On Thursday, the school attended Christ Church for our annual Easter service. Reverend Anthony shared the Easter story with the children highlighting the key messages of this Christian event.

During, each year group sang the songs they have been rehearsing throughout the term, children shared their Easter thoughts and prayers and the choir performed Hallelujah, Salvation and Glory accompanied by Mrs Dare-Ojo.

It was an uplifting experience and occasion which was enjoyed by us all. 

    

 

 Happy Easter to you all from us here at HBJS!

 

We highly value the importance of being outside and the physical benefits that this has on well-being and mental health, particularly during the childhood years. Bi-weekly, the children enjoy an outdoor lesson, in our Forest Area. They also have other opportunities to explore and learn within this stimulating environment. 

Last week, Year 4 enjoyed a session outside hunting for signs of spring and were surprised with how many they found!

We have flowers blooming, frogspawn taking over the pond, bugs coming out of their hiding places and our resident guinea pigs have been moved back to their home within the forest after spending the winter months in a warmer and more secluded spot.

We are looking forward to more sunshine and springtime fun as we are outside in our learning!

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

World Book Day HBJS

 

 

Yesterday we celebrated World Book Day across the school. For one day only the school was filled with a wide range of book characters and the costumes were incredibly creative and resourceful. Throughout the day the children also took part in a range of book related activities. 

 

Why do we celebrate World Book Day? 

World Book Day provides us with an opportunity to promote reading for pleasure and to widen children’s knowledge of the range of choices available to them. I think we were all introduced to a new character or author over the course of the day! 

 

Here is a little taster of what each year group did during the day. 

 Year 3 stepped into the wonderful wizarding world on World Book Day by learning how to draw Hogwarts, participating in quizzes and virtual lessons and designing their own magical sweets! The Year 3 staff enjoyed seeing all the children’s outfits in the costume parade and the children had a great time making their own dragon's eye out of clay with Year 5. 

 

Year 4 pupils and staff enjoyed a parade to start World Book Day and the range of costumes was impressive. They took part in a live ‘Footy and Booky’ Quiz. They also became authors and illustrators, creating their own books titled ‘The Day the PE Equipment Quit’ based on Oliver Jeffers book ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’. 

 

 Year 5 children and staff enjoyed showing off their costumes as they walked the catwalk in their own year group parade. During a scavenger hunt, the children worked in teams to find the answers to clues given using their inference skills. They also enjoyed some paired reading and playing games linked to famous book characters. 

 

Year 6 also had an enjoyable day.  The costumes Year 6 displayed during the parade were amazing. During the day, they participated in a range of activities, such as sharing books with Year 4 children, entering the book token competition and making their own bookmarks.  

 

 The children all went home with a £1 book token. This can be exchanged for one of a selection of free World Book Day books. Don’t forget to use them! 

Network Rail Safety Campaign

In January, Network Rail contacted us to raise awareness of the risks to children and youths related to negligence near trains.

Their campaign has been developed in relation to the tragic death of Harrison Ballantyne in 2017, when he was in Year 7 at Guilsborough Academy.

Over 20 million students, parents and teachers from across the UK have watched these videos which has led to a significant decrease in the number of fatalities and injuries in their area through watching the safety videos.

Below is the link to the videos we showed in school so you, as parents can watch them at home.

Y3 & Y4 pupils watched- NEW Primary school version: Suitable for KS1 https://learnliveuk.com/ks1-primary-school-safety-talk/  This video uses a railway safety story book to support their understanding of how to keep safe near the railway. The children participated with the Learn Live broadcast discussion/ question part of the video that Y5 & Y6 used below.

Y5 & Y6 pupils watched- NEW Primary school version: Suitable for KS2 https://learnliveuk.com/network-rail-primary-school-safety-talk  This video includes a re-enactment of how Harrison died followed by a Learn Live broadcast discussion/ question session.

 

We have just been informed that as a school we have achieved the achieved the Rail Safe Friendly Bronze Level.

 

 

We now would like to look towards achieving the Silver level.

For this we will be promoting the Switched On Rail Safety website on our social media channels.

The link for you to access this is: https://switchedonrailsafety.co.uk/