L Dickinson | Chantry Middle School

A taste of China

30th September 2015L Dickinson

Nǐ hǎo! Wǒ hén hăo!

This summer, some of our current Year 6 pupils spent an amazing week in Surrey on a Chinese immersion trip. They stayed at Frensham Heights school and spent the mornings learning the language and the afternoon participating in cultural activities. Parents and friends were invited down on the final day to watch a performance showcasing what went on over the week.

“We learnt Kung Fu and Tai Chi. The instructor showed us how some moves in Tai Chi can be used as self defence.” Joseph Jackson

“We did 3 hours of language learning a day. It was intense but amazing as we went from not knowing any words in Mandarin to being able to have conversations with our teachers and each other.” Lottie Glover-Stewart

“We had a go on lots of different traditional musical instruments. I especially liked the Chinese guitar. We also learnt a folk song which we sang on the final performance.” Lewis Harmer

To see more quotes and pictures click ‘continue reading’.

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Year 6 Visit St Mary’s Lighthouse

18th September 2015L Dickinson

Adaptations St Marys Lighthouse Sept 2015

Year 6 Chantry students recently took part in a Science field trip to St Mary’s Lighthouse. The visit was intended to support the work children are currently doing in class about habitats and adaptations.

Working in class groups, the children spent half the day exploring the rock pools and collecting creatures to observe and discuss in more detail during a touch session. The second half of the day was spent climbing the lighthouse tower, learning about its history and considering the formation of different coastal features.

We are grateful to parent Mrs Fish, for coming along to help with 6C/W’s visit to the lighthouse.

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Open Days

17th September 2015L Dickinson

GSUS visits Chantry

16th September 2015L Dickinson

We were lucky enough to have the GSUS bus onsite week commencing 14th September. The bus is actually an interactive classroom with 32 computers hidden in the desks. The lesson gave students the chance to help one of the fictional characters and consider one of the three themes: Fear, Forgiveness, Rejection.

Through a selection of multi-media the students were able to listen to music, watch video clips, read about famous people and use the information to help them respond to the character through email.

The aim being that they see how Jesus’ teachings are still relevant today. Students reported that it was “ace” and “it makes you think about those who are having a tough time and how we should be helping them”.

Lessons will be followed up in assemblies over the coming weeks. If you want to find out more about the “GSUS bus” go to http://www.gsuslive.co.uk.

Our thanks go to the members of the Mustard Tree
Trust who facilitated the experience for us.

Year 5 Travel Workshops

15th September 2015L Dickinson

Year 5 spent yesterday afternoon learning about personal safety as they travel to and from school.

Activities included identifying their route to school, assessing the safety of crossing points in Morpeth, cycle safety and behaviour on buses.

The journey to and from school always causes much anxiety for our new students and their parents; therefore these workshops were very timely in helping the children to ensure that their journeys are safe.

The final part of the afternoon was spent designing their own high-vis gear to help them get noticed!

Tuesday 15 September

15th September 2015L Dickinson

Welcome back everyone and what a great start to the year! I do hope that you took the time to read the September newsletter over the weekend.

I am delighted to see all the students back to Chantry after the summer break. They look so smart in their uniforms. A special thank you to all the parents for making this happen. I do appreciate the work and money that goes into this. Our first value of the term was responsibility and I reinforced to the students about the need to take responsibility for their uniform. If they lose it in school they need to look for it and we need to encourage others if they find it with a name in it, to return it to it’s rightful owner. I would be grateful if you could reinforce this with your children at home.

A very warm welcome to our new students and parents in Year 5. Year 5 spent the day at Kirkley Hall last Wednesday engaging in a number of team building exercises and making new friends. Thank you to Ms Clark and Mrs Irving for organising this. As I write this blog the students are participating in Road Safety workshops – again the children have been reminded about the need to use the Green Cross Code and use the crossing patrol at the bottom of the drive if they are walking down into Morpeth. I also asked in the newsletter that parents do not use the drive and park sensibly on Mitford Road. I would be very grateful if you could support me in this matter, as health and safety on the school campus and around it are very important to us.

Our value for last week was reflection and the children were asked to carefully consider what they would like to achieve this academic year – this might be to do their best in their end of year tests or to learn a new skill at a club in school. I do hope that they will work hard to achieve this.

On Friday, it was fabulous to invite Ian Lavery, our MP, into school. He spoke to the students about his work at Westminster. He was very impressed with the questions that the students with subjects from Jeremy Corbyn to the migrant crisis discussed. The students asked questions very clearly with maturity – well done. He presented badges to those students who have been elected to our Student Parliament. Congratulations to;

5B	Poppy Pritchard
5I	Patrick Croft
5C	Georgia Hutchinson
5G	Zoe Watmore
6C	Chloe Halliday
6F	Sophie Elliott
6W	Joseph Swinney
6S	Millie Harvey
70	Emily Watmore
7H	James Mason
7J	Ciaran McDougall
7S	Severn Phillips
8J	Matthew Wells

8S	Jason Crumplin
8W	James Reid
8N	Josh Williams

The Student Parliament will meet on a regular basis with Mr Shaw and Mr Nicholson. I look forward to hearing about some of the things they think would make Chantry , an even better school!

I am sure that we have a fantastic year ahead with many highlights to come!

With kind regards

Steven Johnson

Year 5 Trip to Kirkley Hall

15th September 2015L Dickinson

Last week Year 5 took part in a team building day at Kirkley Hall. Activities included team games, zip line, an assault course, archery, climbing and orienteering to name but a few! The students had an amazing day and it gave them the opportunity to get to know their new peer group. It was a great start to life at Chantry.

Steel Pan News

10th September 2015L Dickinson

Eve Massey and Claire Simpson competed in the Junior Panorama with the Northern Steel Orchestra in London. Miriam Cummins also successfully auditioned for Northern Steel Orchestra but she was on holiday for the competition in London.

They all performed at some local festivals too: the North Tyneside Festival of Steel Bands and The Under The Dome Festival.

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New Assessment Framework – September 2015

7th September 2015L Dickinson

As you may have become aware through reports in the media, National Curriculum levels to assess students’ progress in KS1, KS2 and KS3 are no longer being used. Schools have been given the responsibility to develop assessment methodologies which they believe are best suited to meet the needs of the children that they work with.

Over the last 18 months we have worked closely with Newminster and Rothbury middle schools, our feeder First Schools and the High School, to develop an assessment framework that does just that. The focus of the framework is very much on identifying what children can currently do and what steps are needed to enable them to progress further.

Further details about the new assessment framework and how we will be reporting on this will follow in due course, but in the meantime the following links may be helpful in providing you with some additional information about the context of this national change.

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Give it a Go Commuter Challenge

7th September 2015L Dickinson

The Give it a Go Commuter Challenge encourages employees to travel to work in an energy saving way. Travelling via bus, train, bike, and on foot, will gain you points. By the end of the event your points will be tallied up for a chance to win the challenge. The challenge starts Monday 14th September and runs until Friday 16th October.

For more information see: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4cmfJKwyCGWUkxpbW4xMC1GMGItTUhQbzYwYU5qSDQ3eVVn