On Friday 11^th June 2010, Warburtons visited our school, sharing their knowledge of bread making and nutrition with students in Upper IV.

This was a practical, hands on, informative and educational learning experience. It provided the children with lots of fun, along with a detailed history of the Warburtons’ story from 1870 when it all began in a small grocery shop in Bolton.

Please click here to view our photos.

On Thursday 20th May Lower IV visited Crossley Heath Grammar School as part of their ongoing learning this term about library and thinking skills. 24 children and 3 members of staff had a very pleasant walk in the sunshine to and from Crossley Heath to visit their Learning Resource Centre (LRC).

The LRC at Crossley Heath is an area which combines a library, multi-media, magazines and newspapers, as well as linking their VLE (Virtual Learning Environment), which is a system that pupils can use to complete some of their homework on line and send it direct to their teachers. It even lets children do their photocopying and printing as well as allowing them to buy their pencils, rubbers, rulers when they might have mislaid them at home!

Mrs Taylor, who is responsible for looking after the LRC, very kindly took us through the school and told us some of its very interesting history, as well as explaining how the LRC works. On the way to the LRC, the children enjoyed looking at some fantastic art exhibitions throughout the school, which had been displayed at last week’s art show . The children were provided with tasks to complete, by finding books and magazines in a very big LRC, and asked some very interesting questions.

Charlie and Edward managed to hunt out a copy of the Rugby magazine from the LRC, which particularly made their day. James, Carmen and Hannah had fun  trying on some of the old school hats that were part of the uniform many years ago. Dylan and Angus swiftly sorted out the computer catalogue system, whilst you will see many of the other children enjoying reading books and magazines. Mrs Taylor showed Freya and Ruby a fabulous scrap book which contains cuttings and notes from many years ago when the boarders and orphans wrote about their trips and visits to local places.

 All of us had a wonderful time and were only disappointed to learn that we couldn’t spend more time at the school.

Upper IV are warming up before their tennis lesson.

The Colour team football tournament 2010

On Friday 12th March at 11am some of our pupils took part in the  Next Generation Learning National School Quiz, launched by BECTA. They were very excited as the countdown from 60 seconds began. The children were tested on their curriculum and general knowledge and played games that also tested both their memory and thinking skills.

At the end of the quiz the children were able to leave feedback and print their certificates. 12 children, aged 8 and 9 took part and together earned 10 silver and 2 gold awards!

The quiz will be opened up to the public shortly and as soon as I receive that information I will post an update, so please check back regularly.

The final cookery club of Spring Term.  We made minestrone soup so there was lots of vegetable preparation and ample opportunity to practise knife skills.

 Tucking in!

This week we tried our hand at pizza swirls.  We don’t have time in cookery club to make a pizza dough using yeast so our recipe used scone dough for the base.

Making the dough

The dough was rolled into a large rectangle before the filling of tomato puree, cheese, green pepper and ham or salami was added.

The pizza was then rolled up and sliced before being  baked.

The children made a quick salad which they enjoyed with their pizza.

We had to hold our annual Spring Term Music Concert over two evenings this year due to the sheer number of excellent musicians and singers.  All the performers enjoyed performing for their families and they all did a fantastic job!

Chinese New Year is also known as Spring Festival (Chūnjíe / 春节). The festival begins on the first day of the first lunar month and ends on the fifteenth day. This year is the year of the Tiger.

Upper IV children have been busy writing good luck messages (húichūn / 挥春) for our Chinese New Year display. Two of the friendly and experienced tutors from the Confucius Institute at The University of Manchester paid us a special visit to show us how to make Chinese lanterns and traditional Chinese paper cutting. As the pictures show, the children really had a wonderful experience.

These two Chinese characters are pronounced as dàjí, which mean ‘Good Luck’.

This single Chinese character is pronounced as fú, which means ‘fortune’.

 Our lanterns are gradually taking shape.

Do you like our colourful lanterns?

 Traditional paper cutting is a form of popular craftwork from China.

 These children are totally focused and hard at work.

• Chinese New Year is also known as Spring Festival. This character is pronounced as chūn, which means ‘spring’.

A tiger mask for the year of the Tiger.

The pattern on the forehead of the tiger mask represents the king of the forest. 王, which means king, is pronounced as wáng.

Our first cookery club of spring term - a little delayed due to the snow and ice!  This leek and potato soup cheered us up as the temperature plummeted outside.

 The leeks and potatoes were peeled and chopped.

They were simmered with milk, stock and herbs to produce the soup.

We enjoyed ours with some freshly baked rolls.

“Wow!”, “Fantastic!” and “I didn’t think I’d like it!” are a few quotes from the children this week.

 This week we made fishcakes.  “Yuk!”,  “Ergh!”, “Oh no!”

The fish, a mixture of cod, salmon and smoked haddock, was gently poached in a little milk whilst lemon and seasoning was added to the mashed potato.  We shaped the fishcakes and dipped them in flour, egg and finally breadcrumbs.

The fishcakes were fried to colour them and then finished off in the oven.

They look proud of them, but will they try them?

 Where did they all go?
They did like them after all!

3/2/2010

This week the children worked in pairs making chocolate chip cookies.

 These are waiting to go into the oven.

The finished result!

10/2/2010

With Shrove Tuesday being next week we honed our pancake tossing skills today in cookery.  We made a simple strawberry ice cream to accompany them and garnished them with sliced strawberries.

Making the pancake batter.

Blending strawberries, lemon juice and icing sugar before stirring in cream and churning in an ice cream machine.

Tossing the pancakes.

No-one seemed to have any trouble demolishing either the pancakes, the ice cream or the strawberries!