The choir was invited to take part in a very special memorial service at Bondgate Church on behalf of the cooperative funeral service. This was a beautiful service and the choir performed two songs whilst the congregation wrote messages of remembrance for their loved ones and lit candles. Children were praised for their performance, behaviour and attitude throughout the event and the staff could not be prouder of how they represented our school. See below for some of the positive comments they received:
"The choir made the service for me." "The service was lovely as always but having the children's choir made a big difference." "I'm a governor at Reid Street, it was great to see the children here." "We only came out in the cold because we knew Reid Street Choir was going to be here." "We live near the school, we went to Reid Street, our kids went to Reid Street and the choir just made the night for us." "The children's choir was a lovely touch, they made it so Christmassy and made me feel emotional." "Thank you Julie Guest and the lovely kids from Reid Street School, it was a wonderful night." A huge well done to the choir! The choir was invited to take part in a very special memorial service at Bondgate Church on behalf of the cooperative funeral service. This was a beautiful service and the choir performed two songs whilst the congregation wrote messages of remembrance for their loved ones and lit candles. Children were praised for their performance, behaviour and attitude throughout the event and the staff could not be prouder of how they represented our school. See below for some of the positive comments they received: "The choir made the service for me." "The service was lovely as always but having the children's choir made a big difference." "I'm a governor at Reid Street, it was great to see the children here." "We only came out in the cold because we knew Reid Street Choir was going to be here." "We live near the school, we went to Reid Street, our kids went to Reid Street and the choir just made the night for us." "The children's choir was a lovely touch, they made it so Christmassy and made me feel emotional." "Thank you Julie Guest and the lovely kids from Reid Street School, it was a wonderful night." A huge well done to the choir! READING VOLUNTEERS
Come and join our team! We are very lucky to have a dedicated team of reading volunteers who come into school on a weekly basis to listen to pupils read. Our volunteers provide valuable one to one support to pupils which benefits their reading massively. The more pupils read, the more progress they make and the more confident they become. Pupils really enjoy this individual reading time and our volunteers find it hugely rewarding too. So if you can spare an hour or two once a week please call into the office for more details or e-mail [email protected] We will be holding a training session for reading volunteers on Monday 10th December from 1.30 – 2.30. If you are interested in attending please let the office know. If you cannot attend the training, but would like to volunteer as a reader in school, please call in to the office. On Thursday 22nd November, Reid Street Primary school were invited to the AGM (Annual General Meeting) for St. Teresa’s Hospice. We were asked to attend to receive a certificate for our charity fundraising and the contribution we made from our PIE challenge winnings.
Heidi (Head Girl) and Liam (Head Boy) attended the important meeting with Mrs Ayto (Head of school) and Mrs Davison (Head of KS2) at the Blackwell Grange Hotel. It was incredible to see how many people were there - I’d estimate about 100 people. When the rewards part came, we were one of the first to be called out! We raised just over £3000 for the local hospice. Everyone applauded our fabulous total and the people who worked at St. Teresa’s were thrilled. We listened to a speech about Seven Summit Steve’s work just before we received our wonderful award. The Northern Echo even took our picture with the award before we left. We are very grateful for the amazing certificate we have received and we will continue to support the local hospice. Heidi and Liam Our all girls tag rugby team travelled to Mowden Park Stadium to compete in Darlington’s first ever girls only tag rugby competition. The girls played 7a side on the grass pitches at Mowden Park against multiple Darlington schools.
Despite the cold weather, the girls played incredibly well. They won several of their matches and finished in 6th place out of the 12 teams that took part. Over the course of the afternoon, the girls developed not only their confidence, but also their skills. Well done, girls. The three year 5 girls that took part are already looking forward to next year. On November 6th, 24 children from year 5 and 6 competed in the first of three Indoor Sportshall Athletics cluster competitions. The children took part in events such as relays, obstacle races, javelin, speed bounce and triple jump to name but a few. The team performed incredibly well and acquired an outstanding points total of 250! We will now compete in the Darlington final at the Dolphin Centre next week.
Harvest Festival
The harvest festival theme this year was land/water use in the UK linked to the food it produces. Mrs Rankin decided to base the harvest on different types of farming too. Each year group had a different topic. Year 4: Arable farming – crops of wheat etc. Year 1: Meadows – dairy herds. Year 6: Pastoral farming for meat. Year 2: Mountains – sheep for wool. Reception: Our seas – fish. Year 3: Our rivers – salmon, trout etc. Year 5: Marshland – lamb We all learned many interesting facts .The Gardening Club have also harvested their produce, which was grown at the plot donated to the school by Pierremont Methodist Church. As usual, we have collected food for King’s Church food bank which was greatly received. We, the P.I.E challenge team, went to ROF 59 to celebrate our victory on Thursday 18th October. It was brilliant!
Last term, we were crowned the most enterprising school in the North East so as a reward for our hard work Mrs Davison booked ROF 59. We all had lots of fun on the trampolines. We enjoyed playing dodge ball altogether - thankfully the score was even. Even the teachers joined in with us. The rope swing was a fun activity that most of us loved too. After all the bouncing and playing for an hour, we had an option of pizza or hotdogs for our tea. As well, we got to have some popcorn and chips. We all thought it was delicious! This was a great opportunity to celebrate our victory and we are looking forward to spending and investing more of our money. By Melissa McWhinnie and Abi Bright Y6 Today, KS1 and KS2 watched the play Dwaine's Dash - Love Your Drain. We learnt that only toilet paper, pee and poo goes down the loo! We sang a song and all learnt the actions. We also found out that wet wipes, cotton buds, nappies and other unflushables can cause great damage to the environment. The amount of unflushables sent down toilets each year is as high as Mount Everest. Dwaine Pipe also showed us things that shouldn't go down our sink and pipes. These included oil, grease and fat as these make a fat berg. Sometimes, these fat bergs can be as high as a double decker bus. For more information and games you can check out Northumbria Water’s website www.loveyourdrain.co.uk
This term’s book fair proved to be a very popular event and thanks to the support of pupils, parents and carers the school raised a total of £206 to spend on new reading material. Reading benefits all aspects of learning which is why we continue to hold this event twice a year. When the fair arrives in school pupils are given the chance to view the books on offer and it is always lovely to see them getting so excited about reading.
On Thursday 27th September, ten of our year 5 and 6 children took the short journey to Darlington Golf club to compete in the Darlington Tri Golf Competition. The team comprised of 5 girls and 5 boys. The children took part in a series of golf and skill related games where they earned themselves many points through their hard work and constant teamwork.
Reid Street finished in 1st place on 1260 points. This is the third year Reid Street have won the competition – a fantastic achievement. Last Wednesday, children from across KS2 participated in our annual music concert. All Year 5 pupils enjoyed performing several pieces on their brass instruments led by Mr Franey. Year 3 and 4 pupils performed pieces on the ocarinas and recorders as well as showcasing their excellent singing voices led by Miss Parker. Mrs Sermon led our cellists in a selection of pieces including a performance by a soloist, Arabella. Some of our Year 6 children also showcased their brass skills. Finally, all the children performed ‘Mamma Mia’ and ‘Three Little Birds’ together to end our musical show! The children thoroughly enjoyed themselves and it was a wonderful opportunity for our Year 2 children to observe our KS2 music curriculum in preparation for their transition to Year 3.
On Thursday 12th July the Reid Street PIE Team travelled to Newcastle for the Grand Final of ‘The Big PIE Challenge’. We were asked to prepare a short 3 slide presentation about our product and our journey through Stage 2 of the Challenge. The children blew us away with their confidence and ability to speak in front of an audience of peers and adults. We had 3 products which we promoted; our website - www.reidstreetpiechallenge.co.uk, Prayer Flags and ice pops. Our main product, which was our website, raised £1735 profit, the Prayer Flags raised £221.50 profit and the ice pops raised £118.85 profit. At ‘close of business’ on 30.06.18 our total profit was a staggering £2075.35. We have had more companies wanting to advertise since and the grand total now stands at £2165.35
After a nerve-wracking lunch break the winners were announced. Third, second then first place… Reid Street Primary School! We received a huge trophy and a cheque for £5000. This experience has taught us creative thinking, problem solving, communication, negotiation and persuasiveness skills and has raised our confidence and self-esteem. As a team we are so proud of our achievement and being awarded the title of Most Enterprising School in the North East. As you are aware, we are doing incredibly well with our PIE Challenge. We have sent letters out to all the businesses we use at school and we have had interest from Enterprise Travel, Avec, Darlington Credit Union, Watercare, 1AB taxis and the Star of Bengal to name a few.
We have also visited IT Systems who have helped us set up our own website. Check it out at www.reidstreetpiechallenge.co.uk. They wanted to invest too and offered us £100 so we are adverting their business now. We have been to the boardroom at Bannatynes, to learn about being an entrepreneur and also make a pitch for their business to advertise on our website. After watching a presentation, about how Duncan Bannatyne made his money, we made our pitch and shared our advert. They decided to support us and asked us to promote their three businesses: Bannatynes Gyms, Bannatynes Spas and Bannatynes Hotels. Quick thinking Hamish struck the deal and they agreed to pay £75 per business so we received another £225. Our biggest investor was Tracey Wilson from Itech. On the Tuesday afternoon (after school had finished) a group of 12 pupils headed to Newton Aycliffe. We sat at the boardroom table and presentated our case. Itech were incredibly impressed and we managed to get £400 for their advert! Tom shook on the deal. We also sent a Marvellous Me to all our parents and they have supported us too! Alfie’s dad at Gsit sponsored us; Cole’s mam wanted to advertise on our website; Kizzy’s dad’s tattoo parlour was one of the first to sign up! Harry’s mum runs two businesses and she is thrilled to sign up her two companies. It was been amazing! From just the adverts we have raised over £1,300. What a team we are! Thanks for reading this from The Pie Challenge team. As well as selling advertising space for our website, we set up a side-line to our business. We linked our new business to the Darlington Carnival. Pupils involved in the carnival created prayer flags – based on the ones you will no doubt have seen on the many photographs of Everest. We decided to create and sell prayer flags/wishes to all pupils and members of the public at the carnival. For 50p each person got a personalised message and the prayer flag formed part of our Reid Street Carnival ‘float’. People were keen to support our Big PIE challenge and help us in raising more money in order to win the £5000 prize money - £1000 of which we will donate to St Teresa’s. We raised £229.00 and only spent £7.50 on a pack of coloured paper. The profit was £221.50.
Our third business venture was Melissa’s idea. Originally, she wanted to bake and sell cakes but the general manager (Alfie) suggested we cash in on the hot weather and sell ice pops to pupils in school. After all, Duncan Bannatyne started with an ice cream van! From that we managed to raise £146.85 and, as the 500 ice pops only cost £28.00 to buy, we made £118.85 profit. Nearly 30 children from year 4 took part in the annual Darlington Community Games event on Thursday 5th July at Eastbourne Sports Complex. The event involved the children splitting into teams and competing in three different sports – cricket, tag-rugby and athletics. On arrival, the children were each handed a Community Games t-shirt. The children then took part in a collective warm up and were introduced to Craig Heap – an Olympic gymnast. Once the opening ceremony was complete, the children were separated into their groups and took part in games and skill sessions at their allocated event. Craig Heap spent time with all of the children and they had the opportunity to have their t-shirt signed by him. During the closing ceremony, awards were handed out for the key Olympic values. Reid Street was awarded the Respect award, which now proudly stands in our trophy cabinet. The children had a fabulous time and developed their skill set which is their first step in the School Games competition calendar for year 5 and 6.
As a reward for coming second in the Eurovision contest this year, Reid Street were asked to participate in the Proms in the Park event. The children learned a selection of songs from ‘Oliver’ as well as performing the well-known ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. Children sang with Mowden Primary School accompanied by The Royal Signals Brass Band. The event was witnessed by over 3000 people and it was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. The choir performed beautifully and we were a credit to the school. Marion Ogle, the Town Centre Partnership and Events Manager passed on her thanks to the children: ‘On behalf of the organisers I would like to thank you all very much for participating in yesterday’s hugely successful Proms in the Park .
Ivor whom retired after yesterday’s performance has always wanted a school choir and he was over the moon with your exceptional performance of Oliver, please pass this onto the children from us all. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did.' It seems not that long ago, that we were all auditioning for this amazing production. We had to go to all the lunchtime rehearsals: they were really fun! A few months later, we found out our parts. Rehearsals were more often and more serious. Soon, the talented Mrs Fawcett, started making the costumes from all the cast. A very big THANK YOU! Weeks later, the rehearsals intensified and we were out all day. Before we knew it, dress rehearsals began; this put us all in character. Finally the big day came! We were all so nervous backstage. All the teachers calmed us down. When it was our turn, we all did our very best and blew the audience away. Everyone remembered their lines, the singing was in tune and the acting was spot on! We had some fantastic help from Mr Parkinson (who created the scenery) and the team from the Forum, who helped with the sound and lights. We wouldn’t have been able to do this without the two teachers that put this together, Mrs Rimmer and Mrs Farthing! Thank you!! We are sure, you will see some of us on the stage or TV one day. Keep an eye out!
On Wednesday 27th June, Chloe Ryan (an England School Girls player) visited Reid Street to talk to our girls’ football teams. She spoke about her journey and her passion for the sport, followed by a question and answer session. Chloe then worked with the girls to produce posters on all of the key attributes of being a football player. The girls then presented their posters back to Chloe. It was a fantastic experience and the girls loved working with Chloe. It has ignited their passion to play football at the highest level possible.
On Monday the 25th June, 7 children from Reid Street Primary School took part in a big event called Armed Forces Day because their parents had links to the army or the forces.
First we got ready and walked to the town centre so we could watch all the breath-taking events of Armed Forces Day. We got into pairs - Keira was the photographer and took lots of brilliant pictures. When we arrived at the Market Square we sat in the shade with the other schools because it was so hot! Suddenly, five men marched smartly towards the middle of the Market Square and raised some colourful flags in the air. Zooming past our heads, a green jet rapidly flew past; Keira managed to get a photo of the plane. “Hello everybody,” announced the Mayor, she gave a two minute speech, we all listened carefully, then the Mayor inspected the parade as the soldiers saluted and shouted. “WE WILL REMEMBER THEM,” we all exclaimed after the Chairman gave a few words. The bugler played the Last Post and we had a minute of silence. Everyone was silent. The flag rose, everyone cheered and we waved our flags. Major Coatsworth, dressed in a spruce suit, told us an interesting story about a courageous soldier from Darlington, George Bradford, which we all enjoyed. Reverend Mathew Firth prayed for George and the soldiers who died. A red blanket was covering a part of the Market Square. The Mayor slowly pulled it back to reveal a commemorative stone to celebrate George Bradford. Red poppies were placed around the stone to show respect. Then the Town Crier (who we thought looked like a pirate) requested three cheers. We all waved our flags and shouted, “HIP, HIP, HOORAY!” We all looked around the stalls and had a turn of sitting inside a police car; also we went in an army vehicle too. Then we headed into St Cuthbert’s church hall to get a drink of juice and some delicious biscuits. We walked back to school in the boiling hot weather and we told everyone about Armed Forces Day. Well, what a fantastic day we had for our KS2 Sports Day. The weather could not have been better. The children had slightly longer than usual on the field and managed to complete most of the activities. It was great to see the children laughing, enjoying themselves and being so supportive of each other. Thank you very much to all of the parents, friends and family members who came to support us.
The three managers, Abbey, Alfie and Tom, visited IT Systems today to pitch our idea and ask for their support to advertise on our website. The children planned what they were going to say and made their proposition around the board room table. They spoke clearly and passionately about the PIE Challenge, our website and discussed our fundraising plans for St. Theresa's hospice. Mr. Agar was so impressed by the children and their plans that he donated £100 for an advertising space - that's £70 over our asking price! He also offered to set up a link to our website from theirs. An impressive afternoon's work and good practise for the next challenge - Bannatyne's.
Mrs Brown’s art club had an exciting opportunity to create some art work for a local community garden (Business Central).
We designed and decorated some compact discs in art club and the following week we took a trip to the garden to meet up with Mr and Mrs Hinde. They hung the children’s artwork from the trees and then the children enjoyed planting out vegetables and herbs. The children have participated in a range of fun and exciting activities, throughout the week. Each class was given a country to focus on. First, they used their geography skills to locate their country on maps and globes and then looked at the geographical features. Next, they had to think about the 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development (a government initiative to help make the world a better place) and study the positives of each country and what could be developed further.
Following on from our success in our cluster gymnastics tournament, our teams from lower KS2 and upper KS2 took place on Wednesday 13th June at Hurworth Secondary School. The standard of every school participating was of an incredibly high standard. The lower KS2 children were amazing and were the winners of the gold medal, beating five other schools in the final alone. Our upper KS2 children followed the younger children and were very adept in their performance, receiving silver medals. Overall, all of the children taking part were very supportive of each other and worked hard as a team to achieve their success. The future of gymnastics certainly looks bright for the coming years.
This year, pupils have been involved in a completely different charity event. Back in February, Steve Graham (mountaineer and local businessman) and a representative from St Teresa’s Hospice delivered an assembly which told the children about Steve’s up and coming challenge to climb Mount Everest. Steve was hoping to raise as much money as possible for St Teresa’s Hospice and wanted our help in doing so. To support our local charity we have currently had two successful events.
For the first event, pupils in Year 6 (with the help of the Chair of Governors) calculated how many kilometres it would take to climb from Basecamp to the summit of Everest. This was then divided by the number of pupils in the school – giving each pupil a distance that they would need to walk so that we as a school could achieve the total distance when combined. Despite the poor weather, pupils and staff completed the task and ended the event with a climb across the traversing wall. Parents and families sponsored the children for this event and a staggering amount of well over £1,000 was raised. A fund-raiser from St Teresa’s Hospice attended and pupils’ efforts were recognised in the local paper. The latest event saw pupils coming to school in their sports/walking clothes wearing a bobble hat for a donation. On this day pupils had two challenges to complete. Sporting equipment was used to recreate the route from Basecamp to the summit of Mount Everest. Each pupil had to complete the obstacle course. The second challenge linked to role of the Sherpa people, where pupils we required to work as a team to transport heavy rucksacks from one part of the school to another. Throughout the day pupils learnt about the challenges linked to climbing Everest and how these impact on the local community. The most important learning was about the Sherpa people who support those climbing Everest – this was also linked to our Global Goals learning. This event boosted fundraising to over £2,000 in total. All pupils had the opportunity to take part in an additional event linked to Everest at Easter. We asked pupils to create a decorated egg linked to Everest and Nepal. The competition entries were amazing and the winning entries received Easter Eggs. On the 18th May Steve Summited Everest and our school logo was on top of the world. He is back home safely and we continue with our fund-raising efforts. |
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March 2020
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