Families get creative for the Gala

Last Saturday many of our families enjoyed getting creative as we prepared display items for Wicor's float at Portchester Gala. This year's theme is Harry Potter, so we were decorating shields for each of  Hogwart's houses and making mythical creatures. As always, parents appear to enjoy the experience as much as their children!
We have one more workshop to go which is on 11th June - the week before the gala itself. It's not too late to get involved. Contact Bron Kirk for more information. bronwynkirk@yahoo.co.uk

Multilingual Children

Some of Year 6 had the unusual experience yesterday of being taught French by a French French teacher, Spanish by a Spanish Spanish teacher and German by a German German teacher....if that confuses you, imagine how the children felt!
We are very grateful to Alison Galan and her two colleagues from Portchester Secondary School who gave up an hour of their time to organize these activities for our children. Parents should be able to see some of the results at Year 6's leavers' exhibition at the end of term.

Gospel Touch

Last Thursday, there was singing going on all over the school: in the playground, in the corridors, on the Year 6 stairwell, probably in the toilets too! Three members of the gospel choir, "Gospel Touch", visited our school. They ran workshops for Year 5 and 6 (and were amazed at how our Year 6 boys ALL sang!) and assemblies for the whole school. It was at times spine tingling, uplifting and exhilarating.

ortilla de patatas y Chocolate caliente

Tortilla de  patatas y Chocolate caliente......tickling your taste buds? Some of Year 6 had a great time in the kitchen yesterday morning with Mrs Knight who had transformed into a Spanish chef. They followed a recipe in Spanish (no English speaking allowed!), made a delicious tortilla and hot chocolate and then ate and drank what they had made....at least, they ate what was left after passing Staff had scrounged a share!

And thankfully, the fire alarm did not go off!

Year 6 Milton Locks Trip

Year 6 kick-started their post-SATs enquiry on Monday with vigour by visiting Milton Locks.  At school we had just started to think about habitats both around the world and closer to home, define what 'habitat' means and think about how the flora and fauna adapt to their habitat and environment.

 


Milton Locks nature reserve information
The education officers, Jess and Derek, from the HIWWT plus Alison, a specialist in entomology (study of insects), and Tim, a specialist in seashore creatures, joined us as well.  This made for very complete workshops as so much could be identified.  During the morning Mr Wildman also joined us and was able to identify all of the plants we found too.

The aim of the session was to help the HIWWT with their data collection of flora and fauna on this particular stretch of the coast.  Sweep nets and quadrats were used for the collection of insects, and for counting the different species of plants.  Sticky strips collected leaf types, and data recording sheets were completed to hand to the HIWWT.  Here are just some of the insects we found:  assassin beetle, soldier beetle (much to Lottie's delight), leaf hopper, flea beetle, green cricket, parasitic wasp, weevil, crab beetle, jumping spider, zebra spider, pill woodlouse, pollen beetle, mesh web spider, labyrinth spider and a shield beetle Bishop's Mitre.  We also found a very strange ladybird which Alison couldn't identify.  She took it away with her and emailed back the same day with some exciting news: this was a Water Ladybird with the Latin name of Annisosticta novemdecimpunctata and is a first record for Portsea Island. Alison has submitted it to the National Ladybird survey. This is proper ground breaking science!

On the seashore things got a little more gloopy and we all needed to identify everything we saw from the particles under our feet, the different types of shells and seaweed and the seashore creatures for intertidal data collection.  This did prove quite hilarious on occasion as our wellies had a tendency to get stuck in the very wet sand.  Tim and Alison proved to be very informative and helped us to observe and identify many creatures we might have overlooked such as hydrobia which are abundant on the sands and are the main food for the sea birds.  Spiral wrack was a type of seaweed which again was abundant and Tim explained about the bladders within the wrack, and the seed pods on the ends of each stem.  Our wildlife finds included: green shore crabs, ribbon worms, barnacles, American hard back clams, periwinkles, cord grass, spiral wrack, common wrack, eel grass, oyster shells, cuttlefish bladders, gut weed, sand hoppers, five bearded rockling, worm casts, shanny and ragworm.

All of this data has been taken back to school as well, and will be used in further science and maths lessons.

Checking out the labyrinth spider

We had an absorbing day and Jess, emailed us later saying how fantastic our children had been (not only with their behaviour which goes without saying); they loved how curious and enthusiastic in their learning they all were. 

Sweeping in a figure of eight

I'm sure I can figure what this stuff is

Do you dig our grounds?

What could be more magical than planting potatoes, digging them up but that comes later!

Potato blight caused us problems last year so this year we are extending the allotment giving us new ground to grow in.

Year 2 had help in digging their trenches.

 Rulers lined up for spacing.

 First early potatoes going in

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Always helpful to have someone to check they are covered and all is growing well in Wicor's World.

Er, Year 2...we need those rulers...

Save Our Field for us Forever!

On Thursday 24th March a planning application meeting was held at Fareham Borough Council Civic Offices to decide the fate of the field next door to our school.

This is a much valued piece of countryside that our local community have been fighting to protect for well over 30 years. Our pupils have first hand experience of how important this field is for wildlife in Portchester. As part of our leading environmental curriculum children have studied the wildlife that lives there and feel passionate that as well as protecting wildlife worldwide it needs to start on their doorstep.

Naturally our pupils have a voice and looked into all sides of the proposed development (they looked at the reasons for development as well as what what be destroyed). Councillors Nick Walker and Sue Bell gave some pupils the opportunity to attend the meeting to have an insight to the decision making process. They were joined by a former pupil who now attends Cams Hill School and our Chair of Governors. Two Year 6 pupils wrote a moving letter to the be read out at the meeting. Pupils learned that this is known as a deputation.

At the meeting, all the of councillors praised the school was praised for its support and for taking such an active role in local matters concerning them. Overall it was noted that there had never been such a well attended planning application meeting and some weighty deputations given by the people of Portchester added to the the atmosphere.

As reported by 'The News' the planning application was thrown out much to the delight of the strong community presence. However, our pupils are aware that this decision may be appealed and the fight to save our field forever will be a big one.

Happy at having a pupil voice, the journey home was green one by bus!

Deer enjoy grazing in the field next door