SOMERS’ STAR

NOVEMBER

2015

NEWSLETTER FOR SOMERS PARK PRIMARY SCHOOL, MALVERN

INSIDE THIS EDITION:

SPORTS NEWS FOR HOCKEY, FOOTBALL, NETBALL AND CROSS COUNTRY POETRY FROM YEAR 5

AND MUCH MORE…

SOMERS STAR NOVEMBER EDITION NEWSLETTER FOR SOMERS PARK PRIMARY SCHOOL, MALVERN

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LETTER FROM ACTING HEAD TEACHER

Dear Parents ,

Thank you for your extremely positive comments received at both recent Parents’ Evenings. Teachers value the opportunity to share honest opinions about your child’s learning and ‘next step’ development points. It is important that this understanding is shared and that you also have the opportunity to contribute your own opinions and ask questions. After school clubs at Somers Park are thriving, with pupils from all areas of the school developing and improving skills in a wide range of activities. Several of these clubs have had the opportunity to represent Somers Park at competitive events. Netball and football teams are competing in a league involving local schools and the cross country runners excelled in their events on Peachfield Common. Congratulations to all those who have taken part.

This half term, on Armistice Day, children have thought about those who have fallen in conflicts around the world. Key Stage 2 children have taken part in an art project, led by Kate and Jo De Burgh, to produce over two hundred clay poppies which combine to produce a display that commemorates the six former pupils of Somers Park who lost their lives in World War I. Please take the opportunity to view this piece in the Year 3 / Year 4 playground.

Byron W i l l iams Act ing Head Teacher

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

DATE EVENT 1st December EYFS Christmas Production 10am and 2pm 4 th December Clubs end 10th December Year 3 and 4 Christmas service 2pm 15th December KS1 Christmas Production 2pm & 6pm 16th December Year 5 and 6 Christmas service 2pm 18th December Party Day / End of Term

SPORTS NEWS

Somers Par t Netba l l : This year netball club is running for Year 4, 5 and 6 children, all the children are really enthusiastic and making great progress with their netball skills. On Monday 9th November, some of the children entered an

inter-schools competition of Hi-Five netball. They all represented the school really well with fantastic sportsmanship and a great performance across the nine games that they played. A huge well done for all those involved!

SOMERS STAR NOVEMBER 2015 EDITION

SOMERS STAR NOVEMBER EDITION NEWSLETTER FOR SOMERS PARK PRIMARY SCHOOL, MALVERN

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Cross Country Go ld : It was another fantastic year for Somers Park at the Malvern Schools Cross Country event. A team of 24 children from year 5 and 6 competed in different length races around Peachfield common.

Every single member of the team took part with great spirit, determination and resilience. The team supported each other and cheered each other on through all the events. There were some stand performances on the day; Claudia won the Year 5 girls intermediate race, and Kallum won the year 6 boys fun run. Also, because they finished in the top 6 in the most challenging race, we have 4 children who

qualified for the county final – Arty, Bobby, Evie, Josh.

Somers Park won 2 of the 4 categories (year 5 boys and year 6 boys) making us overall winners. Once again it was a highly exciting and fun event which brought out the best in all the children. It was well organised and well attended and has really become a highly successful local event, and one which the children really look forward to.

Mr Burnage

Hockey success : Somers Park showcased their hockey skills at the Worcestershire West Yr 3&4 Hockey Tournament at The Chase High School. With twelve schools competing, the Somers Park hockey team rised to the occasion playing fast flowing hockey with each player showing fantastic dedication, brilliant teamwork and excellent defensive skills throughout the tournament.

Undefeated during the group stages, Somers Park demonstrated their hockey skills once again in the semi-finals, losing narrowly to a highly skilled Hanley Swan team. The hockey team can be really pleased with their performance, they kept hold of the ball, created lots of chances and worked incredibly hard. A great team performance!

The Somers Park hockey squad: Bentley, Freddy, Chester, Charles, Alice, Cindy and Meghan.

SOMERS STAR NOVEMBER EDITION NEWSLETTER FOR SOMERS PARK PRIMARY SCHOOL, MALVERN

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Footba l l c lub :

Football club has started with its usual gusto. Now held on a Friday after school, over 30 Years 4, 5 and 6 boys and girls, are being coached by Mr Dowling, Mr Roberts-Shaw and Mr Sewell. This year’s football club is placing an emphasis on two areas for development including: skills and positional sense. With our skills work, we will be aiming to improve our first touch, passing and dribbling with the aim of helping our players become more comfortable on the ball. With positional sense, we will be working on our thinking-while-playing skills to help the players learn how to move the ball confidently from the defensive third of the pitch, to the middle third, on to the attacking third. In doing so, we will be encouraging our players to experiment with

different positions and ideas for attack and defence. It’s important that the children understand that sometimes their ideas mightn’t work in quite the way they intended but that is part of the joy of learning and developing their risk taking and resilience. As always, we will be aiming to get our players to as many tournaments as possible throughout the year. Sometimes, it will not always be possible to get everyone playing at these events, but we will do the best we can. The coaches are really impressed with the enthusiasm and focus of the children so far and are looking forward to a great year of development.

Year 5 and 6 Dysons Footba l l Tournament :

On Monday 9th November, a Year 5 and 6 football team went to Dyson Perrins to play a football tournament. Lily, Holly, Callum, Thomas, Bobby, Owen, Sonny, Josh, Ethan and Elis were all part of a 7 a side team, with three substitutes each game. There were 5 minute halves and we played 7 matches. Nobody was a designated goalkeeper; we had different goalkeepers in each match. Out of the seven matches we played, we kept a clean sheet – no goals were scored against us in five of the matches! We won every match but one, against Northleigh 2, who won all of their matches apart from one which they drew. Our biggest victory was 4-0 but that was against a B team,

mostly made up of Year fives. The hardest team, Kempsey, we had indoors, as there were only 3 pitches available on the astro turf with eight teams. We were very lucky to have them there, because otherwise they would have beaten us. We won 3-1. All the teams we played were as follows: Kempsey, St. James, St. Mathias, St. Josephs, Northleigh 1 and 2 and Leigh and Bransford. Overall, the day was great and it was a really good tournament. It was the first of the season, so it gave the team a great marker for the rest of the season. Written by Thomas 6M

NEWS FROM YEAR 1

Year One have been learning about colour mixing. We used what we knew about the primary colours and experimented with them on our palettes to make different colours and shades.

We looked at the work of Kandinsky. In particular his painting, “Squares with concentric circles”

We then mixed our own colours to create our own version of his work.

We were amazed by the different colours we could create.

SOMERS STAR NOVEMBER EDITION NEWSLETTER FOR SOMERS PARK PRIMARY SCHOOL, MALVERN

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Next week we will be using what we have learned to create the different colours and shades we will need to paint a forest!

NEWS FROM YEAR 2 Year 2 Sc ience

In Year 2 we have been learning about animals including humans. Some of the things we have looked at are the critical resources we need to survive, healthy diets, exercise and sleep! As part of work learning about humans we have investigated whether people with larger feet are taller:

We found out that shoe size and height are not linked!

For our homework we made skeletons using natural materials from our local environment, thinking about bones and joints.

Don’t they look fantastic!

NEWS FROM YEAR 3

Last week a mysterious container arrived at school from the British Museum, addressed to Year 3. The letter that came with it explained that recently a Pharaoh had been discovered which had not been Mummified. They museum has heard that year 3 were experts in Mummification, so could we help them out by mummifying the body! Brave members of year 3 worked carefully through the process of mummification, including: removing the internal organs, removing the brain by pushing a hook up the nose and carefully wrapping the limbs of the body.

Then suddenly the body began to twitch. Slowly it rose from the table and stood before the open mouthed children of year 3. The Pharaoh was last seen staggering along the year 3 corridor, heading east towards his spiritual home of Egypt.

It was later revealed that the hieroglyphs on his death mask had been translated to read:

Tutankhaburnage

SOMERS STAR NOVEMBER EDITION NEWSLETTER FOR SOMERS PARK PRIMARY SCHOOL, MALVERN

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NEWS FROM YEAR 4

There is b log s i te where year 4 are post ing updates about what they are up to in and around schoo l . The address is : www.somersparkyear4.wordpress.com. G ir ls ’ Footba l l Tournament :

Girls in Year 3 and 4 played in a football tournament against Leigh and Bransford and Saint Josephs. In Year 4 playing was Alice Woodward, Isobel Pett, Jessica Metcalfe , Emma Denman and Natalie Ryan. In Year 3 playing were Nansi, Bella, Ellie, Carice and Megan.

Some of us were playing against people we know from other schools. It was hard but gave a good go! We used tricks and skills to score goals. It was very hot so it made it even harder. We did it on the 24th October. We won the first game 6-0 and the second match 5-0 which means we won the tournament!!!

Year 2 boys played as another team for Somers Park School.

by Emma and Natalie.

NEWS FROM YEAR 5

In Year 5, we have been writing poetry which we learnt and performed in a Slam Poetry Competition. We each read our poem in our Literacy sets and each teacher chose six winners who then went on to the battle

rounds against each other. The audience then voted for the best poems and performances. Here are four of our winning poems.

What W i l l I Be When I ’m O lder?

Mum said: ‘The greatest rock star the world has ever seen.’ Dad said: ‘A guardian angel.’

My brother Evan said: ‘Just as annoying.’ My mate said: ‘Still my mate.’ My teacher said: ‘Cleverer.’

My gran said: ‘Older.’ Doesn’t anybody know?

By Hugh 5E

What W i l l I Be When I ’m O lder? My Mum said: ‘Stronger than a wrestler.’

My Dad said: ‘Braver than ever.’ My sister said: ‘Still an annoying brother!’

My Grandad said: ‘To be a painter like me!’ My Gran said : ‘To be a clever technician.’

My auntie said: ‘To be a kind and considerate person.’ My teacher said: ‘Someone who smiles more often.’

Doesn’t anybody know? By Joshua 5E

I Want to Be…

I want to be a marvellous magician making my dinner disappear in seconds. I want to be a silly shop assistant packing my bag like I do at the end of school.

I want to be a deadly dentist scaring the pants off kids. I want to be a ridiculous rapper rapping Christmas present for Santa.

I want to be a brilliant builder laying bricks till my arms fall off. Oh Oh I could be…ME.

By Made le ine 5E

SOMERS STAR NOVEMBER EDITION NEWSLETTER FOR SOMERS PARK PRIMARY SCHOOL, MALVERN

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I wanna be…

I wanna be a tremendous tongue twister teller so I can twist the tongue twister teller seekers’ tongues. I wanna be a tremendous tongue twister teller so I can twist the tongue twister teller seekers’ tongues or an incredible illusionist so I

can make people’s mouths drop. I wanna be a tremendous tongue twister teller so I can twist the tongue twister teller seeker’s tongues or an incredible illusionist so I

can make people’s mouths drop or a radical rapper ’cuz I’m good at wrapping Christmas presents. I wanna be all these things … but I’m only…

A bin-man By Thomas 5D

NEWS FROM YEAR 6

What we have been up to th is week in year 6 !

This week we have been cooking, computing and making our own news report for us to record on the Somers Park Radio Sunshine. On Monday we were computing using Python so we could understand the language of the cyber world more; whilst the other class were baking scone based pizzas. Here is the recipe so you can try them at home.

Ingredients: 150g Self-raising flour (plain flour could be used but the base won’t rise as much) 30g butter or margarine 75ml milk 6tbsp pasata A handful of grated cheese

1) Turn your oven on to 200 degrees Celsius. 2) Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl. 3) Using clean fingertips, rub the butter into the flour

until it resembles breadcrumbs. 4) Gradually stir in the milk, if it is too wet add a little

more flour to form a soft dough. 5) Knead for 30seconds. 6) Split the dough into 2 equal balls and roll them out

into 2 rounds. 7) Place both on a floured baking tray (greased

baking tray works just as well) 8) Cover your base with pasata (3tbs on each pizza)

then sprinkle on the cheese. 9) Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 10-15mins or until

the crust turns a golden brown. By Gabby and Maddie

Year 6 cod ing and ICT On Monday 9th November to Friday 14th November Year 6 did cooking with Miss Edkins and Python coding with Mr Williams. On Monday we had maths as usual but, instead of Literacy, Mr Williams’ class did coding on the computers and Miss Edkins’ did cooking. On python, a coding programme, we learnt how to display words and sentences on the screen, E.g. print (‘Hello World!’). Then we moved on to experimenting by using different codes and orders and saw what happened. After that, we went on to Espresso coding, from where we looked at simple python being put to use. In the afternoon, Mr Williams’ class did cooking with Miss Edkins in the community room. We made pizza! As it was the first day of the week, we only made basic cheese and tomato pizzas, but learned how to make them from scratch. 150g of self raising flour, 30g of margarine or butter and 60ml of milk was all we needed to make the basic scone dough for the pizzas, and then we added 2 to 3 tablespoons of passata – tomato puree – and a handful of cheese. On Thursday we made pizzas but we used different toppings such as ham, pepperoni and olives, to practise our chopping skills, but also to be creative with our cooking, not just in art or literacy. It was really interesting. Overall, the week was very exciting, our pizzas were tasty. We all learned a lot about coding and python, a lot of which we didn’t know, because everybody thought that code was difficult, complicated paragraphs of small text and numbers. It was real code, unlike scratch, which is dragging phrases and numbers across the screen, which someone has already coded to do that.

Michael & Thomas 6M