Creative Curriculum Teaching Staff Survey

To gather the views of the teaching staff on the Creative Curriculum, please complete the following two surveys.
Multiple choice survey
Click here to take survey
Comments survey
Click here to take survey

To gather the views of the teaching staff on the Creative Curriculum, please complete the following two surveys.
Multiple choice survey
Click here to take survey
Comments survey
Click here to take survey

To gather your views on the Creative Curriculum please complete this survey.
Last week, the children at Wardley Primary School welcomed an Expo Chef. This was a very exciting event in school, where children were given the opportunity to learn about healthy eating. They even got the chance to prepare some delicious recipes by assisting our Expo Chef. Culinary creations included: homemade burgers, vegetable stew, salad and fruit smoothies. At the end of the session, the children were handed recipe booklets so that they could try out any of the delicious recipes at home. Miss Shields even tried out the vegetable stew in Healthy Eating club last week. We were delighted to hold the event in school because it encouraged children to try new dishes and to consider healthy choices when eating lunches at school or food at home.
Last Thursday was a very exciting day in Years 3 and 4. We had a visitor from the Grace Darling Museum in Bamburgh. She came prepared with props and costumes that the children used to act out Grace's famous rescue mission. Curtis Mole was the captain of the Forfarshire and Bethany Wright was Grace Darling. Our topic this half term is Wild Weather and we hoped that this activity would help us to understand how people reacted to stormy weather conditions in the past. The children thoroughly enjoyed the session and they are looking forward to more visits and trips next half term to enrich our creative curriculum.
Thursday 4th March was World Book Day. The children had lots of fun participating in various activities in and out of school. The day started with the children arriving at school dressed as story characters from well known children's authors. Prizes were awarded to the best costumes in Foundation Stage, KS1 and KS2. Throughout the day, children were involved in book related activities. They had to design a new front cover for a brand new children's book and write a blurb. The winners were: Emma Dickson in Year 2, Casey Bencito in Year 4 and Rhys Prudhoe in Year 5. Activities were also organised out of school. For Years 1 and 2 this involved a trip to Waterstones where they used their £1 vouchers to purchase new books. Year 3 visited the fabulous St Mary's Heritage Centre where they were made puppets to retell Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox. Year 4 went on a Beast Quest mission to Pelaw Library where they had lots of fun.
Joan Lennon, author of The Ferret Princess and Wag and the King, visited our school last Thursday. Throughout the day, Joan conducted workshops with years 3,4 and 5 in the school library. She promoted her new book: The Mucker's Tale, which is due to be published in the new year. It was an amazing event which has encouraged and inspired children in KS2 to read more of her books. Read on to find out how much fun we had!
Continue reading "Joan Lennon and her Furry Ferrets Visit Wardley" »
Year 3/4 went on an exciting adventure to explore the world of micro organisms at the Centre for Life in Newcastle. We investigated the micro organisms on our hands. This involved placing a sample on agar jelly and waiting to see what micro organisms grew. Lizzie from the Science Lab e-mailed our results the following week. This is what they looked like:

In class, we have also been conducting our own micro organism investigations. We used a special gel to find out how many micro organisms were present on our hands, even after we had washed them!
This demonstrated the importance of washing hands properly, using a good hand washing technique. This is extremely important to stop the spread of Swine Flu.
We all had a fabulous time and can't wait to do more science experiments!
Year 3/4 visited the Metro Arena on the 9th of July this year as an exit point for our fantastic Dinosaur Dynamos topic. We were amazed to see life sized robotic models of the creatures from the distant past brought to life with the magic of modern technology.

Everyone enjoyed the show and was not in the least bit scared of the terrible lizards, honest! Everyone cheered even when T-rex came onto the stage and roared at the crowd but she was frightened when Wardley roared back!
A team from Year 3 represented Wardley at the Year 3 Gateshead Schools Tennis Finals at Gateshead Stadium. Having qualified from finishing second at the cluster schools event, the children finished 5th overall. The children played very well and their behaviour was a credit to the school. Casey Bencito was the star performer, winning three out of four of her matches.
On the Friday before the Easter break, Mr Malik held an assembly to give out the prizes for our annual egg decorating competition. There was a winner and runner up for each year group and Mr Malik explained that it was eggtremely hard to choose the winners. "It was very clear that all of the children had tried their very best and this year the eggs were very creative and imaginative." he said.
On the 27th March, Barbara Wood, a librarian from Dryden came to Wardley Primary School to visit the children in year 3/4. The purpose of the visit was to enagage the children and to develop their love of reading. The children had hundreds of books to choose from and they were encouraged to browse and consider carefully which one they would like to borrow. The children chatted about thier favourite authors, characters and what they look for when choosing a book. Since the visit the children have enjoyed sharing and reading the books in the reading corner.
The children in year 3/4 have been working on a topic entitled Ready, Steady, Cook! The aim of this topic has been to investigate foods that contribute to a healthy diet. In February we started the topic with a pancake competition between the teachers in year 3/4 and to end our topic we invited parents and carers to come along to a workshop. The workshop aimed to show the parents and carers what the children had learned throughout the half term. Activities included: locating where different foods come from on a map of the world, evaluating packaging that the children had created, investigating healthy and unhealthy packed lunches, sorting food into food groups, making smoothies and creating a healthy sandwich. So that the ingredients were fully prepared, the day before the workshop, the children sliced, grated and chopped salad ingredients such as cucumber, carrots, tomatoes and lettuce.
On Wednesday 4th March, Year Three children went on a Maths quest to the Discovery Museum! They had to defeat the Phantom Claw...
On Thursday 18th December Y34 had their Christmas party. It started with dancing, followed by a few games and then party food. The children behaved wonderfully and everyone enjoyed themselves. It just went too quickly!!!
The teachers would like to say a huge thank you to all the grown ups who provided food; your generosity was very much appreciated by all the phase. Merry Christmas everyone!!!
To see more evidence of the fun that was had, check out the gallery!
The children helped plan and perform a production of a different kind this year. We used the focus of our half term learning: 'Murder Down the Mine' as inspiration and created a play that reflected the importance of community spirit that was so strong in the 1900's mining community but is also applicable within this phase. The children developed their acting and singing skills as well as how to chant effectively. They choregraphed their chant and some stars, like Jake Robson, even added actions to the traditional carols.
The teaching staff were very impressed with their hard work and effort. To see more pictures click on the Gallery.
As part of our topic work about mines, we have been learning all about different types of rocks. In 3/4C, Mrs Dixon set us the challenge of using the properties of rocks that we have discovered to persuade the customer to buy a certain rock.
Oliver Barnett, from Friends Forever team produced the most persuasive letter about pumice.
William Crone, a guest for the afternoon, was selected by Cool Cidds for his letter on slate.
Jordan Evans, from Brainy team, wrote the best letter about marble.
Super Stars choice was Bethany Kendall's letter about chalk.
We have been learning how to half and quarter different numbers mentally as part of our Maths work. As we have become so good at this, Mrs Dixon set us a challenge.
This is how one group quartered each ingredient; they halved the amount and then halved it again
In September, the Year 3/4 teaching team put on a catwalk show of different fashions from across time periods, as well as different cultures, as a fun and exciting way to introduce our half term topic, named Catwalk Kids, that would enhance the teaching of the Foundation subjects through the theme of clothing.
The children gained an insight into materials used and the reasoning behind this as well as how cultures influence patterns and designs.
They created their own fashion magazine proformas using Microsoft Powerpoint based around observations made.
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Every week we have a 40 minute fitness session where we aim to complete 7 circuit activities. The aim is to work our bodies to the limit with rest periods slotted between each activity. As our fitness is improving, these are getting shorter but we still have time to rehydrate ourselves and measure our heart rate. After only 7 weeks, we are becoming fitter and more agile and we intend to keep improving next half term too!
Ian, a tennis coach, has come into school and has provided us with 6 weeks of highly skilled coaching. We have done a range of basic skills which have taught us how to control a ball with more confidence.


The Ian showed us how to use the ball with our racket to get used to holding it correctly.

As part of our Science learning this half term, we have been learning about different habitats. Mr Scott challenged the whole phase to choose a species and create an informative piece of writing on it.
We were also lucky to have a visitor, Rebecca, from the Hancock Museum who brought stuffed animals for us to examine to see how they are suited to their habitats to inspire the children even more.
