We are extremely proud to announce that the school has achieved the Artsmark Silver award for our high level of provision to the arts. By gaining the Artsmark Silver award, the school has shown it's commitment to the wider development of pupils and teachers and to raising the profile of it's arts provision both within the school and the local community.

The arts cover the four artforms of art, drama, dance and music. Over the last couple of years, we have been developing and increasing the provision we offer to the children through organising a range of activities to enrich and broaden the curriculum, such as visits to arts organisations, artists coming in to school, various competitions, and events within school.

The awards ceremony was held at the Northern Stage in Newcastle and it was a fun filled event, with music and dance performances from various schools around the North East. Heather Seymour and Adam McIntyre accompanied Miss Gillie and Mr Malik to collect the award and to celebrate the achievement.

Thank you to all of the staff and pupils at Wardley for their hard work and dedication to the arts.

Posted by L.Gillie at 05:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

During our Be Healthy week, Stephen Turnbell, a professional footballer from Hartlepool United, came into Year One and Two to discuss with the children the importance of a healthy diet and doing plenty of exercise. He also delivered some coaching, wowed the children and staff with his tricks and skills, and refereed some 7 a side matches. The children had a great afternoon and discovered how much hard work and dedication it takes to be an elite athlete.

Posted by B.Evans at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two members of the local firefighters and their fire engine visited Year 1 and 2 for their annual fire safety talk. The children watched a video about the importance of not playing with matches. The children then had the opportunity to try on a firefighter's uniform and the see what different equipment a fire engine has on board. Some extremely lucky children had the opportunity to ride in the fire engine. The safety session ended with the children having a turn on the hose.

Posted by B.Evans at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The staff and children have taken part in an exciting festive project to design and make their own professionally finished Christmas card. Each year group has chosen a different theme, designed their work and then sent it away to be professionally made. Along with their design on the front, the card also featured each child's full name and school name on the back. The school has made a small sum of money from this project which will be spent on further developing the arts provision within school.

Posted by L.Gillie at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the 5th December 2007, Mr Gillipmen visited Year One and Two to tell the story of the Jewish Festival of Hanukah. He brought in a Menorah and explained its importance in the Hanukah story. The children enjoyed hearing about how the Jews battled against the Syrians to claim back the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. The Year One and Two children played a Jewish game called Dreidel, which originated from the time of the Syrian occupation. Jewish parents used it as away of secretly teaching their children about G_d.

The Menorah

Mr Gillipmen tells the story of Hanukah.

Posted by B.Evans at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Key Stage One and Foundation Stage children have enjoyed a fantastic arts themed week based around the continent of Africa.

The week was planned and designed in order to enable the children to gain an insight into different cultures and customs of the African people. The children learned about the geography of the continent, foods, animals, clothing and jewellery, music, singing and dance, as well as the different forms of African artwork.

Read on to find out more about our visiting artists for the week, see more photos and find out more about the types of activities that took place.

Continue reading "African Arts Week- A Huge Success!" »

Posted by L.Gillie at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wardley Primary School has been working in partnership with Heworth Grange Comprehensive School Arts College staff to develop the skills of some of our pupils here at Wardley.

Mrs Park, the art teacher at Heworth, came in one morning per week for six weeks, to work with our gifted and talented artists from Nursery to Year Six. The children looked at and discussed artwork by Henri Matisse, as a stimulus. The children did still life sketches, painted; sponge printed and did collages of various fruit and vegetables, for a Healthy Eating Display now situated in the dining hall.

Mrs Park also worked with all of the Year Two pupils in order to support the children with their transition from the Infants to the Juniors, by producing artwork to be displayed in the Junior Hall. The children looked at multicultural art and used aboriginal style techniques to re-create a map of Wardley.

Thank you to the children and to Mrs Park for their hard work producing the wonderful displays.

Posted by L.Gillie at 04:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Several visits to Laing Art Gallery have been organised throughout this year. Year 1/2, 3/4 and 5 have all been on visits to Laing Art Gallery to develop their artistic skills.

Year 1/2 and 3/4 have been to see an exhibition called Work, Rest and Play at the gallery. The exhibition has a series of artworks by famous artists on the theme of Work, Rest and Play. This visit involved the children looking at and analysing the works of art, hearing stories from a storyteller, developing collage techniques and making props and using them in drama performances.

Year 1/2 photos below:

Year 3/4 photos below:

Year 5 worked on The Bard Take One Picture project in January(further details of which are posted on this website in the Year 5 section).

Everyone had a fantastic time and more visits will be planned for next academic year.

Posted by L.Gillie at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mr Shackleton and Mr Evans have tried to bring a bit of Brazil to Wardley. A small selection of children from Year Two up to Year Six have been fine tuning their soccer skills with a Brazilian game called Futebol de Salão.

Futebol de Salão is a 5-a-side version of football of South American origin that is played with a smaller (size 2), heavier (465g) ball that has virtually no bounce (10%). The game became very popular in Brazil where players such as Pele, Rivelino, Zico right through to Juninho, Ronaldo and Rivaldo were brought up first playing Futebol de Salão before moving on to conventional football.

Each week, the children have used Heworth Comprehensive School’s facilities. They have been learning new tricks to help them get the ball into the air and to beat players. The children have made masses of progress over the summer term and it is hoped the club shall continue next year. To celebrate the end of the club's first year, a presentation ceremony took place. The children were awarded certificates depending on how many moves and tricks they had acquired of the course of the club.

Here are a few pictures of some of the Gold certificate winners, who could demonstrate all the tricks they had gained whilst at the club.

Posted by B.Evans at 08:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The annual Key Stage One Wardley Sports Day was held on Wednesday 11th July 2007. A fantastic time was had by the children, parents and all staff. There were seven different races: Running, Skipping, Hopping, Jumping, Quoits Balance, Bean Bag Balance and Through the hoop. After the seven competitive races, the Red team came out winners. It was an extremely close competition with the Red team only taking the lead with two races to go. The children were all very enthusiastic and brilliantly behaved.
1. Red 28 points
2. Yellow 23 points
3. Green 22 points
4. Blue 11 points

Red team captain presented with the trophy by Mr Malik.

Once the team event had finished, we held races for the fastest boy and girl runners in each year group.

Winner of girl year one race: Casey Bencito
Winner of boy year one race: Oliver Barnett
Winner of girl year two race: Rachel Bushell
Winner of boy year two race: Drew Hodgson

Posted by B.Evans at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In early July, the Year One and Two classes carried out a presentation of their fruit and vegetables topic. The aim of the presentation was to show to the parents how fruit and vegetables are an important part of a balanced diet and how fruit and vegetables can be great fun. The children sang a healthy eating song and then acted out a drama based on characters from a balanced diet, for example, Terri Tomato and Barry Burger. The children then took on the roles of teachers and led the parents through a series of activities. These included:
*Sorting packed lunch items into healthy and unhealthy.
*Creating a fruit salad that appeals to children.
*Creating a piece of fruit and vegetable art.
*Blind folded exotic fruit tasting.

This a piece of vegetable art work created by one of the parents.

This is one of the parent's designs for a fruit salad that would be appealling to a young child.

One of the children with their mum showing off their art work.

Two children checking whether the parents have sorted the healthy and unhealthy together.

Posted by B.Evans at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Year 1/2 went on an educational visit to South Shields Beach. Despite the terrible weather conditions, we had a wonderful day learning all about this famous north east holiday resort. The children were set with the task of writing an information sheet for a tourist who had not visited South Shields. The trip enabled all the children to gather information and knowledge of the seaside.

Continue reading "Year One and Two Visit South Shields Beach" »

Posted by B.Evans at 04:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The whole of Year 2 travelled up to Heworth Comprehensive School to attend a multi skills sporting festival. The festival comprised of the children using their running, jumping, catching, kicking, throwing and balancing skills. All the children were very excited as it was the first time they had all represented the school in a competitive event. The Wardley children were split into four teams and competed with eight other teams from Whitemere, Bill Quay and Lingey House. Out of the twelve teams, we finished 2nd, 4th, 8th and 12th. The children throughly enjoyed the event and their behaviour was a credit to the school. With the event being such a success, it will hopefully become a permament addition to the sporting calender.

Posted by B.Evans at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Year One and Two have been learning all about the Easter story. Throughout the week, the children developed a greater understanding of the events that occurred in the last week leading up to Jesus’ death and resurrection. The focus was predominately on role-play and drama.

We began the week by re-enacting Palm Sunday. Each of the children made a giant palm leaf and waved them as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey.

As Jesus rode in, we sang ‘We have a King who rides a Donkey.’

The following day, we studied the events of the last supper. We broke and shared the bread and wine (blackcurrant juice) and washed each other’s feet, just as Jesus’ did with his disciples.

Finally, we read the final part of the Easter story and discussed the symbols that remind us of Easter. This led us to produce an Easter card using either religious or non-religious symbols.

All the children visited Priory Court to give the elderly residents the card that they had made. This helped the children understand that Easter is a time of celebration for Christians in the wider community.

Posted by B.Evans at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To coincide with the Easter celebrations at Wardley, we ran a whole school competition for the second year running. Every child in the school took part in the competition, which involved the design and decoration of a hard boiled egg.
The children were encouraged to use their own creativity and imagination when designing and making their egg and we had a wide selection of ideas. These included: animals, cartoon characters, birds, insects and people.
Also back by popular demand was a staff egg competition: Miss Gardner’s Grouch won, followed by Mr Shackleton and Mr Arthur’s joint chicken and egg design.
There was a 1st place and two runner up prizes per year group, which was a delicious chocolate egg-Mmm!
Well done to everyone at Wardley Primary for taking part!

Posted by L.Gillie at 04:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Northumbria in Bloom
Children’s Painting Competition

Gateshead Council is once again hosting the above competition. Year's One, three and four took part this year. Year One could paint a flower from any chosen month and we chose to paint pansies, which flower in July. Year's three and four were restricted to the months of March, July or November.

The children painted Poppies to coincide with November Remembrance Day and also Cornflowers, which flower in July. Judging will take place at Saltwell Park on Saturday 17th March 2007 at 11am. The winning entries will feature in the next Northumbria in Bloom Calendar.

Good luck to those pupils who entered!

Posted by L.Gillie at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rhys Prudhoe, aged 7, has finished as a runner up in the Gateshead Indoor Market Christmas Art Competition. Rhys designed a penguin Christmas picture at Mrs Atkinson’s Art and Design Club. The presentation of the prizes were held at Gateshead indoor market on Saturday 2nd December 2006. Alan Robson of Metro FM, presented the awards. A good day was had by all. Rhys and his Dad were very enthusiastic in joining in with the entertainment. This led to many CDs being won for guessing the correct song and TV programme. Much to Miss Gillie’s delight, she won a chocolate advent calendar. (She insists she later passed this onto Rhys!)

Well done to Rhys. We at Wardley hope he continues to work on many more creative projects in the future.

Posted by B.Evans at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Parent and Child Competition:
Can you and your child match the child’s name to their self-portrait?

To enter the competition, click on the download file link and send your answers to school via the comments hyperlink.

If you are the winner of the competition, you will win the original copy of your child’s self-portrait, signed and framed.

Closing date: Noon on December 15th 2006.

Good Luck!

Continue reading "Self-Portraits Competition" »

Posted by B.Evans at 04:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Year One and Two pupils have worked on their observational and interpretational skills to create realistic self-portraits.

Continue reading "Key Stage One - Self-Portraits" »

Posted by B.Evans at 04:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On Thursday 19th November pupils in Year One to Six took part in a Tennis Fun Day. Local coach, Jonathan Newton, worked with each class teaching a range of basic tennis skills. The focus of the session was to develop the pupils’ racket skills while promoting fun and enjoyment through a range of games. Jonathan is continuing to work closely with the school by providing weekly tennis lessons with pupils throughout Key Stage 2.

Should your child be interested in attending local tennis clubs please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Riches for telephone numbers of local coaches.

Posted by E.Riches at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)