WHOLE SCHOOL ASSEMBLY – April 21 st 2020

Afternoon Children,

Welcome back from the Easter Holidays. Well, the Easter Days. I hope that you have been keeping safe and sound at home. It isn’t easy, especially as the weeks go on, but I know you’ll be doing your best. It’s not easy being cooped up and looking at this fantastic bug hotel, we certainly don’t all have the luxurious surroundings of the lucky creepy crawlies living here!

As we’ve not been in for a while, I’m having to give a few reminders about how we come into the hall!! I generally start with a nice calming song as we come in after a break, I think I’ll choose Cyndi Lauper ‘True Colours’. It’s calm and also fits in with our focus on Rainbows. As we listen, we need to remember why we’re thinking about rainbows, here’s Phoebe to help remind us, signing as we’re singing.

The children will know the song from the film ‘Trolls’ most probably, but it’s also a song which resonates quite a bit with what’s going on at the moment.

Firstly, Rainbows are made up of seven colours. We know them don’t we?

See if they know them, Indigo and Violet tend to catch people out.

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Here they are…I always knew it as Richard Of York Gave Battle in Vain, but the children can come up with their own ways of remembering.

I picked this picture with a plane, because it shows the colours really well. Ever seen a double rainbow? I was lucky enough to once, but I never realised that when you see a double rainbow, the second rainbow’s colours go in the opposite way. Violet is at the top of the second one and red is at the bottom. See…

Now here is a tough one for me. How to explain how rainbows are made to all of you…Hmmm. Well, it’s not really about rain at all, it’s really about water. It’s where light hits water droplets. Shine a light into water and you get a rainbow. Because water droplets then reflect and bend the light, so that you get all the colours. The science is important, but It’s also really magical when you see a rainbow. (you may want to look further into this, depending on the age of your children).

Here’s a spray bow, to show how it works. This may or may not be me surfing (it isn’t).

So why are they called rainbows and not rain arch? We see big upside down U shapes. But that’s because we see them from the ground. If we weren’t on the ground we’d see full circles. It’s why there probably is no end to a rainbow, but it’s always fun to look. But wow! Look at this picture from an aeroplane… (I found this amazing, I’m learning here!)

Nobody sees the same rainbow as the next person and nobody can really explain how beautiful they are. They just are and that’s what makes them special. It’s fantastic to see all the rainbows in people’s windows and so many colours. What a great choice of symbol for these strange days.

The question I’m sure you’re all asking is, can I make a rainbow? What? You mean draw a rainbow? Nooooo. MAKE a rainbow. Well, yes you can Park Wood, but this may push the grown ups at home to the limit! You need 1) The Sun 2) A hosepipe 3) Permission and help from a grown up. (Please do not feel obliged to do this! I realise lots of people have different or limited access to space and gardens)

You need to stand with your back against the sun, so you are facing away from it. This is always a good idea anyway. Never look at the sun! Grab your garden hose – those with big nozzles on the ends usually work the best – and turn on the water.

Now, put your other hand straight up in the air. Start spraying the water about halfway between the ground and your other hand, which is straight up in the air.

You should see a mini rainbow in your back garden. If this didn’t work, try moving the hose up or down some until you see the beautiful arch of gorgeous colours.

Again, if it didn’t work, you might need to wait until it is a sunnier day outside to make sure that you have plenty of light. It should work over the next few sunny days.

I know that lots of you have been really busy at home again, at the start of this week, as you start back at the schools in your houses. I’d really love to see pictures, paintings and read things about rainbows if you get the chance.

The reason for wanting you to share your ideas and your learning is that we really want to set up a special exhibition in our corridor, which we will call our Wonderwall. I think it’s really important that we remember this time and the big effort that all your families are making. You can email work for the Wonderwall to your teachers or you can post it in, if you go past a post box when you are doing your daily exercise.

I’m sure lots of you know the song ‘Wonderwall’, even though it’s quite an old song (for you, not me) and it’s one I’d really love us to sing together when we get back.

I’ve rewritten the lyrics to the song, so that when we get back to normal, we can sing it together in a whole school assembly and I can live the dream of pretending to be in Oasis. Thanks to Mrs Douglas for helping to tidy up the tense and for adding all her ideas to the song. She didn’t use green and pink pens to mark my work, but I suspect that wasn’t far off.

Park Wood Wonderwall

Today is finally the day,That we can go back to school,Back to working hard again,Working hard to follow all the rules.

We don’t believe that anybody,Can stop our learning now, we’re back at school.

We’re complete, we stayed off the streets,Until the shadow on the world had gone,By staying in, we knew that we would win,And now we’re free to sing a different song.

We don’t believe that anybody,Can stop our learning now, we’re back at school.

So all the roads were empty all around us,But rainbows filled the windows of our houses,Clapping every week for our amazing NHSAs loud as we knew how.

Well done Park WoodFor doing all the things that we should,To show it all,We’ve built a wonderwall.

Right now is finally the dayThat we are able to return,Meet our teachers and our friends,Now we can get back and learn,

We don’t believe that anybody,Can stop our learning now, we’re back at school.

So all our families were talking over phone screens,And now we really know how much a hug means.There were many things that we wished we could say and do,That we can do now!

Well done Park Wood,For doing all the things that we should,We’ll proudly show it all,On our wonderwall.

(Here’s a handy instrumental version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHCgqO5l_QI

Lots of your teachers have put messages on the website for you as well as photos, as their whole school messages for the week. I hope you enjoy them, I’m hoping to put them in one place during the week, as lots of schools have. We’ll listen to ‘Wonderwall’ as we all leave the hall and I hope you all have a good week, with lots of learning and lots of good ideas.

Next week, we will be looking at ‘Heroes’. Just for one day. Heroes in books. Heroes in life. Heroes like St George. Heroes like Tom Moore. Heroes like Florence Nightingale. Heroes like Marie Curie. Superheroes. Spend some time thinking about what makes a hero. I’ll be asking Staff to think about this as well.

Mr Moir