A lot of our Hispanophones were part of the BBC Young Reporters Day yesterday. Here’s Ruby’s report on learning a new language in Year 7. “Students love our Spanish lessons here at Chantry Middle School. In them, we include fun exercises that mean the pupils get to compete against each other in teams. There are songs and raps that our Spanish teacher creates to help kids learn. One of my favourites is a rap that goes along to the song Gangnam Style but instead of the lyrics, it recites the numbers 1 to 20 in Spanish.
Some pieces of Spanish work can be difficult but here at Chantry, we have developed a way where students can choose what level to work at. Our teacher makes different levelled activities and you can pick whatever level you feel most comfortable with.

I interviewed one of our pupils about what he thought of the Spanish lessons. When asked if anything could be changed about the lessons, he said that nothing needed to be changed and that the lessons were really good already.” ¡Fenomenal!

Students at Chantry Middle School have have had an eventful day reporting events in school and around the world!

Around 30 students from our school have participated in the annual BBC Young Reporter Day. The first thing we did was learn about what we can and can’t report and about copyright. We were told to get stories from reliable websites because some articles we might come across could be fake news. Then, we divided up the stories inside school and were told when we could interview the teachers. Some children had already brought in world-wide news stories so they got started on them whilst others looked for reliable news.

We asked other pupils, “What have you liked about the day?”

Ruby said, “All of it. I’m normally nervous talking in front of other people but I enjoyed the interviewing.”

“I loved the freedom of writing about what you feel strongly about.” said Evan.

Lottie said, “I liked writing about things that are going on in the world.”

“I enjoyed learning what it was like being a reporter and knowing what we can report about and what needs to be kept private,” said Emily.

Amy said, “It was fun working with friends and letting creative juice flow.”

The stories that were written about were a wide range of topics, from Emojis in court to Shark DNA curing cancer. Maddy and Freya wrote about Pancake day and Eva wrote about cats copying their owners! There was a huge variety of stories written and nearly 50 reports were sent in by our hard-working reporters.

We asked some of the students, “Why did you choose to do that story?”

Eva said, “I wrote about a new Barbie coming out which has prosthetic limbs. I wanted to report on this because it shows that toy companies are starting to open their eyes.”

“I wanted to report on Microplastic Problems because it’s affecting every corner of the earth.” said Sophie.

“We wrote about animal testing because we feel very strongly/deeply about this problem.” explained Mary and Alexandra.

Emily said, “I have written about a London Bridge scandal which scammed lots of people. I wanted to report on this because I want more people to be aware of the danger.”

Everyone I spoke to had a really fun day packed with activities and said they would definitely recommend it to others.

To read our reports and watch our green screen videos, click here: http://cms.cheviotlt.co.uk/category/bbc-school-report/

By Katie, Y7

Due to popular demand, Northern Steel Network is offering a fantastic oppotunity for pannists of all abilities to work with talented pannists Marlon Hibbert and Ebow Mensah.

Congratulations to Eva, Izzy and Ben in Year 7 who are our winners of the French Spelling Bee Round Two.  These pupils successfully spelt the most French words – using the French alphabet – from a list of 100 in one minute.  They move onto the regional heat of the competition in May where they will face competitors from schools all over the North-East.  In previous years, we have had pupils from Chantry make it through to the Nationals in Cambridge so fingers crossed we can repeat that success.  Bravo to all of our competitors who took part in the nail-biting heats.

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Language classes have been practising their French and Spanish question and answer skills by participating in the ‘ball game’.  The aim of the game is for everyone in the class to answer a variety of questions as accurately and as quickly as possible, with classes competing against one another.

“It is one of my favourite activities to do as I enjoy the competitive element.”  Emma, 8T

“Playing the game throughout the topic helps you remember key phrases, even under pressure.”  Felicity, 8T

“Having fun is a good way of learning, and when you get a Spanish question correct quickly, you feel like a matador!”  Jack, 8T

Well done to 5S, 7H, 7R and 8T who were all victorious in their efforts.

The students of Newminster and Chantry Middle Schools have been learning songs to sign and sing in their Music lessons for their Sign2Sing event which took place on Tuesday 5th February 2019. This was performed as a whole school which involved over 530 pupils for each school and took place in the Chantry School hall during the day. They performed Take That’s ‘Greatest Day’ and ‘A Thousand Years’ by Christina Perri.

Charlotte Jones, Curriculum Leader of Creative Arts at Newminster and Chantry Middle Schools said, “We think this is a terrific initiative which has taught the children a new and valuable skill as well as raising awareness of deaf issues. The students and staff performed brilliantly. The staff at the Three Rivers Learning Trust also produced a film of some of the signs they had learnt as a surprise for the students at the event.”

SignHealth, which is a national charity, dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of deaf people, are behind the event.

Students at Newminster and Chantry Middle Schools raised money for SignHealth on the day by wearing non uniform day. All money raised will go towards helping SignHealth transform the lives of thousands of people living in the UK and Africa.

We thank everyone for their hard work and donations.

Don’t forget our Spring Disco on Tuesday 12th February doors will open 6.30 pm – 8.00 pm.

Entry is £2.00 payable at the door (exact money would be great!)

Refreshments will be sold throughout the evening.