Weekly News - Friday 10th May 2024

One World Day

Children across the school participated in a busy day of cross-curricular workshops and activities for One World Day on Monday. This special day has been created to prioritise environmental sustainability, one of our key school values and part of our strategic programme to support climate education.

The children had a wonderful day attending interactive workshops, led by Young Climate Warriors, Green Up Your Act and Accent Catering, which demonstrated valuable ways we can all contribute to sustainability, such as recycling waste materials creatively or growing our own vegetables. 

The children had the opportunity to create notebooks from recycled maps, concoct a green salad from home grown leaves and shoots, build a giant bug hotel, make seed balls, conduct water saving experiments using pipes, create outdoor nature sculptures and even blitz up their own healthy drink pedalling on the smoothie bicycles!  Thank you to Mrs. Briggs for planning and co-ordinating a valuable and inspiring day. You can read more about our St. Helen's College sustainability plans in this week's Head's Blog. 

Robins Class Assembly 

The Robins class assembly this week was all about the wonders of mini beasts and the importance of preserving their natural habitat. The children got into character by dressing up as bumble bees, ladybirds, spiders, caterpillars and butterflies, and shared fascinating facts about these colourful garden creatures. You can hear from some of the children here. It was lovely to listen to the children share poems and sing with such joy and enthusiasm whilst showing an appreciation for the natural world. Well done, Robins!

Now the sun is shining we hope the children will enjoy venturing outdoors this weekend to explore the garden or park and hunt for mini beasts for themselves!

4B Class Assembly

4B led an accomplished and thought provoking assembly today about global sustainability, sharing their work on the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The children demonstrated an excellent knowledge and understanding of global disparities and challenges, and explained why key UN goals, such as no poverty, zero hunger, good health and wellbeing, quality education and gender equality are so important.  Inspired by the work of explorer and polar conservationist Robert Swan, the children shared the ways they have pledged to play their part in tackling these issues: limiting food waste, walking instead of driving, using reusable water bottles, growing vegetables and turning off lights to save energy. The audience thoroughly enjoyed the pupils' creative poetry and their impassioned song performance which rounded off the assembly with an uplifting sense of hope for the future. You can hear from some of the children here. 

UKMT Maths Challenge

Huge congratulations to all the children from Years 4, 5 and 6 who participated in the recent UKMT Maths Challenge. The results are in and we are delighted to report the following children have achieved awards:

Bronze awards: Samara P, Arjun C, Alexander A, Rohaym U, Avar D, Mustafa F, Luca H, Parth K, Zakariya M, Pavan S, Jeena H, Ayush A, Emily S, Samuel H, Kal-El M, Verity S, Roha K, Amaya L, Eva J.

Silver awards: Amelia L, Dylan C, Aiden T, Joseph T, Zara F, Rayan S, Ashvika A.

Gold awards: Tiya T, Aaryav K, Aryan L, Raiden B.

A special well done for Aaryav K and Aryan L whose scores have earned them both a place in the Junior Kangaroo follow-on round, and to Raiden B whose score has earned him a place in the Junior Mathematical Olympiad follow-on round. Terrific work!

Quiz Club National Inter-School Maths Championship

Today our Maths Quiz Teams from Year 5 and 6 competed in the online National Inter-School Championships. Although they didn't quite make it to the next heat, they all partook with great spirit, enthusiasm and grit! The teams were as follows: 

The Mathemagicians - Ryley J, Ali B, Zara F, Tiya T.

Pi-rates - Eva J, Raiden B, Anika C, Saayan S.

Pi-thons - Roha K, Aaron B, Verity S, Amelia L.

Well done to all the teams for their sterling effort!

 

Year 3 PACCAR Residential Trip

Year 3 have returned home tired and happy this afternoon after an exhilarating two days at PACCAR Scout camp for their first overnight residential. The children embraced the great outdoors, taking part in an array of exciting activities including crate stacking, zip lines, obstacles courses, campfires and much more. Well done to all of the children for rising to the challenges presented with such confidence and optimism! You can view more photographs here. 

 

 

 

Year 6 Bikeability Achievement

Congratulations to Year 6 who today completed their Level 2 Bikeability cycle training. Over the past four weeks they have mastered the basics of bike control and safety at Level 1 and have now gained further competence to cycle safely on the roads. The children have gained the skills and confidence to negotiate parked cars, other road users, roundabouts, junctions and crossroads. Cycling is a great sustainable form of transport and supports good health too so we hope to see Year 6 putting their new skills into action from now on!

 

 

Summer School 2024

Summer School will be running at PACCAR Scout camp from 5th-9th August for Years 3 - 6. This will be a fun-packed week of thrilling outdoor activities including climbing, archery and a day of water sports at nearby Taplow lake. Full details have been sent directly to parents and bookings will open at 12 p.m. on Saturday 11th May on SchoolsBuddy, with places allocated on a first come, first served basis. The St. Helen’s College Holiday Club will run at school for children in Nursery - Year 2 as usual during this week. 

Next Week

Thursday 16th May - Nursery visit to Hobbledown Heath

Thursday 16th May - Owls coffee morning and class assembly

Thursday 16th May - Parents' evening Years 1 - 6