Spring Term News
School Sports
Netball coaching
We have welcomed Fiona Greatorex into school during the past term to work with our school netball club. She has helped to develop our pupils’ skills and determination, and has helped to develop our team in preparation for the netball competition in June.
Featherstone Rovers
We have continued our health and sports project with Featherstone Rovers, with further rugby coaching and a focus on health and well being. The big focus for this term has been on small things we can do to keep fit, such as walking to school.
Rugby Coaching
We have also welcomed rugby coaches from Wakefield Wildcats and Castleford Tigers to work with our KS2 pupils this term. In particular we are preparing our Y6 team to take part in the rugby festival to be held at Belle Vue stadium later in May.
Y3&4 pupils took part in football competitions at Freeston Business and Enterprise College during the past term. We are particularly proud of our girls’ team that won both competitions!
Community Visitors and Events
West Yorkshire Fire Service
Our Year 5 pupils were visited by some on Normanton’s fire fighters to talk about fire safety. They learnt how quickly a fire may spread through a home, and about the need for each house to have a fire escape plan and good working smoke detectors.
Normanton PCSO’s and Wakefield Magistrates
Y5 & 6 pupils took part in an innovative project to understand the consequences of anti social behaviour. On the first week, PCSO’s discussed the sorts of choices that could be made on the street, and what the consequences may be like. The following week the Magistrates team discussed what may happen at a magistrates court, and organised mock courtrooms in the class where pupils took the magistrates role and made decisions using evidence presented. Both of these events encouraged our pupils to think about the choices they may be faced with and how they may act. The adults who worked with the pupils praised the high levels of thoughts and work the pupils produced – they were very impressed.
Curriculum Enhancements
Personalised Learning Weeks
Our Y3&4 pupils have worked in 2 different personalisation weeks during the past term. After negotiating their own learning targets the pupils also negotiated their timetables for the week, identifying which English and Maths lessons would best suit their needs, as well as working with our creative partners. In the first week pupils made films based on the lives of ordinary people during the Tudor ages. In the second week pupils cooperated in large sculptures based on an Aztec theme. Our work as an Enquiry School in the Creative Partnership Project (CPP) has been very successful, with examples of our work celebrated in the regional CCP newsletter. We plan to continue this work during the next academic year.
As part of our thematic curriculum, all pupils have had exciting events to launch and enrich their termly topic themes. Year 5&6 pupils have had archaeologists in school with examples or real Roman artefacts; Year 1&2 pupils had a spring day with a visit from Vincent Van Gogh! Year 3&4 pupils have had a number of video conferences with the National Portrait Gallery to help bring to life characters from Tudor times.