Welcome to our second year of WEARNEWS and

this the autumn edition!

We’ve had lots of new changes at Wearhead School, which have been very exciting. First, we wel-come 3 new reception chil-dren—Emily, Florence and Holly. The girls are loving their time at school and have already had starring roles in LENNY ON THE FRONT LINE!

However, there are more new faces in the infants be-cause Wearhead School now has a wonderful band of pre-schoolers who have great fun inside and out! We’ve also got a new mem-ber of staff! Mr Harle joins us on an apprenticeship as a teaching assistant and has already launched into school life with great gusto!

Mr Harle making a Christ-mas wish whilst preparing mincemeat with Carol Gra-ham (Miss Slate) and KS2.

Autumn Term!

Autumn Term 2014

2014-2015 academic year

WEARNEWS

Special

points of

interest: Toilet twinning pg 2

School Play pg 3

Bees pg 4

Howtown pg 5

Interfaith Day pg 6

Mayflies pg 7

Letters to DCC pg 8

WW1 pg 9

STOP PRESS pg 10

www.wearhead.durham.sch.uk

Ben’s visit to school! By Lucy and Fern

In October Ben, but unfortunately not Jet, the dog came to visit us with the Police (they were called Claire and Tracy). We all tried some outfits on and we had a few questions to ask to them. Before that we watched a video of Ben and Jet and how to stay safe it said about how you don't get into strangers’ cars. Then we got to stroke Ben which was lovely. Unfortunately we didn't get to walk him. After they’d finished they said “give us a wave” after that they went to the police station.

Editior—Jet has retired after many years of service and is enjoying his walkies in Crook with Claire!

Wearhead Primary School is now the proud owner of a remarkable new canopy which is situated outside the infant classroom. This super resource means that we can extend our playing outside in bad weather and it is also a place for parents to wait when picking children up from after school clubs!

REMEMBRANCE 11th

November

We will remember

them.

Holly, Florence and Emily listen to directions from Fern and Dan in a dress rehearsal for the play.

Watch Out! Y3 look all prepared to enforce law and order!

“I love it when Ben and Jet come to see us—we find out lots of safety things” Mhairi

Ben loves all the at-tention, but is missing his best friend Jet!

Page 2 WEARNEWS

Flushed with Success

On Monday the 8th of December 2014 the whole school went to a pantomime of Sinbad the jolly sailor at Frosterly village hall. The story was about a very valuable plate called the willow pattern plate. So Sinbad and his mother, who wanted to be rich, tried to get it back from Gorgon Island. It was so funny and made us all laugh lots. It was Brilliant and everyone enjoyed it as they went on the funny play. They also got 5 children to help them and then they did a fantastic dance at the end.

By Willow

Jack’s Christmas joke: How do snowmen travel around? By Icicle of course!

Wearhead Pupils were set a chal-lenge in September by Mrs Judges. She showed them a documentary about people in the world who have no access to a latrine/toilet and as a result suffer from illness and dis-ease. Four in every ten people don’t have access to proper sanita-tion. So, the challenge was laid down … raise £180 to provide THREE toilets by July 2015. In true Wearhead style, everyone came together to see what they could do.

£60

The children collected loose change, discussed the possibilities of a sale of work—thinking about overheads and profit, a sponsored walk...adults gave their time and talents creating cross-stitch cards, knitted decora-tions, a knitted Jack Frost and donat-ing other articles for the children to sell.

KS2 ready and wait-ing for the crowds!

Mrs Grant has a go at guessing Jack Frost’s middle name!

Y3 pupil Isabel writes:

The bring and buy sale was amazing. We sold toys and books. I bought a cobra, a teddy bear, a book and a save a sheep game. My sister wasn't there so I got her toy baby clothes crafts.

The bring and buy sale was a great opportunity to reduce, re-use and recycle...and raise mon-ey for a good cause too!

Pantomime visit!

£60 £60

The infants have been very busy with Mrs Evans and Mr Harle this term creating a brilliant puppet show called: THE THREE BILLY PIGS GRUFF! This is a magnificent story written by the fantastic and amazing Mr Harle.

Having designed the characters, the busy infants spent 2-3 weeks sewing their puppets which are made from felt. The sewing bees at Cowshill and the sewing group Busy Fingers at Westgate had better watch out!

Working with Mrs Evans, the infants investigated how scripts worked and after several parts—suddenly every-one knew what they were doing.

William said “The best bit about the puppet show was making the pup-pets.”

Our play Lenny on the front line went very well and we raised £96 in the sale of work (for our toilet twinning challenge) in 40 minutes after the show! First we went inside the infant classroom to get ready to go on stage. Then we started to sing Daisy Daisy to start the play. Then we were rudely interrupted by Fern as a news report imitator then we had scene 1. That contained Lucy Nat-tarass, Johno Robinson Kirwin and narrator 1 and 2 and Francis. Lucy as an amazing Sofia. Also, mention must be made of Johno who was brilliant as a grumpy Franz Ferdi-nand!! By Fern

Autumn Term 2014

Infant puppet theatre wows community!

Lenny on the Front Line!

Page 3

Holly commented “ I enjoyed making the puppets too.” A tired Mrs Evans said “watching the children create their scenery and learn their lines was absolutely fantastic.” A delight-ed Mrs Judges said of the perfor-mance “it was a splendid show, well written, well typecast and brilliantly executed. In fact, it shows the world how talented Wearhead children are when you think that we have had Lenny on the Front Line to learn, a football match from 100 years ago to improvise and our Christingle to do. A big rousing cheer to the infants!”

This article was written by the Infants with a little typing help by Mrs J and some ideas help by Mrs Evans.

A reviewer writes: On Wednesday 19th November, the pupils of Wearhead Primary School once again produced a wonderful performance in remem-brance of the centenary of the start of World War One. ‘Lenny on the Front Line’ is the story of a young twelve year old boy who, in a quest for more excitement in his life, manages to enlist as a soldier and leave home to serve on the front line.

There were some truly lovely moments throughout the performance, which included impressive acting, beautiful poetry reciting, and some great come-dy lines, delivered perfectly. The singing was absolutely tremendous. The children had mastered some very difficult songs, which they sang with in-credible volume. When the children were joined by the community choir (comprising of staff, parents and local community members), they pro-duced some lovely harmonies together which brought tears to my eyes.

There was a narrative about the war and how the troops stopped fighting on Christmas Day to sing together. This was followed by one of the most moving parts of the play (of which there were many) when the children sang ‘Stille Nacht’. It was sung clearly and simply and was beautiful.

Every pupil in the school was involved in the production of the play, both pre-production (in preparation of the props and costumes) and on the night itself. Every individual should be commended as the results were impres-sive. It is amazing to see how such a small school, with only 18 pupils in total, can produce such a ‘BIG’ performance.

The story of Lenny On The Front Line was a poignant reminder of the im-pact of war on families and how Christmas time 100 years ago is so very different to the Christmas we experience nowadays.

This was an inspired performance and was certainly enjoyed by all and, like the soldiers and their families, will not be forgotten.

THE

THREE

BILLY

PIGS

GRUFF

This term a lady called Mandy from NECTAR-WORKS came to Wear-head Primary School to continue a project about bees. She is working with us until the end of the ac-ademic year and we are very excited about this. We have made a fact file about all the trees in our grounds that are bee friendly—we had sur-veyed the grounds and found out the names of

the trees. It was interest-ing doing the fact file be-cause most of our tress are bee friendly. However, I found out that Silver Birch and Birch are not bee friendly. It was fun finding out the scientific names be-cause they were a tongue twister. We also investigat-ed the life-cycles of bumble bees. You got to find out lots of interesting facts.

By Mhairi

Here are Mhairi and Millie working on the life cycle of bees!

PAPER CLIPS IN KS2

At Wearhead School we have always had a special treat called golden time in which

we can chose a activity to do. But now we have a system in which we get a paperclip in a jar when the jar is full we get a whole afternoon of play! This is exiting because golden time is 30 minutes long.

By Dan and Francis

Page 4 WEARNEWS

Nectarworks

to the bottom was so difficult but we all did it.

3 people did not go on the van and they were: Willow, Fern and Becky. We were cold but we fin-ished just in time for lunch.

[And we got 20 house points].

By Willow

Mrs Evans was absolutely thrilled with the determination of the chil-dren who took part in the event!

On the 14th November the whole school went the reservior on a long walk, the juniors went all the way to the reservior whilst the infants drove up in Sandra's bus.

The juniors got 3 biscuits each be-cause we needed energy to carry on our long and tiring walk [it was raining lots and lots!!!!!].

It was really fun [once you get past the worst of the weather]. Coming back from the top of the reservior

SPONSORED WALK FOR TOILET TWINNING!

TOILET DOOR POSTERS!

We are designing some toilet door posters so it reminds us about the people who don't have toilets in the world-so we don`t waste as much water as we are now, it means that we are knowing what other people are having to live with every day so we will help, and that is why we are making the toilet door posters. They are also giving us a message for GREEN FLAG!

By Willow

JACK FROST’S MIDDLE NAME

By Dan Nattrass

At school we are raising money for a charity called toilet twinning. Some-thing we are doing is to try and guess Jack Frost’s Middle name. Pay £1 to guess the name of him. The Jack Frost we have to win is knitted by Mrs Judges senior for us.

The three survivors who made it all the way in appalling weather!

Autumn Term 2014 Page 5

FISCH We have had a new club called fisch it stands for family initiative supporting children’s health-in which we get a weekly challenge. At the end of the ten weeks of fisch if all of our challenges are done we get the grand prize. We had a big big game of dodgeball in which the adults hammered us then we had a mothers and sons vs dads and daughters the dads and daughters won. By

Dan and Johno

The game of extreme dodgeball was very fast and fu-rious! With up to 5 balls in play at any one time, it really was a case of keeping your wits about you!

WATCH OUT...Isabel is in action!

Y5s and Mrs J at HOWTOWN by Dan On the 15th - 19th of September the year 5s went to a place called How-town on the shore of Lake Ullswater in the Lake District. In the time we were there, we had many challenges...the hardest was making the bed! Johno loved tunnelling. Daniel and Becky liked advanced jog and dip. We had a full English breakfast. Many other of our friends were there. We had to have an expedition at 7o’clock in the morn-ing then we even had a time for break-fast it was 08:45. Our first challenge was some dynamics first we had to stand on a beam and had to swop plac-es our next thing to do was to get through a spider web. We had to a climb a rock face, swim in the lake and go on a five mile walk which took about 4 hours! We all had a wonderful time.

Kitting up for underground tun-nelling!

Climbing high on the long walk with extremely heavy ruc sacs. Dan chats to Nick our leader about the farm!

All day rock climb-ing was great fun...but have you ever done it blind-folded, in hand-cuffs whilst hold-ing a ball?

Ullswater in the autumn sun!

After Lenny on the Front Line and after the KS1 Puppet show the Juniors did a sale to raise money for toilet twinning. We sold pictures, fridge magnets, painted stones and cards. We sold peppermint and cherry candy canes, cross stitch cards, christ-mas decorations before every one went home.

By Francis

On Wednesday the 3rd of

December Mrs Slate from

our Victorian afternoon came

in to make some mince meat

for Friday the 12th of De-

cember (this is when the

j u n i o r s m a d e s o m e

mincepies). The things we

used were cinnamon, ginger,

nutmeg, cloves, suet, lots of

dried fruit, orange juice and

zest and a lemon.

By Jessica

Mrs Mavin for bringing us all to-gether.”

Deacon Sue and Phil were there teaching us about Christianity.

In October we went to Newcastle to an interfaith day at a Gurdwara Mrs Jugdes commented ” Fantas-tic! To see so many different faith leaders sharing their similarities and differences in the Gurdwara was incredible. Our children are so lucky to be able to participate in an event like this at such a young age because it is often diffi-cult in a rural area to go to a big-ger city and find out more about religions. A massive thank you to

The golden dome on the gurdwa-ra caught the autumn sun and glistened like a sparkling beacon.

Page 6

INTERFAITH DAY AT THE GURDWARA

WEARNEWS

Sale of work! KS2 Mincemeat afternoon!

The Outward Bound Trust visits Wearhead!

On Wednesday the 22nd of October Nick from the out ward bound centre came in for a visit unfortunately just for a day! All of the year 5s knew him because they re-cently went to Howtown in Penrith and of course MRS JUDGES as well! The year 5s took Nick on a guided tour around the school. He

came in to lessons of liter-acy. He even came for lunch. In Howtown Nick is an instructor. He does things like swimming, climbing and canoeing and other things. “I loved my visit to your school—you made me feel so welcome! It was superb to see how you do such bril-liant activities and use PLAN DO REVIEW.” Nick Rhys

On September the 18th Lizzie Willows from Wear Rivers Trust came in to teach us about mayflies. First, we went down to the River Wear near Fern’s caravan to collect them and some water (we saw her mum riding her horse). Then we came back to school to make a little home for them to live in—made out of a plastic 2 litre pop bottle and filled with river water with a stick in-in case it emerged. And if it did we put it in the fridge. It did happen with one of the may-flies. It was Johno’s it was

called Flip-Flop. We put them in a rectangular container. In early October Lizzie Willows from Wear Rivers Trust came in again to released the may-flies in the morning just before lunch we went back to the Wear river near Fern’s cara-van and let them go. By Jessi-ca

of rubbish? We had even better answers like crisp packets, sweet wrappers, chewing gum and dog-gy bags. After that he said “you are such a great school.” Then he had a long list of things of things that we've done. After that we had a photo of us with are certificate. Finally we got a badge with tidy ted. Then we said our good bye. By Lucy

On Wednesday 10th of Decem-ber a person called Dean came to talk about how BAD it is to drop litter and it can hurt ani-mals!! So tidy ted came to us to help talk about rubbish. We had a very fun time with tidy ted how he loved us. Then we were talking about what is litter? We had some brilliant answers like rub-bish. Then Dean said ’what kind

We are training for a gym-nastics festival in Frosterly on the 5th of December. The juniors are going first. While the infants will be making and creating cards and other Christmas things. Then we will go into the class room and they will come up to the hall and perform their dance.

Autumn Term 2014

Gymnastics Festival 2014

MAYFLIES IN THE CLASSROOM

TIDY TED GOLD BADGE PRESENTATION!

Page 7

Working together as a team in the performance!

Lizzie shows us identification sheets.

Swirling the ribbon was great fun—especially in time to the Christ-massy music. Feeling the beat helped.

Durham County Council Civic Pride team visits Wearhead with Tidy Ted!

Recently, the children of Wearhead went on a litter pick around the village to help celebrate KEEP BRITIAN TIDY’S 60th birthday. They wore green tabards. The jun-iors went into the village while the infants went up towards Cowshill. We found 16 cigarette butts and 3 packets. The in-fants found lots of crisp packets and pop bottles

stuffed into walls! Some of the Juniors have written to DCC to ask for some more litter bins! There are not many bins in Cowshill or Wearhead. Please see the letters that Fern, Johno and Lucy have writ-ten to Durham County Council asking for more litter bins. We feel that we should do a litter pick more often because peo-ple are producing more

rubbish every month.

By Jessica

We had glorious weather to do our litter pick!

more this went on for a long time eventually we went back to school and we were astonished at the amount of litter the infants had found! The juniors were asked to sort out the rubbish and then we recycled are tabards that we were wearing but we found out that de-spite the Infants being at the road which goes to Cowshill they found more rubbish than the Jun-iors! Now we need bins, bins, bins, bins perhaps three dotted

Before very long Wearhead will be swimming in litter! We need bins! So as pupils at Wearhead Primary have tried to sort it. And are very successful. First the In-fants looked at the road to Cow-shill there was an enormous amount of litter like crisp packets and empty bottles stuffed in walls ! Meanwhile us Juniors were in the village scouring the pave-ments for litter. We found sixteen cigarettes, 1 crisp packet and lots

around the place so we don’t stuff litter in walls or drop it in the riv-er. We need to reduce reuse re-cycle our rubbish! Our village need bins.

Yours faithfully Fern

Page 8

Dear Durham County Council...

WEARNEWS

Wearhead Wombles

Letters to DCC from KS2

Dear Sir/ Madam

Litter problem at Wearhead

We recently did a litter pick (Wearhead Wombles litter pick) the date was 7th Oc-tober 2014 the juniors went from our school to the end of Wearhead. I was aston-ished of such a small vil-lage that we found so

much rubbish (not much to recycle) the things that we found were a crunchy crisp packet, clear pop bottles, crazy sweet wrap-pers, a cigarette box say-ing smoking kills! And cig-arettes. We mostly found 16 cigarettes. The infants went up Cowshill they mostly got crisp packets

and pop bottles in the area. Please, because of the rubbish, can you give us some more litter bins in all of Wearhead and of course Cowshill as well. Please can they be big litter bins so people can see them?

Yours faithfully, Lucy

On the 12th of November Alison from Bowes Muse-um came in to tell us a story about WW1. Then she talked about the sol-diers gifts...they looked very old, and when Alison told us that they were 100 years old we were all shocked! After that we were set a challenge to make a sweet heart pin cushion!! Before that we tried on some soldiers

uniforms, it was very heavy! We had to draw a picture and write about it Jessica commented ’’it was very good, and it would be very heavy when it got wet!’’ Fern and Lucy

Trying on WW1 outfits!

Using the silks as inspiration!

have held some silks.”

Fern commented that the pat-terns were extremely beautiful. Mr Hetherington asked us if we would make some silks and put them on display in the Museum. We have started to think about our designs and consider how much space we will have to do the sewing in.

Mhairi and Millie

In October Mr Heatherington from the Weardale Museum came to Wearhead Primary School to tell us about WW1 silks. he came in because in his-tory we are studying World War 1. Our WW1 silks are a bit like postcards but they are sewn. Dan said ’they were very interesting for a boy who was addressed in WW1 and I was very honoured to

award in the SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES section. On the evening of 13th November, Mrs Evans and Mrs Robson took our three Y5s to the award ceremony at Radisson Blu in Durham. After a scrumptious feast, Becky gave a vote of thanks to the organis-ers—in front of over 300 people!

WELL DONE ECO WARRIORS.

In June, Mrs Judges received notification of a Durham County Council organised awards scheme which celebrates build-ings, gardens, environmental groups and organisations trying to better their environment. She nominated our school eco-committee—the eco warriors, and was absolutely shocked to discover that they had been se-lected by the judges to win an

Autumn Term 2014

ENVIRONMENTAL AWARDS 2014

The Soldiers’ War—outreach session

Mr Heatherington visits the juniors!

Page 9

It was lovely to have such excellent outreach from The Bowes Museum, and it was great fun to meet the other education officer—Alison! Now we’ve met them both and they are very nice.

We used our best manners at the buffet and were a credit to the school.

Wearhead Primary School

Bents Lane

Wearhead

Bishop Auckland

Co. Durham

DL13 1PH

The children of Wearhead School are delighted to an-nounce that they have reached their toilet twinning target and completed the challenge in record time! They have raised a magnif icent total of £400.81 which is enough to twin all 5 school toilets and provide 2 more toilets/latrines for communities in the world without. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

Our school’s Santa Management Team wishes to take this opportunity to thank everyone who supports school in every way, shape and form! From maintenance jobs, set-ting up/dismantling staging, setting out tables and chairs, donating in-gredients, baking/cooking, hearing children read, donating raffle prizes, donating newspapers and plastic tubs, supporting all our performanc-es and fundraisers, running clubs, donating resources, writing articles, making deliveries and collections and anything else that helps to main-tain our outstanding school—it all adds up to ensure that our school remains a safe, happy and inspira-tional place for the children’s edu-cation. Thank you for your time and help. It is greatly appreciated! KE and EJ

Phone: 01388 537265

E-mail:

wearhead@durhamlearning.net

THE SMALL SCHOOL WITH THE BIG HEART

www.wearhead.durham.sch.uk

Wearhead Primary School closes for the Christmas Holidays at

2.45pm on Friday 19th December 2014.

STOP PRESS!

Wearhead Primary School re opens for the Spring

Term at 0855 on Tuesday 6th January, 2015.

Karen Evans and staff wish every-one a happy and peaceful Christ-

mas and all good

wishes for 2015!