School Activities

BAYS Awards

Two years ago children in Y3 and Y4 had the opportunity to take part in the British Association for the Advancement Of Science, Young Investigators Bronze Award (BAYS). They had to conduct 10 tests to the correct standard to achieve A BAYS Bronze Certificate and Badge. Twenty children completed the challenge and were presented with their award in July. To find out more about BAYS click on the icon.
  

During 2005/6, children in Y5 and Y6 took part in BAYS Bronze with 12 children gaining their award. Some of them can be seen proudly holding their certificates. One boy has done the award twice, so that he could get an improved grade!   

           Raising chicks in Year 4

                  During the summer term children in Year 3 acted as midwives and nurses to ten eggs of which eight hatched into fluffy yellow chicks. The children's task was keep them fed and watered and, more importantly, keep them at the correct temperature in their incubator. Once hatched the children excitedly studied their daily development and came to understand the necessity for caring for them as well as the chores such as the daily cleaning out and washing of hands.
Some chicks developed quite noticeable characteristics.  As they became ever larger they were moved from their incubator into a small, netting covered boat with a 60watt bulb to keep them warm. Even then, there were occasional bids for freedom as the chicks found their way round the netting. Flying lessons were highly amusing and they provided many laughs as their cries could be clearly heard over the top of a quiet class working! Letting the chicks out into the room was great fun, apart from following them round with disinfectant and a cloth! During the weekends they had to be taken home by the teachers - you can imagine the noise in the car.
                 Children (and parents) from throughout the school came to visit the "Maternity Ward" and it was fascinating to watch their faces as they peered in to the incubator or, when the chicks became older, held them carefully.
                 But some times, unhappy things happen, and so it was that one of the chicks became very ill and died. It is vital that children see this as part of the normal scheme of things. The children were very sad and many of them talked about where the chick might have gone to, which in itself, sparked a wider discussion.
                 When we had had them for 4 weeks they were becoming too large to keep, so they were taken to a farm near Madeley where they soon made friends with other chicks and ducklings. Click the pictures to see our chicks.

                          
                 let me in!   I'm not happy...just been born ...

                                          
 we're well-behaved        I'm fed up...        ...who you looking at?
                                                               
table manners need working on at times........         much better

        
...and now for some serious sleep..........

Click here to see a short video of the chicks            

   Did you know......?
Why can’t chickens fly?
Well, you can't blame the chickens. They started out flying, after all. At least, millions of years ago, they did! The ancestor of modern chickens was the wild red jungle fowl and he wasn't a great flier, but he could get around if he had to.All the poultry family (chickens, turkeys, guineas, ducks) then got used to living on the ground and bit by bit, they lost the use of their wings! Their beaks are better adapted to pecking off the ground than catching their prey, their feet are better at walking than perching. Now, their wings are smaller than other birds their size. So that’s why chickens can’t and never will fly. But some of the Y4 chickens are certainly having a try - they just won’t listen.

Children In Need

  Part of the school's ethos is to give the opportunity for children to think about others less fortunate than themselves and to participate in activities designed to alleviate those children's suffering or help them to have a happier and more fulfilling life.
    Recently we had a "no-uniform" day where children were allowed to dress as they pleased provided they paid a "fine"! All the money collected was sent to " Children In Need"
Click to see some of our pictures.

 Caring For Our Environment
We are living at a time when people are becoming much more aware of our environment and how it should be cared for. Our children will be inheriting the world as we leave it for them, pollution, global warming and all.
To reinforce the part children can play in protecting our environment a group from Stoke on Trent's Environmental Health Department came to school to talk to the Y4 and Y5 children about litter and how it should be disposed of correctly, reinforcing the message about recycling.
The children were shown photographs taken around Stoke on Trent and asked to comment upon them. They were each asked to design a poster for a competition. The prize will be to have their poster incorporated into the surfaces of new waste baskets for the streets around school!
Unusual and very effective.
Later in the day another representative from Stoke read to them from large picture books, all of which were on the theme of the environment. This gave lots of opportunity for discussion about the points raised.

 

http://www.recyclingconsortium.org.uk/schools/

and  http://www.recyclezone.org.uk/

On May 11th., the representatives from Stoke on Trent visited the school once more, this time to present the prizes to the children who had designed the best posters. The lucky winners received a new radio and a geometry set as well as their certificate.

One World Week

Most of our children lead reasonably secure, safe and comfortable lives giving rarely a thought to those who may considerable worse off then themselves.  But for some, life may not always have been quite so pleasant, as the countries they have arrived from lack the freedom, security and safety that we take so easily for granted. For this reason three young people, whose lives have been very different, were invited into school to talk to the children, - one from Zimbabwe, one from Congo and one from Iraq. Each told their stories of how they escaped to England and asked for tolerance for those people in a similar position to themselves.

Bible Presentation

As you may be aware schools are always short of the money they need to purchase everything that a busy, exciting school requires. The Staff had identified that the Bibles we had were becoming somewhat careworn and low in number, therefore an approach was made to United Christian Broadcasting, which is based in Burslem, to ask if they might be prepared to donate some new Bibles to the school.
They agreed and asked if they might conduct an Assembly for the children during which the new Bibles might be presented to the school. It was an excellent Assembly enjoyed by everyone regardless of which Faith Community children belonged to.

Click below to see some pictures from the Presentation Assembly
.

To find out more about United Christian Broadcasting click on the link below
http://www.ucb.co.uk/

Union of Christian Broadcasting Visit

As part of the school's links with the community UCB make regular visits to the school. All the children, whatever their faith, enjoy these visits as we can all learn about living together peacefully.
This particular visit featured puppets as a means of putting over a powerful message about friendship.

Children were able to participate in the Assembly through a game played together.

AND! John Baskeyfield School was chosen for the world premier of their animated film "The God Man"
If you would like to find out more about the work of the UCB
click here;
http://www.ucb.co.uk/

"Build A Bot" RAF Stafford

On Thursday 29th June a group of 8 Year 5 children travelled to RAF Stafford for a day of Design Technology and ICT held by Staffordshire Setpoint.
By coincidence, OFSTED were inspecting the school at the same time!
Their challenge, along with 19 other schools?
On the theme of Harry Potter, to build a robot and ICT to control it. The choice of robot was the flying car, a moving wizard's hat, and a picture which could be controlled. Children had just 5 hours to complete the task! Quite daunting.....
 John Baskeyfield chose the picture which could be controlled and set about making a picture frame for it. They quickly realised that after the first flush of enthusiasm, it was not quite so easy as they first thought. Especially as because the software had given trouble for many months none of them actually knew how to use the software and control box! Anxious times were spent poring over the laptop. Many many new skills had to be learnt, from using a vertical power drill to learning to saw correctly. To increase the pressure, materials had to be "bought" using Hogwarts "money". So decisions had to be carefully thought through.
When lunchtime came little had actually be achieved apart from a picture frame and a lot of bitten finger nails.
The tempo increased during the afternoon with just two hours to finish and then display our work to all the other schools. Expert help was needed with the computer which refused to behave correctly. As the final minutes ticked away activity became frantic and a new picture frame added to our masterpiece.
We had eyes that flashed, a hat that moved, and a moving cat's tail.
As if that was not enough, OFSTED asked to see the children's finished work when they returned to school.
No pressure of course!!!!
Click to see the pictures of our day in RAF Stafford.


The completed computer program

And...the finished article! The product of 5 hours hard work.

The two Senior Wizards and the Apprentices

Life isn't all work. We arranged a snowman competition to make best use of the few flakes that fell. Click below to look at the winners and the size of the snowman!

However, the day after, it snowed heavily..........
competition was intense......

And the winner was.......

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