Harvest Festival at Boarhunt

Sometimes something magical happens in teaching and the harvest festival at St Nicholas Church, Boarhunt this week was just one of those occasions.  Class 5C made their own cakes and bread from flour purchased at the water mill in Winchester, as part of their study of the River Itchen.  Next, a lovely homemade soup was produced using fresh vegetables from the school allotment.
Now for the challenge...to carry this harvest feast from the school, up over Portsdown Hill to the church - a journey of 2 miles or so (and of course the walk back too).
The views from the hill are magnificent and the children learn a great deal about their local area.  Fort Nelson provided a handy stop before heading across the fields to the church.

"It's beautiful," said Hollie. And it was.  We stood admiring the charming gate into the green, shaded churchyard where we were met by the now retired Reverend John Franks.

Heading into the church

Rev John Franks delivers the harvest sermon

The churchwarden explained the architecture and the children headed round to the west door and into the church.  The children were introduced to six parishioners who had been invited to share the harvest supper, which was put together during the service.

The main focus of the service was a prayer book in which every child had written a harvest prayer.  They had been studying harvest prayers from different traditions, including Christianity; they picked up the patterns and language of prayer and then wrote their own.  Every single children wrote a prayer and 'performed' it during the service.

The church looked beautiful and the autumn displays were the perfect setting for the harvest service and the prayers.

If you want to see some of the prayers you can read them shortly on our poetry blog.  The children gave the prayer book to the church before setting off back over the hill to Portchester carrying a bag of cooking apples and oranges.  Harvest certainly works its own little miracles.

Celebrating British Food Fortnight

On Wednesday 30th September, Wicor played host to a variety of guests all of whom had a common goal: to educate our children about food.

In Year 6 we were lucky enough to have Paul Watts, Executive Chef from the Meon Marriott Hotel, work alongside our children.

The dish to be prepared and cooked was rainbow trout with salsa and sauteed potatoes.  He brought along the rainbow trout and we supplied the rest from our allotments: garlic, potatoes, onions and tomatoes.

Each session started with Paul explaining that the fish had been caught locally and that they came from chalk streams.  He then showed them how to fillet the fish by cutting along the spine of each side,  remove the ribs with tweezers and square it up by trimming the edges.  This process fascinated everyone and even the slightly squeamish got caught up in the precision of the filleting.

After this we were on slightly more familiar territory and children were grouped dependent upon the job to be completed.  We had some cleaning, peeling and chopping potatoes; others chopping tomatoes or onions and some learning how to crush garlic with salt.  We then watched while Paul quickly pulled together the dish, and listened while he explained some of the intricacies of producing good quality food, such as holding the fillet down in the frying pan to stop it curling due to the contraction of the fish's flesh when it touched the hot pan.

The smell of the ingredients cooking was amazing and we couldn't wait for the tasting session.

Paul then arranged the food on three plates and everyone tucked in.  Even the non-fish eaters amongst us were tempted and the verdict was that it was wonderful.

 

Yum, yum, yum!

Sky Reporters Workshop at WWF Living Planet Centre

On Tuesday 2nd June class 3K went to the WWF head office 'The Living Planet Centre' to take part in a Young Sky Reporters Workshop. When we arrived we had a lovely lunch after a good journey to Woking. The building was amazing and we would love to go back and show our families.

We were introduced to the education team and were really pleased to Lizzie again. Last October she came to Wicor to run a workshop 'Bean to Bar' about chocolate. It was so exciting our workshop was about learning how to be a Sky news reporter and were really lucky to have Lorna Dunkley to help us. She was really pretty and very good at her job, her advice was not to fiddle with things when reading the news!

Our class of 31 were split into three groups to practise our news report with iPads on saving the Amazon rainforest, have a tour of the learning zone and actually record our reports with Lorna using a real green screen. It was fun using props and costumes and at the end of our visit we got to watch all of our reports in a special auditorium. We enjoyed the experience so much we would like a green screen at Wicor!

Izzy and Ellie 3K

Learning to read from an autocue

Creating a news report

A quick practice

3K with Lorna Dunkley, Panda and Jaguar







Cleaning seeds at Wisley

Recently, staff took a group of our Mini Horts to the RHS gardens at Wisley for a spot of seed cleaning.  You can see the results of their work on the RHS blog at https://plantheritage.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/mighty-oaks-from-little-acorns-grow/

There are many benefits to being Plant Guardians!

Visit to Hill Farm Orchard

On Thursday the 7th of May 2015, the MiniHorts of Wicor Primary School visited Hill Farm Orchards, who produce apple juice (http://www.hillfarmorchards.co.uk/ ). When we got there, we met two ladies named Davina and Jo who tend the fruit trees. MiniHorts went inside their office and tried some of their apple juice that had just been pressed and had no added sugar. After that, Davina showed us round the apple orchard which had lots of different varieties like Spartan and Gala, you might recognise these in the supermarket. Sadly Davina had to go, so Jo took over, and showed us the rest of the apple orchard.

Jo took us to see the newly planted trees, that was only planted a week ago. The MiniHorts had to tie an apple tree and the post together so they will grow straight and strong. Finally it was lunchtime and we got to try more of the apple juice. Jo explained to us that the first class apple was sent to the supermarket as a premium apple and the second class apple is made for apple juice.

Jo took us into a giant fridge where they kept all the apples. In one of the fridges which the MiniHorts went in,  the temperature was 3 degrees Celsius and the apples smelt like perfume. Near the end of the trip, Jo showed us the equipment they use to pick apples from the trees. She also donated a Braeburn apple tree which we must look after and which we will plant up at the next MiniHorts planting. Here is the method to care for your apple trees:

First you water your apple tree and make sure it is in a sunny position.

Prune the branches.  (prune means to cut)

Next you pick the apples off your tree.

Finally you get to eat your delicious apples.

Sadly, it was the end of the trip and MiniHorts had to go back to Wicor. We enjoyed this trip very much. We thank Davina and Jo for giving us our own Braeburn apple tree, all the MiniHorts are excited and can't wait to get gardening!

During this trip we learnt the hail stones can damage the leaves and destroy the apples. We also learnt that the process of the apple is bud, blossom and then apple.

By Lily and Amelia Year 6

Wicor at Fareham Gardeners' Market

Wicor Primary School was back at Fareham Gardeners' Market again this Saturday selling some of the Canna Lilies which were propagated and potted up by the Year 6 children on the Spring Grounds Day.  The plants were well received with many people coming to look for us as they had bought our lilies at the market the year before.  We had so many compliments about school, and about the lilies.

A good day was had by all, so a huge thank you to the Y6 Breakfast Club pupils who made and laminated our signs, and loaded the car with the tables; Joe our amazing volunteer who helped the children pot up; and to the lovely Wicor staff who popped into Fareham to give us support on a cold and blustery May day.

Our first repeat customers from last year.

9 am and ready to sell.

Our Field Is Singing

Wicor's choir, VoxRox, found time to record our very own protest song.  The song's lyrics and sentiments draw from the field itself which is home to some wonderful and beautiful wildlife.

You can listen to the song here  Our Field Is Singing

We hope our song inspires everyone who is facing a similar battle to save a special area which is home to so much wildlife, like the field next to our school.

Save Our Field

The field right next to our school is under threat from the building of 135 houses.

This is terrible news.  It will destroy the lovely open views we have to the west of the school and north to Portsdown Hill.

The houses will also completely destroy the homes of a great many wild animals and plants.

Year 6 protesters

 Our school field joins onto the threatened field and is home to mammals such as roe deer, foxes, stoats, squirrels, bats and badgers.  The badgers have a sett in the field which will be dug up.  We share our land with lots of reptiles and amphibians and many bird species too.  Brent Geese use our field sometimes to graze and we get lots of other migrant birds and insects popping in for a break before or after their long journey.

ALL THIS LIFE WILL BE DESTROYED...along with much we don't even know about.

Please support our campaign to save this lovely wildlife reserve.  Details of how you can help are on our website.

Blackbird by Harriet Whitaker

Harriet Whitaker, Year 6 penned this beauty of a poem called Blackbird.  It was entered for the RSPB/Young Poets Network poetry competition and was one of only 6 winners.
Harriet's poem uses some striking imagery and paints a compelling picture of one of our most familiar birds.

Blackbird

Take

The tangerine sun

Strolling past

Our Earth

To make the beak.

Take

The vibrant colour of a fox’s eye

Trudging through the freshly fallen leaves

To make the eyes.

Take

The soft touch of a flower

Bursting from its bud

For the feathers.

And finally take

The sharpest flint

That wanders with a cave man’s life

Side by side for centuries

For the mighty claws.

Harriet Whitaker

You can read Harriet's poem and some of the other winners at the link below.

http://www.youngpoetsnetwork.org.uk/category/writing/

Earth Hour 2015

At Wicor we are taking part in a campaign called Earth Hour. Earth Hour is a WWF campaign where  you turn off your lights to save energy, and to help stop climate change for future animals  and future generations.



This is going to be held nationally  from  8:30 to 9:30 on Saturday the 28th of March .  There are going to be in total 169 countries taking part in this global campaign.

We are planning to do something a bit extra for this campaign...

Our very own Chocobin

Did you know that by the Year 2020 there might not be any chocolate for anyone to eat?  It's because people are eating more and more chocolate all over the world, including us in Britain.  You might think people can just grow more - they can't.  Land for growing cocoa beans is becoming harder to find and climate change is making it harder to grow cocoa beans.

At Wicor we want to draw attention to the fact that we cannot just keep using our resources more and more, like chocolate, without any impact.  We have to learn to be less greedy and demanding.

So let me introduce our Chocobin.

Our Chocobin is busy collecting all the chocolate wrappers and packets we use over the next few before persuade everyone to STOP - eating chocolate for two weeks.  We hope Chocobin will show us just how much chocolate is being saved and help people to realise two things.  First, just how much chocolate we are eating everyday and second, that we can do with less.

BBC's Ten Pieces

Mrs Knight, Mrs Coles and fifteen VoxRoxers had an inspirational afternoon at Winchester College on Thursday, singing with the BBC singers and their conductor who had come up from London with the purpose of working with 200 young singers on the chorus of Handel’s Zadok the Priest. (One of the pieces in the BBC’s Ten Pieces film BBC's Ten Pieces )
      
The children were amazed at the power in the voices of the BBC singers and even a little amazed at what they did themselves. The conductor was very amusing but he also really stretched us. When done properly, singing can be physically quite hard work, as well as being enjoyable. So much so that Caitlin and Lyla-Rose fell asleep on the journey home! 
      “Awesome!...Really fun..The music was bouncing off the walls,” were some of the comments made by the children afterwards. Favourite moments were the funny sounds the singers made when they were showing us how Basses, Tenors, Altos and Sopranos sing. The comment I liked best was Grace’s, “I never knew I could make a sound like that”. This was what the workshop was about, stretching our abilities and making us aim higher.
  We’re now on the edge of our seats waiting to hear if the BBC will be inviting us to sing the piece at the Royal Albert Hall in July during their Ten Pieces Prom. Watch this space! 

Ruth Knight, Teacher