The Oak Leaf

Sussex Road CP School

Webzine

Second Issue July 2016

Welcome to the second issue of the

The Oakleaf, Sussex Road School’s

webzine team.

The Webzine Team!

From left to right – Ellen, Eva, Evelyn, Patrick, Olivia, Madeleine, Alex and George

It’s nearly the summer holidays! I’m sure we’re all looking

forward to some well-deserved relaxation, like Gus here.

Thank you to Mrs Moon for sharing her photo of gorgeous

Gus.

Nature photos by Patrick B (Year 4)

Deer at Knole Park

By Ayla (Year 1)

By Jimmy P (Year 2)

A biased Cup Final experience as promised by Mrs W-W.

My stomach was churning as my daughter and I carefully painted our faces with our colours. The red and blue standing out in Tonbridge, but entirely appropriate for our trip to Wembley. These tickets were like gold dust and as I clasped mine tightly in my hand I met with Mrs Finch and many other friends for the most important game we had watched so far, the FA cup Final!

We set off. The train was full of Crystal Palace supporters. Two Manchester United fans asked where we had all come from. My reply was simple. “We support a local team”. The journey went very quickly and soon enough we walked up towards Wembley in a throng of red and blue. The chants from both teams getting louder the closer we came to the ground.

Wembley really is a special place. It is here that a clear bias will ring out in my words. Half an hour before kick off and Manchester United had one very large flag floating across their supporters. In stark contrast Palace had several of these and had red or blue metallic flags to show our end full of stripes, as well as Wembley flags and thousands of balloons. It was party central and the noise was incredible. At no point did the singing let up as 30, 000 plus supporters were unrelenting in their song, usually ringing out from the Arthur Wait or Holmesdale stands.

Mrs Finch and I felt we really did ourselves proud; we drew breath on occasion, when we left ourselves too open, but equally we scared United too. Palace were on course for a heart

stopping victory after substitute Jason Puncheon fired a cracking shot and scored with just 12 minutes remaining. With Alan Pardew doing his touchline dance, we were on a high, but Wayne Rooney set up an immediate Juan Mata equaliser. We had lost focus for 3 minutes and been penalised for it. It was extra time. I could not stop fidgeting and felt quite sick once more.

United lost defender Chris Smalling in extra time after his second appalling foul where he hauled back Yannick Bolasie to incur a second booking but United snatched victory with a fine volley from substitute Lingard after 110 minutes.

Defeat was incredibly harsh on valiant Palace, who were frustrated by a series of decisions by referee Mark Clattenburg in the first half and fought to the end. Football is full of if, buts and maybes, but there has been much discussion since about what if Connor Wickham’s advantage had been allowed to continue after a tussle with Smalling and what if Joel Ward had not been called back following the persistent grabbing of Marcos Rojo. What if Dwight Gale had buried the ball and De Gea was not so swift?

The whistle blew……it was over and so we started to file out, still singing, already looking ahead to using our season tickets to support our Palace.

I will not lie, I felt deflated the following day. Still quietly contemplating what could have been. It was not until I went into school on Monday and met up with Ethan K from year R, for a football natter. Ethan and his father had been to Wembley together. To see and hear his thrill of being there helped put things into perspective. Ethan is an ‘eagle’ and he rallied me, as an eagle should. I believe I will see him at Wembley in years to come. You have to believe. We support teams no matter what; it is an unconditional love and passion. What a day!

Thank you to Mrs Walton-Wallace for her passionate account of the Cup Final at Wembley. Have you been to a great event (sporting or not) that you could tell us about?

Birds of Prey

Birds of prey are very strong hunters.

They are also known as raptors.

Female birds of prey are much larger than males.

There are around 300 different species.

These are eagles, ospreys, vultures, falcons, hawks, kites, owls.

They use their senses to search and hunt their prey.

Birds of prey have strong powerful feet with curved sharp talons. This helps them to catch,

hold and kill their prey.

Eagle Falcon Hawk Osprey

Owl Kite Vulture

By Ellie F (year 2)

Do you have a favourite bird or animal you would like to tell us about? We’d love to hear

about it if you do!

By Danny (Year 2)

The Cowboy

It was night time, but Billy couldn’t get to sleep. He was scared that there were monsters

hiding under his bed. The frightened six-year-old could hear the London traffic through the

open window of his flat. He glanced around his bedroom and spotted a glowing green oval

shape mist swirling around him. Billy was petrified. Suddenly, it charged directly at him and

swallowed him up! Now he was standing in a vast desert. There were a few round cottage-

like buildings around him. A little dark haired boy came out of one of them.

“Hello”, he said, “I’m Nik the cowboy, welcome to the wild west!”

” What year are we in?” said Billy suspiciously.

“We are in the year 3020. I am a chief cowboy, you are here to be trained,” he said with a

smile.

When he met Nick again it was training time. A bunch of other cowboys had gathered

around.

“First you will learn to ride this,” he explained, pointing to a deck chair.

Billy gasped. Nick then took the remote control out of his pocket and turned it into a horse.

Billy wondered if Nick could do that to him.

Billy tried to ride his horse but it shot off into the sandy desert. It took four hours to get

them back to cowboy village.

The next lesson was lassoing. The rope was magical and it lassoed anyone you told it to.

But Billy’s voice must have got muddled up because he ended up lassoing himself!

At night time, Billy couldn’t get to sleep. He longed to go home. Then he had an idea.

Slowly he crept out of bed. Billy wandered over to the door and tried to open it but it was

locked. He almost fainted in shock. At his rate, he would never get home.

As the next day came, Nick showed Billy a poster. On it, it said in big, bold letters COWBOY

CONTEST – THE WINNER GETS TO DO WHATEVER THEY WANT!

Billy smiled – he had a plan. All week he worked as hard as he could until the big event

rolled around. Each cowboy had to ride the bucking metal bull. The winner was the person

who stayed on the longest. Some of the cowboys who tried were very good and some were

rubbish. At last it was Billy’s turn. Carefully he sat on the big red bull and waited for it to

knock him off, but it didn’t move a muscle. Time moved slowly as a few minutes passed but

soon he had won.

“What do you want” asked Nick “you can have anything.”

“I want to” he started, but soon his vision went black. He opened his eyes to find he was on

his bed in his flat.

“You are going to be late for school!” His mother’s voice called. “And it’s your turn to tell a

story at school today”.

Billy found Nick’s magic remote control in his hand and he knew just what to tell the class.

Melanie S (Year 3)

Congratulations to Melanie, who was the Regional winner of the 2016 National Young

Writers award with her story.

Year 4 go to Carroty Wood!

Brave Year 4 have had a fantastic day out at Carroty Wood,

Tonbridge. Here are some photos –

B

Guess What It Is!

2IIIs!2 1

2 3

4 5

6 7

Write what you think these pictures are of &hand in

to the office by Friday 16th September 2016. You

could win a prize. Remember to include your name!

By Eva & Ellen

Meet Thalia!

Gorgeous Thalia belongs to Ellen (Year 4)

Photo Challenge

Summer is a great time to take photos. Shadow photos

work especially well. See if you can make funny shapes

on the ground or walls and photograph them, If you

don’t have a camera, you can always draw a picture of

the shadow.

Here’s an example from Iasac (Year 6) –

Send us your shadow photos, they might even be in a

future issue of the Oakleaf!

Summer Holidays are nearly here!

What are you doing in the summer holidays?

Maybe you’re going on holiday, going to the beach,

staying at home, visiting friends and family, trying new

things, playing, reading, drawing, baking, cycling,

exploring, visiting new places, playing sport or

something totally different.

Whatever it is, we’d love to hear about it, and if you

have some photos too, even better!

We hope you enjoyed our second edition of The

Oakleaf.

Thank you to all our contributors for their wonderful

pictures, stories, poems, articles and competitions.

If you would like to submit your work for our next

issue, please email it to –

schooloffice@sussex-road.kent.sch.uk

or hand it in to the school office.

Thank you and have a great summer!

The Webzine team