A Viking Adventure!

Children from year 4 enjoyed an unforgettable school trip this week to the Ancient Technology Centre in Dorset to experience life as a viking! The children took part in a range of immersive educational activities including grinding flour and making bread, picking vegetables and chopping them into a stew, and making their own cheese and butter. And that was just in the morning! In the afternoon children made bricks from chalk, chopped wood, tended the vegetable garden and played viking games. The children lived and slept in a viking long house, enjoyed stories and songs around the fire and thoroughly enjoyed themselves from start to finish. The children will return to school next week full of inspiration and knowledge. Thank you to the children for behaving so well and to the adults who volunteered their time to make the trip possible.

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Eisteddfod 2018 – a celebration of culture and the arts!

Yesterday the whole school enjoyed a joyful celebration of culture and the arts, the annual Eisteddfod. A traditional Welsh talent contest, Eisteddfod has been embraced by Charles Dickens Primary School as a showcase for the many talents of the children and a celebration of diversity, achievement, and simply taking part. Competitions were held throughout the day including poetry, dance, singing, musical performances and so much more. Every child in the school came away entertained, and whilst not every child could win, those that took part left feeling proud of their achievements. It was truly a special day and a big thank you must go to all the staff involved, but an even bigger thank you to children who made it so wonderful!

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Eisteddfod 2016

The Eisteddfod was our biggest highlight of the week and the level of enthusiasm and talent was higher than ever. So many children had made an effort to enter one of the many competitions and every entry was celebrated and judging was very difficult. Well done also to everyone who dressed up in either traditional clothes or the colours of their heritage or country.

Perhaps what was most exciting about this year is that we had a whole host of new winners who had either never entered or never won a rosette before. Congratulations to everyone who entered and thank you to the parents who supported and encouraged them. All these events take time for the children but also time and resources from parents so we are very grateful.

Thank you to Ms Alcock and all the staff who have supported her in making Eisteddfod happen again this year!

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Some, but not all of the performances included:

Dance In KS2, placed first was Tyrell (Yr 6) who performed a polished body popping routine with a back flip. Megan and Heba (Yr 5) performed a beautiful contemporary piece, complete with balances and characterisation. We also enjoyed contemporary dances from a range of female duos and groups plus an excellent and certainly brave interpretation of Thriller by Rowan (Yr3)

Recitation: The standard here was exceptionally high and everyone enjoyed the wonderful acting and interpretations of the poems set. Placed first in KS2 were Giulia (Yr 6)and Lina in (Yr 3) for combining excellent diction and characterisation. In KS1, Nina (Yr1) was placed first for her strong clear and characterful interpretation of ‘Cats Sleep Anywhere’.

Instrument performance: An excellent range of instruments were played and all the children played with confidence and without errors. Well done! Placed first were Henry (Yr 6) for Year 5/6 for his uplifting rendition of Nina Simone’s ‘How it feels to be free’ and Fabienne (yr 3) for her piano piece which was praised for its complexity and her musicality. In KS1, Rico was placed first for his confident piano playing which again impressed everyone with its level of challenge for a year 2 child.

Singing: Placed first In Year 5/6 was Jane for her clarity and excellent accent singing in French which is not her first or second language. In Year 3/4 Jamila was placed first for composing and performing her own song about changing the world! Well done Jamila. In Year 1/2 Daisy was placed first for her beautiful singing of “I dreamed a dream’ from Les Miserables.

Art, Handwriting and Story writing: There so many winners and every entry was excellent! All the winning entries and their creators are on the school blog. We hope to have an exhibition of the entries early in the summer term. The ‘art through technology’ presented the highest quality of all the competitions. Mrs Jenkins and the art team had an extremely hard time choosing any winners. If your child did enter this competition, well done to them! The videos are now on the school blog.

Art Through Technology “Video” – Eisteddfod 2016

Every entry into this category was excellent so we thought we would share them all! Well done everyone.

The theme was change! The creators of each film all entered under a ‘fake name’ to make judging fair so we have some very ‘creative’ names as well. They are all unlisted on youtube which means that you will only be able to access them via these links here and they are non searchable via you tube. If you do not want to share your video, please let the office know.

Here is the first Entry by Special Junior in Year 6.

This next one is a stop motion film by The Professor in Year 1.

Next up is a video by Darf flappy Bird A3 Paper! The film is called ‘Time Travel’. It has been created using models, illustrations and music ( both on the recorder and beat boxing).

Another contribution from Year 6. This one is by ‘The Creator’ and is called ‘The Adventure of Changing’.It is a very special film about a little boy growing up through a series of family photographs.

From year 5 and ‘Tom Drummond’, ‘Changes’ with a David Bowie soundtrack and lots of fun lego animation. We loved the space scene and the use of lego throughout.

Another Year 6 entry. Well done to ‘Thechosenone’ for some excellent programming skills for this animation. Mr Bakas would be very proud.

Year 4 was well represented by this excellent entry from ‘Help,I can’t think of a name!”. We imagine thats because all their creative energy went into the making of this short film which tells of the evolution of man.

What was your highlight of Science week?

Our thanks goes out to Mr Oxenham for arranging and leading a truly inspirational Science week!

One of the highlights was the talented Anna and her “Street Science Show”. The children saw some amazing tricks and learnt about the science behind them.

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A personal favourite was seeing Miss Carver pull a table cloth from a table without removing any of the teapots or plates from the table first. (Don’t try that at home!)

Coding in Little Dorrit and Gargery

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This week, I was amazed to see expert coding taking place in the reception classes. All of the children were taught how to use codes in order to animate a character of their choice. The children confidently used codes to make the character move up, down, do turns and even speak!

Well done Little Dorrit and Gargery and I can’t wait to see what you achieve next week.

What an amazing STEM week so far!

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This week has been science week and we have had so much fun! Key Stage Two have been visited by inspirational scientists and taken part in hands-on science workshops.
Key Stage One have all visited “Tower Bridge Experience” to learn about the amazing engineers who helped create a bridge with lifting bascules. This was an amazing challenge at the time.
All classes have taken part in an hour of code, where they learnt about the importance of coding computers. Did you know that without computer programmers we wouldn’t have modern airlines, spaceships and so many other things that we take for granted?
I have just witnessed Early Years being treated to a special “Street Science Show” where the children were able to witness, and take part in, scientific experiments which they could try at home.
I can’t wait to see what else lies in store for us as we enter the final day of our Spectacular Science week!

Big Schools’ Birdwatch!

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On Tuesday, Year Six were fortunate enough to be visited by Don Fuller, the South East Region officer from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. He helped us to take part in this years’ Big Schools’ Birdwatch, which helps the RSPB to track the number of different bird species found across Britain. Don introduced the Year Six children to some of the birds that they might be likely to see in the local area. He then took us on a walk through the eco-garden and to Mint Street. Although we didn’t spot an enormous amount of birds, we were able to record plenty of Feral and Wood pigeons; some long tailed tits; blackbirds; great tits; blue tits; magpies and a crow. The data will be inputted into the national survey log and we’re looking forward to seeing how our efforts compare with those of other birdwatchers across the country!

The Mad Hatter’s Reading Day!

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We had a wonderful day on Friday 26th September when we celebrated our love of books with a Mad Hatter’s Reading Party.  Well done to all the children who came in a brilliant selection of costumes including characters from Alice in Wonderland.  We started the day with a book quiz and one of our favourite songs all about reading!  After lunch we then had our Mad Hatter’s reading parties!  The children all brought their favourite book to the tea party and enjoyed drinks and biscuits while they shared their books with their friends.  Each class also received a special gift of a selection of brand new exciting books.  These are our ‘Books of the Moment’ and the children have been very excited to get their hands on them!  If you have any questions about your child’s reading please see your child’s class teacher who can give you advice.