On 20th January 2017, the Year 8 girls took part in the first round of Sportshall Athletics. Unfortunately, the competition was cut short and they didn’t find out the results until a week later…

Finally, the results had came in: they won the first round! Then, on 3rd March they won their place to the finals. They went to the same competition last year and got placed 3rd overall. This year, they were hoping to do better.

It was a long walk to the leisure centre but they made it in one piece. When they went inside there were already lots of team warming up. In their age category there were six teams.

For the full report click ‘continue reading’.

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The Royal Mail runs a national Christmas art competition and the theme is ‘What does the Christmas season mean to you?’This event is a prestigious competition that any person would love to win! The best two designs will see their design made into the 1st and 2nd class Christmas stamps.

Lots of schools have entered this competition and are all hoping to win. The amazing prize is that your design will be shown to Her Majesty, The Queen, and will be put on millions of Christmas cards during the festive season.

Last year there were over 240,000 entries. The deadline was  the 17th February and the age limit was 4-11 years old. Only two winners will win and their design will be published and that will be a great opportunity!

Our school have entered this competition  because it has been a long time since this competition has taken place and so we thought that it would be good fun and a fantastic opportunity. Twelve classes from our school have entered and we think that one of them might win (fingers crossed) because there has been some really good designs!

By Gemma and Chloe, Year 7.

Irom Sharmila has finally ended her sixteen year long hunger strike, which was due to the fact that 10 civilians were killed in India. She was 29 when she started and is now 45 years old.

Her campaign, the world’s longest hunger strike, has lead her to be force fed through a tube for over a decade. She was under a law that makes trying to commit suicide a crime.

A court in North-Eastern Manipur State said that she could go on bail but asked her to return weeks later. She spent most of the 16 years in judicial custody in a hospital in Imphal (Manipur’s capital). Whilst she was there, she was force fed a cocktail of medicines and baby formulas. Her protest had won her world-wide recognition.

By Abigail and Amber, Year 7.

On 1st  March a group of Year 5 skippers went down to the Morpeth Leisure Centre to compete in the 10th annual Skipping Competition. The competition consisted of lots of different categories for the Year 5s to compete in. First, there was a big group warm up when all the skippers got on the floor and had to skip along to a song using only a particular type of skipping technique that had been demonstrated.

After this, the category competitions began. The first competition was ‘Keep the kettle boiling’. This was very fast paced and a lot of fun. The other events included:

• ‘Criss cross’
• ‘Butterfly’
• ‘Face to face’
• ‘Double bounce’
• ‘Speed bounce’
• ‘Side swing’
• ‘Hop step’
• ‘The pretzel’

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The fancy dress winners all won a book of their choice!

World Book Day is an annual event that schools all over the country celebrate. It started 20 years ago and this year it took place on Thursday 2nd March. Schools do different things to celebrate the day such as dressing up as their favourite book characters; book themed lessons; sponsored reads and much more!

I decided to interview Miss Falkingham (Head of English) and Mrs Inverarity (School Librarian) to find out about what Chantry Middle School did to celebrate!

Click ‘continue reading’ for the interview.

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Hello. Last year, the Chantry Middle School football team got to visit Sheffield. They were runners up at Ashington but still made it through to the County tournament. They beat Meadowdale on penalties in the final to progress to Sheffield where they got knocked out in the semi-finals.

It was a great achievement for everybody involved, for they were the first Chantry pupils to make it all that way. They travelled south on a bus full of laughter and joy.

Click ‘continue reading’ for an interview with the Captain of the team, Will.

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On 13th March 2017, Boaty McBoatface set sail. Boaty is an unmanned robot submarine, Boaty is “Basically a yellow submarine that doesn’t have a person in it, that goes and romes around the ocean” (Professor Russell Wynn, of the national oceanography centre told a BBC reporter). Boaty has lots of sensors that help it navigate it through the ocean. Boaty has many uses such as looking under ice caps, which boats can’t do.

Not many people know that there is more than one Boaty! Boaty is in fact a trio of vehicles in the new autosub long range class of underwater robots. One of the trio has been dropped into the Orkney passage: a narrow 3500m deep gap in the underwater ridge which is north-east of the arctic peninsula. Boaty has since been sent down to monitor conditions as scientists theorise that water at the bottom of the ocean is warming. This means that underwater life could be affected by the warmer water and underwater ice floes could melt, causing sea levels to rise.

Find out more about Boaty by clicking ‘continue reading’.

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