Staffing Changes – Mrs. Donnelly

As you are hopefully aware from my Dojo post, we will be sad to say goodbye to Mrs. Donnelly at the end of term.  Mrs. Donnelly has been a wonderful servant to the Witton community for the last 17 years.  She has taught lots of children and led on a variety of projects and subjects within school, having a tremendous impact on the school’s offer.  I hope you will join me in thanking Mrs. Donnelly for her service and in wishing her the best of luck for the next chapter of her life and career.

Class Three – Year Three and Year Four

This half term on the run up to Christmas, we have taken part in lots of activities outside the classroom. We have been lucky enough to have Mikey into our class who has been teaching us to dance, we attended a gymnastics festival where we learned new skills and even performed a routine to other schools! Furthermore, we got a chance to go swimming; part of our curriculum which we are looking forward to doing weekly after Christmas.

Firstly, in English we have been looking at the book written by Oscar Wilde ‘The Happy Prince’ children have explored how the golden statue oversaw the problems of his city. Class 3 dived into the Victorian era and learned about children in this time which led to them independently writing a diary entry. Miss Ramage set the classroom up to role play rich people in that time and we acted having a succulent feast with lots of laughter.

In science this term, our topic question is ‘How can we be safe around electricity?’ To answer this question, Class 3 left the classroom and identified electrical appliances around the school that could be dangerous and how we can be safe around them. Furthermore, using our scientific skills we completed an electric circuit which shows us how electricity flows. Moreover, in Geography our question we are aiming to answer is ‘Why do we have cities?’ using all the resources available we have looked at urban and rural areas and even megacities! The children are extremely curious to understand the difference types of cities. In RE children have been learning about advent, the children have designed their own advent calendars using the Christian symbols!

Class 3 have been working super hard to learn their lines for our Christmas play, ‘The little fir tree’. We have been practicing loads and we are super excited for our parents to watch us! We also visited the pantomime to watch Cinderella. Looking forwards to the new year, we hope to fit in a trip to support our Science topic and work as hard as we have so far this year!

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a lovely new year!

Class Four – Year Five and Year Six

As we approach the end of our autumn term, a phrase that describes our class is ‘Out of this world!’ Throughout this term, our Year 5 and Year 6 pupils have shown drive, determination, resilience, team work and kindness towards each other, and others around school.

To begin our second half term, we headed to the Locomotion to take part in a range of fantastic STEM activities. From transporting water using a series of gutters to designing and trialling a programme for robots to follow, our class were able to put their problem solving and team work skills to the test – celebrating success and overcoming obstacles.

A huge well done goes to our Year 5 and 6 cyclists, who braved the cold weather to complete their Bikeability training with Durham County Council. They learned all about road safety and how to be safe whilst out on their bikes on the roads.

We took the amazing opportunity to be involved in the Crook Winter Light Parade organised through Jack Drum Arts. This involved a 2-week workshop to create winter lanterns with artist, Morwena, then 15 members of our class joined the parade on 24th November and proudly danced, sang and carried the light sculptures on the parade in front of a huge crowd.

In science, our space topic has really captured us as we have learned about the planets in our solar system, original theories about our solar system, the reasons we have night and day, as well as seasons, and the phases of the moon. To top it off, we made a trip to Grassholme Observatory where we explored their telescopes and we looked at meteorites too.

All in all, an unforgettable term!