly residents use was stopped so Sally has sent lots of emails to try and change this. Here is a photo.

What did you study in school?
I wasn't political, I wanted to look after children.  There isn't a criteria when you want to be a candidate: I had to say I wanted to help people and I got chosen by my party.

Why did you want to be part of it?
I feel we need people to do good things in the city.

How do you help people?
Sometimes they phone me and I've got a website.

Are you happy about what you're doing?
Yes, I work at the hospital so I do this in my spare time.

How hard was it?
Quite hard because you have to convince people you are best for the job.

Are you having a good time with your work?
Yes, it's very rewarding and I have done things like help keep the swimming pool open.

What was one of the easiest things?
Getting the hedges cut along Romsey Road.

And the hardest?
Oaklands Pool

NSPCC- Speak Out, Stay Safe

Today in Green Council we welcomed an outside speaker.
Sharon Kay works for the NSPCC and she came to talk to us about how we can speak out and stay safe.

One Year 6 rep kindly wrote minutes for us, which our Year 5 rep helped to write up.
He says:
* Buddy the speech bubble is their mascot
* the charity was founded 134 years ago
* Children would work at 5 because they would be able to work in mines and go under machines, mainly because they were small.  Some children got hurt and they wouldn't be able to do things they wanted if they got hurt.
* They go to every school and they choose a fundraising event
* Green Council want us all in Shirley Warren to do a danceathon
* Some schools do a conga line around the school but we decided we will try cultural dancing

Sharon is going to give us everything we need to do this and hopefully we will be able to raise a large amount of money for the NSPCC.

PSCO Louis comes to visit

Today we had a special visitor in Green Council, PSCO Louis De’Ath.

The children asked him some questions. Here are some of the answers - I wonder if you can guess what they asked him!

He said he started in 2016 after running a hotel. He works out of Redbridge Fire Station. He helps the community and then tries to fix things. If you have a problem or a worry you can talk to him.

He looks after vulnerable people especially if old people are lost. He also get calls about lost pets.  The last thing he did to help someone was knock on someone’s door because he was going to talk to their neighbour, and they actually did need help with their boiler which he was able to do.

He had some leaflets about road safety which was brilliant because as a Green Council, that is one thing we want to focus on next.

If you see PCSO Louis out and about in the community, don't forget to give him a smile and say hello.

Democracy - Good Egg

In Shirley Warren, we know and understand the British Value of democracy.
This is where everyone has a say and we use a vote to show what the majority have chosen.

In our school, we have an award called the Good Egg, which is presented to one child in Key Stage 1 and one in Key Stage 2 at the end of every term. The child is someone who is shows kindness, respect and support as voted by their peers.

This is how the process works. 
First, children nominate someone in their class, with reasons why that child is a good egg.
Second, the class have a vote and the winning name is sent to our Green Council meeting.
Finally, Green council have the difficult task of listening to the descriptions of all of these amazing pupils and voting on the ones the governor will present the award to.

We keep that name a secret until the end of term assembly.
Today Green Council will vote for Autumn 2018's Good Egg.
If you were going to nominate someone in your class, who would it be and why?

Green Council start their Playground Project

Today, Green Council met for a very important job.

As well as looking at our Class Books and following our agenda, the main activity was to label the new playground equipment.

We wrote SWPNS on the footballs and other playtime equipment. 

We are going to tell our friends in class to look after them and use them carefully.

What do you like playing with in the playground?

PCSO Visit to Green Council

Today, PSCO Louis De'Ath came to tell us about his job.

He works at Redbridge Fire Station.
We thought that the police arrest people, give warnings, investigate and help at car accidents.
We found out that most importantly, they help people!

Louis is a PCSO. A Police Community Support Officer. If you are lost and you see him, he can help you.  He wants to make sure everyone is OK.  He showed us his special radio.  He likes cycling along Warren Avenue.

He said the biggest thing we can do to help the police is to talk to them! Tell someone you trust if something is happening that isn't right. Just like in school, we need to talk to each other to help everyone be safe.

Sometimes he has to check if there are children playing safely, and he reminded us to take care on the roads and look both ways. We are going to remind our class how to stay safe.

If you see PCSO Louis around, will you give him a smile or a wave?

Water Aid Speaker comes to Green Council

Today Tony Ridley come to speak to Green Council about Water Aid.

Mrs Williams made notes so that the Green Council reps can share with their classes the information he gave. This blog is a good way of sharing information.

Tony worked for HSBC and they supported the Water Aid charity and let him talk about it to local groups. He is now retired, but still does talks for Water Aid. He told us:
* 884 million (that's 884,000,000) people had no access to safe water in 2011, the figure now is only 650 million!
* Children often get diseases and may miss school as they have to get water.
*900 children under 5 die every day from very very bad tummy bugs.
* You can only go 3 days without water.
* In the UK people use on average 150 litres a day. In Africa they use 10 litres a day.
* 2.3 billion (that's 2,300,000,000) people don't have access to a toilet. That's about 30% of the world.
* Water Aid works with local people to provide sustainable solutions.  Here is a picture of some of the things they do.


We are going to raise some money for Water Aid charity and will make plans for that at our next Green Council meeting.

What happens in a Green Council meeting?

In our school we have a "Green Council" which is made up from one representative from each class.

We decide the agenda and ask classes to discuss some of the issues we raise.

At our last meeting yesterday, we had asked classes to design some markings for the playground which we hope to be able to use in the future for our playgrounds.

Each class brought to the table their winning design and the children in Green Council had three votes each to decide which they liked.

Here are Green Council voting for the designs.

Here are some of the winners.

Understanding British Values

Last week, 6D learnt about the four core British values: democracy, mutual respect and tolerance of others, individual liberty and the rule of law. We discovered that although you have to be over 18 to vote in a government election, we all live through these values at school - we vote for Good Egg and Green Council!

We travelled back in time to the 2017 General Election and pretended we were eligible voters. Carefully reading the manifestoes (what each party says it will do if it wins the election), we anonymously voted... and it was a tie! (We wondered what happens if it's a tie in real life!)

We then created some posters to demonstrate our British Values. 

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.

Green Council going for the Global Goals

Today was the first meeting of our school Green Council.
We watched this video about the Global Goals
https://vimeo.com/138852758

The Global Goals link with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

We can all work towards helping everyone achieve those rights.

We then thought about which Global Goals we could try to work towards in our school. We voted for these priorities:

1. Save electricity (GG7, 13)
2. Improving playtimes (GG 3, 4, 5, 10, 16, 17)
3. Looking after our equipment (GG 9, 10, 11, 12, 16)

Here we all are, hard at work thinking about the coming year.

Do you know which Rights these priorities link to? 

Can you see the Bright Ideas box, ready for your ideas?

Green Council Visit to Basics Bank

Today, three members of Green Council were very lucky to be invited to the Basics Bank Headquarters in Millbrook.  This is where Southampton City Mission collect and sort the donated food before it goes to the local Foodbanks where people can then take it home.

Last week we celebrated Harvest in school so our donations were all there ready to be sorted!

Matt showed us how to sort them into categories like peas, soups and so on according to the Best Before date so that those with the shortest shelf life get used first.

 Above is a picture of the board showing the items they need more of at Basics Bank, and below is the card they give to everyone who receives food.

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Green Council Detectives: Eco Audit

Today, Green Council met for the second time and we wanted to look at the areas people look after the most carefully.  We included corridors with displays and, of course, the toilets. Here we are looking at the plan of the school site and making predictions about the cleanest and messiest places. Photos were taken by a Year 3 Class rep.

Which areas of the school do you think got the highest scores?

Which got the lowest and why? .

We found out that it costs a lot of money to fix things in the school, so we have all pledged to look after our school and encourage all of the other children to do so as well.

We have new Green Council badges which will be presented tomorrow in an assembly where we will share our work.

You can tell anyone on Green Council about good things about our school, and those we need to work on.

Go Team Shirley Warren!

Sports Roadshow in Year 3

Today, we were lucky enough to be able to participate in the sports roadshow. There were 5 different activities and we got a chance to have a go on each activity. We competed in class teams to work as a team and earn points for our class. We really enjoyed the activities and being able to spend time in the sunshine. There are some photos of us completing the different activities - some of them were really tiring!

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

PSCO visit to Green Council

Yesterday we welcomed our new PCSO, Adey Griffiths, into the school for the first time!

He met members of the Green Council and a school governor, who wanted to talk to him about how we are trying to improve our school and how we can all work together to make things better for everyone in our community.

We talked about how important it is that children cross the road carefully at the beginning and end of school and especially when there are parked cars, or cars pulling out.

We talked about litter and how we are going to Clean For The Queen on Friday (watch this space for our next blog about that).

There was a lot to talk about!

We hope PCSO Adey will come and meet all of the children at an assembly soon!
Have you seen him around the area?

Green Council with PCSO Adey

Florence Nightingale's Timeline

Our topic this term is 'Nuturing Nurses.' One of the nurses we are learning about is Florence Nightingale. We found about the main events of her life and then made a timeline of these. We made the timelines to scale, using our skills that we have leanrt in our number work. As Florence trained to be a nurse for 16 years, that section of the timeline was measured to be 16cm long. It was great fun!

Going for Goals

Last week in Receprion we introduced our new SEAL topic 'going for goals'. We spoke about things we were good at and then this week we have each set ourselves a goal. These range from being able to complete a puzzle, learning to kick a ball and even learning to ride a motorbike! We are going to work hard next week the practise our skills (well the ones we can anyway!) to see if we can improve and achieve our goals. We will let you know how we get on :) 

Green Council Update

We have ordered our own Green Council Hi Viz Jackets.

They are going to look like this:

When we get them, we will wear them out in the playground every day so we can try and make people be friends and have a fun time time at school and make sure they are not getting bullied and hurt. We are also going to encourage people to pick up litter.

If you have any ideas for Green council, please put them in the Bright Ideas Box.

By Green Council