Thank you to all the participants for your wonderful instrument playing, handwriting, dances, poetry recitals, pet rocks, artistic creations, songs, creative writing and book mark designs. We were all blown away by how talented you all are. Friday afternoon was a never ending parade of creativity and with a few competitions still to go to the finals the house points are all very close. Keep watching the blog to find out who this year’s winners are…
Eisteddfod – 1st March 2013
An Eisteddfod is a Welsh festival of literature, music and performance. The tradition of this festival of Welsh artists dates back to at least the 12th century.
Whilst we are not in Wales, Charles Dickens Primary School is always very keen to celebrate cultural festivals and this year we are embracing Eisteddfod in all its wonderful Welshness.
Each child has the opportunity to perform a solo dance and a group dance, sing a solo song and sing in their house choir, perform a piece on a musical instrument and recite a given poem. Winners and highly commended entries will all receive special rosettes.
In addition, pupils have been given a series of creative challenges to complete at home which can be entered into the homework competition. The children need to put a fake name – a “ffug enw” (feeg enoo) on their homework. They will tell their classroom assistants their ffug enw but those judging each competition will be unaware to whom each entry belongs.
The preliminary rounds will be on Friday morning on March 1st and only the top 4 in each phase group will perform in each category to the whole school.
The Eisteddfod finals will be held on Friday afternoon and winners will be announced on the blog. Good luck everyone.
Booklets were given Have a look at the booklets below for poems to practice and homework tasks – these were give to children before the half term holiday.
The children need to come in traditional cultural costumes, if they have one. If they don’t have a traditional costume, they can wear school uniform.
Reading Champions Awards Ceremony
On the 11th February we held our first Reading Champions Awards Ceremony. Congratulations to all the Reading Champions who each received a special pin badge that they can now wear with pride! Pupils were given the honour of becoming a Reading Champion if they demonstrated enthusiasm for reading both at school and at home. To become a Reading Champion the pupils needed to read every day and needed to produce a wonderful reading journal. It is a very special award and we are very proud of all of the winners. If you see a Reading Champion, don’t forget to ask them for a book recommendation!
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Reading Champions
Phillip Pullman, Tamara Macfarlane, Christopher Edge, Roald Dahl, Michael Morpurgo and Polly Dunbar are just some of the wonderful authors that we love here at Charles Dickens Primary School. This year we are going to celebrate our love of reading with the launch of Reading champions. Each half term (in KS1 and KS2), two children per class will be chosen as reading champions.
Here are some ideas about how to become a reading champion:
- Read a range of different types of books
- Keep reading journals up to date
- Write book reviews for the class
- Try out new authors
Pupils who become reading champion will be given 15 house points and a smart new badge to wear on their uniforms. Reading champions will be given extra responsibilities in the school to help promote reading and they will be given a book to keep at the end of the year!
Children in Early Years will also have the opportunity to become reading champions, earn house points and gain badges.
Ask your teacher for further tips on good books to read and get reading!!
Switch On to Switching Off
This Thursday between 2-3pm everyone at school will be doing their bit to save energy by ‘Switching Off’ anything electrical.
What can you do at home to save energy?
Enter the Energy Saving pledge (http://www.jointhepod.org/
RSPCA Short Story Competition
The RSPCA are running a great short story competition and we would love the children to get involved!
The rules are that the story must be no more than 500 words long, feature an animal or animals from British wildlife and show kindness towards animals. There are two age categories – 11 years and under and 12 to 16 year-olds and a judging panel will award a gold, silver and bronze for each category and people can also vote for their favourite story online. The competition is open now and closes at midnight on Monday 10 December.
Find out more, including how to enter and vote for your favourite story, by clicking on the link below…
http://www.wildaboutbritain.org.uk/
Looking for inspiration?
http://www.rspca.org.uk/allaboutanimals/wildlife
Good luck!
A Special Olympic Legacy Gift From The Old Mercers’ Company
On Friday, six members of School Council went to Gresham College, a college supported by The Mercers’ Company and The City of London Corporation. We had been invited to accepted a generous prize from the Old Mercer’s Company which we won in their Olympic Legacy Competition. This prize is to pay for equipment for our planned sports pitch in Lant Street. We hope to buy netball hoops, and football nets. We accepted the prize cheque from John Cavanagh
Our School council ate lots of biscuits, and got to wear his gold and silver medals, from Athens and Beijing Olympics. The children were hugely impressed!
On the way back, they watched the firemen putting out a mock fire. All very exciting – hence the photos of the children hanging off the fence!
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House Captain Results!
The speeches have been delivered, the voting completed and the ballot papers counted. Today eight proud members of Year 5 and 6 received their house captain badges to rapturous applause.
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Congratulations to them all and we look forward to seeing how the Red Falcons, Sapphire Unicorns, Emerald Dragons and Golden Lions fare against each other this year!
Talented script writers
Congratulations to our talented team of script writers in Year 6 who were finalists in an exciting competition to write their own Doctor Who mini-adventure starring the Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith. Pupils were asked to collaborate on an Olympics themed script that took the resident Time Lord on a new quest travelling through space and time.
Tags, tries and triumphs!
Congratulations to both Tag-Rugby Teams who made it to the final rounds of the Southwark Tournament which was brilliantly run by Bacons Sports Partnership and Southwark Tigers RFC.
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Following muddy slides, dashing runs, nimble dodges and brilliant tries, Charles Dickens B secured 5th place in the Borough after a play off against Surrey Square B. Charles Dickens A dominated in the quarter finals, then the semis and faced Surrey Square A in a nail biting finals. The match was dubbed the “best rugby of the season” and the “closest match” and ended 11-10 to Surrey Square, placing Charles Dickens in the Silver Medal position. Medals were distributed and the cup presented by representatives from Morgan Stanley Investment Bank.
Well done and thank you to the children, their coaches (Mrs Taylor and Mr MacKinnon) and to all the parents who came and supported and made it a season to remember!