This week in TB - WC 27/11/23

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...she's been a chilly one!  We had the first ice of the year on the pond, so the ice-hammers came out and we had a smashing time!

Lower School have had a cave-tastic time in TB this week - the tunnel was transformed into a petrifying cavern, complete with stone-effect walls, pre-historic cave paintings and haunting sound effects.  By candle-light, the children had to enter this chasm, navigate their way to a clear-spot on the cave wall and undertake their own stone-age-themed art-work using the horse-hair paint-brush they crafted last week - all we had for light was a dim, flickering candle.  

Before entering the cave, we discussed archeological research on why and how stone-age people produced the wonderful cave paintings that they did.  Following the experience, we shared our thoughts and feelings on undertaking art in such an environment: 'Tricky as my candle went out - I wonder what stone age people would have done if their candle went out'; 'scary - I didn't like the noises'; 'hard to hold the candle and paint at the same time'; 'I lost my charcoal and couldn't find it'; 'it was quite cramped'; 'my arm ached as I'm not used to painting on a wall'; 'it was calming - I could stay down here all day'; 'the shadows made it hard to see the work clearly'.    

While children were waiting for their turn down in the cave, they added more clay to the walls of the round house (interesting how the frost has affected the walls here) or started to make their very own stone age axe (we found a hoard of axe heads in a leather sack in the bottom of Stig's grave and decided to use them).  

Upper School children either started their session making a Belski-inspired camouflaged-shelter or by visiting the frozen pond. 

Following this, they undertook three challenges: construct a lantern inspired by the Jewish celebration, Hanukkah; make the board game 'Nine Men's Morris', as mentioned in the Jewish holy book, The Talmud; craft a Christmas Snowman! 

A step back into the Stone Age...

The children of Lower School have been studying the Stone Age.  As part of this fascinating topic, we visited Creswell Crags yesterday.  Highlights of the day included visiting a cave that had been inhabited by both Humans and Hyena during the Ice Age!  They also had a go at den building and throwing spears to catch bison. In the classroom, the children learned to sort different types of rock in conjunction with our current science topic.  It was a brilliant day out and you can click on the picture below to view a gallery of the day.

RAF Cosford

The children of Upper School have been studying WWII over the past few weeks and, yesterday, visited RAF Cosford near Telford. The trip was a brilliant experience for the children who got to see, firsthand, some of the most famous planes to have ever been built from across both world wars and into the modern era too. They were also able to get a better understanding of how the end of World War II impacted the world in the amazing Cold War exhibit. What a brilliant day!  

Click on the image above for some more pictures from the day!

Achievement Assembly Winners

I am always incredibly proud of the boys and girls at school and today was no exception as the effort, hard work and positivity has been truly exceptional again this week.

Writing has been a focus throughout the week and children across all year groups have produced work of the highest quality in terms of content and presentation.

Today, numerous children received YOU22 certificates, English Star Awards and Headteacher Award Certificates to round off another successful week.

Dave Wiiilams from Smalley Dr

Dave Williams from Smalley Drum School delivered this morning's assembly, performing for the children and demonstrating the different drums within his kit.

Dave teaches lessons in school each week so if you are interested in your child learning to play the drums, please speak to the school office.

This Week in TB - WC 20/11/23

Phew...we've had a much calmer week in TB this week and we really needed it after recent shenanigans!

Stig has been seen mooching round the wood and he has been out hunting and gathering - he is, apparently, quite partial to a roasted squirrel!

Lower School children started sessions by recreating the book Leaf-Man, before retelling the story as a group - they were Creative and Precise with pictures and Confident when reading their lines.  

Following this, some made paint brushes while others constructed representations of famous Stone-Age monuments locate in the UK (they researched information about these and had to place them accurately on a map).  A final few finished the willow weaving on the round house before starting to apply a clay paste to the walls - Wattle and Daub-tastic (huge thanks to Mr Rogers for the trailer full of clay).  

Upper School children undertook an orienteering course which featured pictures from the Holocaust as the controls - in pairs, they had to study each picture and interpret / answer questions about them: what does the picture show?; how does the picture make you feel?; what would you like to ask the people in the pictures?...  

Following this, teams joined together and shared their ideas - the focus here was discussion and finding different interpretations of the same picture.  

After hot chocky and a story, groups did their final carousel around the survival challenge, latke cooking and the Star of David investigation.  

AVSSP Basketball Competition

Well done to the Kilburn Junior School Basketball Team who represented the school brilliantly in last night's AVSSP Tournament at Belper Leisure Centre by showing incredible skill and teamwork.

Achievement Assembly Winners

Congratulations to today's Achievement Assembly Winners, recognised by their teachers for their hard work and effort throughout the week, particularly on Mathematics.

Fractions are a pizza cake!

Earlier this week, Team Endeavour started a new Maths topic looking at fractions. To begin with, the class were asked to recall their prior learning from previous years and to demonstrate this by cutting pizzas into various fractions and to compare their slices to identify equivalent fractions too. Of course, they were able to eat their work at the end of the lesson! Click on the photo below to see how the morning went...

This week in TB - WC 13/11/23

Things got way crazy in TB this week...I mean...things have been crazy before, but this...well...let's just say it reached a new level...

So...Lower School children entered the wood to find Garry running round like a loon, shield and sword in hand.  He was like a mad man...going crazy...lashing out at anything that moved; turned out he'd been attacked by a goblin-scout (Ziggy)!

As we calmed Garry down, we saw the goblin in the corner of the wood, and, as we gave chase, he dropped an orange document - the document was a secret message to Zamadeth stating that the lost Goblin Resurrection Scroll (GRS) had been located and that the goblins intended to use this to resurrect the Stone-Age man whom they would then use to attack the munchkins!

What were we to do?  We considered hiding the Stone-Age man's skeleton but feared the goblins would be able to sniff it out...then...a brave child suggested that WE undertake the resurrection and use the Stone-Age man to defeat the goblins!

So...that's what we did...and we now have ourselves a genuine, bona-fide Stone Age man named Stig Du Dump living in the wood, protecting the munchkins!  Craziness!

While we were preparing for the ritual, we had a bit of time to spare so a few children made paint brushes or cracked on with the round-house (which will now become Stig's official residence).  

Upper School explored the book Leaf-Man - children took individual pages and then replicated the pictures with leaves on carpet tiles.  We finished by re-telling the whole story as a group.  

Following this, we carouselled round the three activities from last week: Latke cooking (now evolved to include a cheese filling), the survival challenge and exploration of the Star of David.