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End of Spring Term 2015 Review One of the highlights of this term must be Literacy Week from Monday 2nd to Friday 6th

March. Children were given the opportunity to watch two

performances. The first one was ‘Comedy of Errors’, written by William ‘Shakespeare

and performed by the Handlebards, a company of four energetic young men who were

cleverly able to communicate the meaning of a

complicated play to children as young as 5 years old, yet at the same time not ‘dumbing down’ the language or compromising the plot. The ’handle’ in their company name comes from bicycle related props and the fact that they tour during the Summer months on bicycles with trailers. The second performance was delivered by M & M Productions who performed ‘Alice in Wonderland’ with lights, amazingly professional scenery and in ‘panto’ style.

Our aim in holding two performances in one week was to give the children the

opportunity to compare and discuss, encouraging them to explain their thoughts without

there actually being a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer - just individual opinion to be justified as

much as possible.

The overall adult consensus was that ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was aimed more at the

younger children whilst the ‘Comedy of Errors’ was geared towards the

older pupils. However, interestingly, this wasn’t represented in the children's’

feedback and many of the younger children preferred the Shakespeare. All

pupils also gave a written response, many producing excellent writing and some of the

highest quality they had ever achieved. Also, one Year 6 boy

commented that the Shakespeare was difficult in places, but really great,

because it made you think!

Thank you to parents who supported World Book Day as part of the week by helping

their children dress up as a character created by Shakespeare or Lewis Carroll, many of

those children also coming with quotes! Only the themed egg decorating to go……….

Wishing you all a lovely Easter break.

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EYFS

Describing

Dinosaurs

T-rex is as fierce as a

T-rex is as big as a

tower -

T-rex is as fierce as a

T-rex is as large as a

T-rex is as big as a

house - Jack A & T-rex is as huge as a

T-rex is as fierce as a

T-rex is as fierce as a

T-rex is as large as

T-rex is as huge as a T-rex is as fierce as

T-rex is as long as a

T-rex is as large as an

elephant - Freya & T-rex is as fierce as

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Dinosaur Roar!! In the EYFS class the children have been learning all about Dino-saurs this term. They have been measuring Dinosaurs and their footprints with cubes and rulers to find out which Dinosaur is the biggest. They have also been using the footprints to make patterns using different coloured paint. The children have also ex-plored the texture and colour of dinosaurs. They have had lots of exciting adventures!

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Year 1

“I went to Tesco’s on a coach. I went to the bakery. It was funny when Andrew juggled the dough and had flour on his nose. Then we went to the fish counter. I asked loads of questions and I answered quite a few questions. Next we went to the cheese counter. We tried some cheese and we went to look at the fruit and vegetables. We needed to name as many types of vegetables and fruit.” – Christopher Jones

“On our school trip to Tesco’s we went to the fish counter. I saw some fish teeth.

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They looked small but I bet they are sharp. Then we went to the cheese counter and ate cheese. Then we saw where the fruit and vegetables come from and then we went to the bakery. We made dough balls. Then we went into the freezer. We went back to school and then we were writing about it.” Owen Alban

From Farm to

Food Trip –

Year 1 –

24th March

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Year 2

In Literacy this term we have looked closely at the good and bad characters of Jack and the Giant. We created a wanted poster for the bad giant and wrote letters to show how Jack is bad and Maximus the Giant is good. Did Maximus receive his medal from the Queen we wonder?

We have also created a class information book about animals. We now know lots of amazing facts about all kinds of animals from saltwater crocodiles to orange-tip butterflies.

In Numeracy we enjoyed estimating, then counting by grouping, how many things were in a tub. The most items we had in a tub was 335 coloured pencils!

On 28th January we learnt

about dogs and how they like us to behave around them. We were all given an amazing bone shaped pen which told us five dog smart things to remember. Year 2 think the most important thing to remember is don’t bother a dog when it is eating or drinking.

In the first half of term we really enjoyed our Monday afternoon lessons with Carlisle United. Our favourite part was doing the obstacle course. It was really challenging! We think Carlisle United are great!

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We also had lots of fun singing and dancing with Jenny. We really enjoyed singing and dancing to Tarzan and Jane ‘flying through the air like an aeroplane’ and Wake Shake Make the Sunshine. We think Jenny is fabulous

In February we had a thinking morning where we worked in our colour groups to write a prayer for each of our school values.

In the second half of term we worked with Mr Brown to learn action songs and play the ukulele. We chose our favourite two action songs to perform at the Carlisle Music Festival in St Cuthbert’s Church. We had great fun and especially liked singing Supergran’ with the ‘strong muscles’ and ‘x-box’ actions and we really enjoyed singing ‘Sia Hamba’ which means marching in the eyes of God. We think Mr Brown is super like Super-gran!

In PE we have been learning different ways to balance, roll, create bridges and travel in gymnastics. On Thursday afternoons we have been playing bench ball, the elimination game, last one standing and running races with Mr Smith. We think Mr Smith is magic!

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What an exciting time we had during literacy week! It all began on Monday with the Handlebards performing the Shakespeare play ‘The Comedy of Errors’. It was very good because they changed heir voices, character, costumes and their faces. There were four

characters who were called Paul, Callum, Tom and another Callum. Paul was the smallest but that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t do much as he played twelve characters! Our favourite part was when Paul and Callum kissed and when Paul smacked the ukulele on Tom. Ouch! On Wednesday we watched another theatre group perform ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Our favourite part was when Brooke in Year 1 went up to help Alice find the key and when Alice kept turning from small to big. Thursday was World Book Day so we all came dressed up. We had quite a few Alice in Wonderlands, Mad Hatters and White Rabbits. Two of us were dressed as the Queen of Hearts with one Juliet and one scary evil witch!

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Year 3

Wow….where did that term go? We’ve had a busy time in Year Three, and it’s hard to believe we’ve only got one term left. We began the term by looking at the differences between a stone age and a bronze age settlement.

Stone Age Settlement Bronze Age Settlement

We thought about how these ancient peoples would have got their food. We learnt how to take the breasts out of a bird (we understand a pheasant wouldn’t have been a native species to ancient people in the UK, but the principle is the same…)

First we laid out the bird and found the breast bone. Next we plucked the feathers from the breast area. After that we carefully cut the skin and cut out the breasts. We froze the meat and will hopefully cook it on a camp fire when the weather improves.

We even investigated an egg with no shell…..

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Other highlights included…..

Watching fantastic productions of “Alice in Wonderland” by M&M Productions and “A Comedy Of Errors” by the Handlebards. The two productions were very different and this led to great reviews and discussion within the class.

Thinking Morning We had a great Thinking Morning where we worked in our team colour groups and wrote prayers to reflect our Christian values. We produced some really thought provoking prayers.

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It snowed, and we had great fun building snow people and playing with our friends.

We had a ‘Dog Workshop’ where we learned how to train, look after and keep ourselves and our dogs safe.

We thought about why Stonehenge was built and recreated our own versions.

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We dressed up as Shakespeare or Lewis Carroll Characters as part of Literacy Week.

In Science Week we learned about forensic science. We were able to take our fingerprints and look through magnifiers to identify the different types of print. We also went outside to see the eclipse and viewed it using pin hole viewers, colanders and steamer bases. It was amazing.

We had a visit from eight day old George. We were able to stroke him and ask Matthew questions about farming and looking after sheep and lambs.

Happy Easter from Year Three and have a great holiday.

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Year 4 We have had a very exciting spring term. In maths we have looked at all kinds. One of our favourites was using money and planning holidays - we found it difficult to stick to our budgets!

We have also been fine tuning our written methods and setting them out as neatly as we can. We are now producing accurate and neat work in our books. We have moved from looking at non-fiction in particular newspapers and fact-files, to poetry and raps (we managed to perform some fantastic raps including raps of Fairy-tale stories) as well as fictions introducing ‘The Spiderwick Chronicles’.

We also had a brilliant Literacy Week where we watched two excellent theatre groups – The HandleBards who performed ‘The Comedy of Errors’ by William Shakespeare and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ by Lewis Caroll. The children were split in their opinions about which performance was their favourite so we debated it! We had two formidable sides, both with strong arguments. It was a great experience to compare two very different performances.

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In The ‘HandleBards’ corner!

In the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ corner!

The debate went on for 45 minutes and some children’s opinions were altered. Overall we agreed both performances had strengths but some people have different tastes.

During our Literacy Week we also had World Book day where the children dressed as Lewis Carroll or Shakespeare characters. We all looked amazing!

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During the first half of the Spring Term, Year 4 were extremely lucky to take part in the Bikeability scheme. It was a freezing cold, snowy day but we braved the weather and took to the playground on our bikes. The children all gained so much confidence while riding and hope to carry on improving their cycling safety on moving into year 5.

We have had some interesting visitors into school this term, including a visit from Shay, from Dogs Trust. Shay, the terrier, helped the children to learn about how to be safe around dogs and how to care for dogs properly. He was extremely well behaved and we loved learning with him.

Year 4 have been really lucky to have music lessons from Jenny this term. They have played with a range of instruments including ukuleles and percussion instruments. We have loved it, thank you.

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In Science we have been looking at animals and other living things. We conducted a very interesting experiment with eggs to test the impact the liquids we drink have on our teeth. We were shocked at the results. We have completed our Romans’ topic by creating an aqueduct out of mod roc and making Roman pots out of clay. We looked at what the Romans left behind for us and we were amazed by Boudicca, the warrior queen! We are looking forward to beginning our Anglo Saxon topic next term.

In Geography we have been looking at tropical rainforests. We started our topic by going on a senses journey and then continued by looking at the Tropics, the Equator and different continents.

We have had an exciting term and we are looking forward to the Summer! Happy Easter.

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Year 5

The year has flown by, and we have managed to cram so much into a few short weeks. We started in January, putting the finishing touches to the film entitled ‘Hayton = Hayton’, where we combined our maths skills with our animation skills to produce a fabulous short film, with the help of Mark and Vicky from the Haltwhistle Film project. (Copies are available to buy for £3 from Year 5.)

Also, the start of January saw us all wrap up warm and, despite the weather, get on our bikes for the ‘Bikeability’ cycling proficiency test. It was great fun, and we all passed at level 1, with others managing to progress to level 2!! We say

“despite the weather” because, true to form, it turned a little snowy and icy, but this didn’t stop us, it just meant it was a little slippy for bikes on occasions!!

The Dogs Trust paid us a visit to help us learn how to handle ani-mals and understand their moods, as well as showing us how to behave with them.

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Our literacy was based around Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’, where we produced some wonderful work in our Shakespeare books, using a variety of genres and literacy features. This culminated in a wonderful trip to the Sands Centre, where we saw a fabulous production by Shakespeare 4 Kids. A couple of weeks later the snow came! After a closure for the day, we

came back in to a winter wonderland on the playground and field, with the snow allowing us to make fabulous snowmen (or women, depending on whose gloves and hat we could borrow!)

For Literacy Week we were lucky enough to have not one, but two, theatre productions visit the school. The first was the turn of the ‘Handlebards’, a company of men who cycle around the country performing Shakespeare plays. We watched ‘A Comedy of

Errors’, an extremely funny interpretation of the tale. Later on in the week we saw a production of ‘Alice in Wonderland’, a great performance of the Lewis Carroll classic. This inspired us all to dress up for World Book Day in either a Shakespearean costume, or one from ‘Alice in Wonderland’, which in turn led to a write-up of who we were.

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Musically, we have learnt how to play the ukulele, some with more success than others!!

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Our Science this term has seen a visit to the Community Centre at Brampton, where we took part in a Science day as part of Science and Engineering week. We created structures using spaghetti and marshmallows, as well as building a bridge.

We made a fantastic display as part of ‘Planets’ study.

We also held a forensic science morning, in which we learnt about finger printing, and had a go ourselves. We managed to create a set of finger prints for everyone, so if any crimes are committed we will soon be able to identify the culprit. Watch out Mr H!!! We managed to identify what type we had and distinguishing features of each set of prints. Hopefully, next term, we can have a go at ‘lifting’ prints from a crime scene!

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Year 6

This term, albeit comparatively short, Year 6 took part in lots of exciting activities.

Early in the term, Year 6 researched Benin and, in particular, the ‘Benin Bronzes’ which were made for the Oba (King) out of brass. Year 6 made its own replica plaques out of clay and painted them gold to look like the real thing. (They will be displayed at the Hayton Summer Show.)

Mary Skelley (a “Carlisle Key” volunteer), came into school to give a talk about “Carlisle Key”. This charity helps young people under 25, who have had a troubled life, to get back on track by helping them to obtain employment and a home. Mary also told stories of people this charity has helped and what a difference it has made to their lives. This was very poignant for Year 6’s Rotakids who had participated in a ’Sleeping Rough’ sleepover during the Autumn term.

On 28th January, a “Dogs’ Trust” representative visited and advised children how to handle dogs, and be safe around them. She invited Jack Hutchinson (Year 6) to the front of the assembly and taught him how to teach a dog a few tricks.

On 27th February, Vicky and Mark (local film producers from Haltwhistle) gave a film premiere of a short film they had made with the school called ‘Hayton = Hayton’. It included an interview with Florrie Batey (great-grandmother of existing and former Hayton pupils and a resident of Hayton). She gave an enthralling description of her life in Hayton where she has lived all her life. She had recently celebrated her 100th birthday and she told the children what Hayton village and school

was like all those years ago.

“Literacy Week” (week commencing 2nd March) was very eventful. A company called the “Handle Bards” performed Shakespeare’s “A Comedy of Errors”. In the same week, “M & M Theatrical productions”

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performed “Alice in Wonderland”. Both of these performances were appreciated. Thereafter, Year 6 took part in two workshops, one from each group, and was tasked with comparing and contrasting the two very different plays. The following day, the whole school dressed up as a character from either “Alice in Wonderland”, or one of Shakespeare’s stories, for ‘World Book Day’, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. On the final day of

‘Literacy Week’, Alex Briggs and his cast of Year 6 pupils, directed and performed his own version of the poem, ‘Jabberwocky’ (by Lewis Carroll); this too was enjoyed by the whole school. ‘Fair’s fair’ followed in the penultimate week of term in which Year 6 engaged in a performance and workshop, assisted by ‘Theatre by The

Lake’ actresses as part of their understanding of the term’s theme of ‘Justice’. This proved very popular with, and rewarding for, the pupils. To begin ‘Science Week’ (week commencing 16

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March), Year 6 visited the Brampton Community Centre where three activities were un-dertaken including: looking at gypsum’s use in the construction industry, electrical circuits in the home and making structures using triangles made from wooden skewers, held together with marshmallows! On 17th March, Susan Atkinson (from the Cooperative store at Warwick Bridge) described how a defibrillator had saved her life when she suffered a heart attack about two years ago. The store made a contribution of £100 to the Year 6 ‘Rotakids’ to give to a charity of their choosing, which was lovely to receive.

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On 18th March, Mr. Holden (from Austin Friars’ School) gave an

assembly on energy. He taught everyone about energy and its laws. This was followed by a forensic science activity about fingerprints and pupils learned that fingerprints are unique to every individual and that they are actually formed in the mother’s womb.

The week culminated in amazing fashion with a phenomenon of nature, when everyone gathered outside for a solar eclipse. “It went bitterly cold, extremely quickly; the sun looked like a crescent moon,” Kit McMean commented.

Photos taken by Poppy Marr

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It’s six o'clock in the morning, there is the most magnificent cloud inversion in the Eden Valley, above the mist, Talkin Fell is clearly defined as the sun creeps into view. I’m out for my morning jog (or ‘wobble’ as my family call it). I’m never going to win any races, but it’s something I have to do when weather permits. It allows me to keep active and enjoy skiing, cycling, fell walking and canoeing (and to keep up with my ever growing boys….). Out there in the sunshine and frost it gives one time to think -another day of hiding from Mrs McDonough (I’m late with this report and I either have to feign an injury or, probably more preferable, get this report on her desk). However, another thought occurred to me today. Yes, we have had an awesome term as far as team sport goes, but there are many, many children who are committed and engaged in sport related activities outside school. All of these activities increase fitness which makes it easier for Hayton School to harness, shape and mould the children into outstanding sports girls and boys. Therefore, please allow me this opportunity to express, on behalf of all the school staff, a huge THANK YOU to our fantastic parents who allow and provide these experiences and to our amazing children for their participation in these activities. Taking part in sport helps to keep hearts healthy and provides essential life skills as well as, hopefully, a great deal of enjoyment. Martial Arts There are many children throughout the school who are engaged in these sports which promote fitness and self discipline. I know some children are doing their individual grading at the moment - Good Luck. Boxing We have a boy who boxes for a Carlisle club, and takes parts in competitions against clubs in the rest of Cumbria and Southern Scotland. Horse Riding A number of children engaged in horse and pony riding activities where they learn, not only to ride, but how to look after and care for their trusty steads.

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Cycling

We have many children who cycle to competition level, both on road and mountain bikes. To some, the Velodrome in Manchester is a popular venue.

Triathlon

We have a few children who have taken this sport up with relish and they are enjoying the many challenges this sport provides.

Football & Rugby

Lots of children play for various football and rugby clubs during the weekend. Their fitness and games skills are invaluable to helping make school teams a success. Tennis & Badminton The children who play these sports regularly often shine in school lessons because they develop such good hand/eye coordination as well as fitness related to their sport. Gymnastics & Dance I have had the privilege to see some of our amazing dance and gymnastic students. Children who attend these clubs often bring with them such a lot to our lessons in school. Swimming It is to the credit of parents that such a lot of our children are very competent swimmers. This is a life skill that everyone should have. As a parent, I couldn’t allow my children the freedom to explore around water if I wasn’t sure that they could cope with a dunking.

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17th & 22nd January

Our football team played two indoor events in January at the Sands Centre in Carlisle. Due to the size of our school, we were drawn against huge schools within the City. We were not placed in either of these competitions but the girls

and boys played really well and were a force to be reckoned with. A big thank you to Mr Davies who has tirelessly trained the squad all year.

Cross Country. County Championship

On 17th January four Year Six children, who had been previously selected attended the County Championship at Kirkby Thore. Ben Tiffen, Laura Hazelhurst, Anna Billington and Harriet Smalley went down to race in the wind, rain and sleet. All the children did their best and were a credit to the school.

Carlisle Schools Sports Association Sixteen Children took part in the Cross Country at the Sheepmount on Wednesday 11th February. The weather was considerably better than last year when competitors were up to their knees in mud… Again, all children did their best and were a credit to the school.

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Lanercost Cross Country On Saturday 21st March 56 children took part in the Cross Country. It was great to see so many first time runners. A huge well done to you all,

you all worked hard and we have the trophies to prove it.

Swimming Gala – Friday 6th February

Our swimming team did us proud again this year. We were the overall winners of the William Howard School Consortium Gala which was held at The Pools in Carlisle. Poolside behaviour was exemplary and we are very proud of everyone who took part.

Bikeability In a chilly week in January the Year Five children did their Bikeability training. All of the children pushed themselves and learned new skills. Being able to ride a bike safely on roads is a life skill. It gives our children confidence and independence. Well done to all of you.

Badminton & Trampolining Festival On 13th March children from Year 5 & 6 took part in this festival. They had taster sessions in

both sports and everyone wanted to do more. Have a great Easter and keep up the good work. Mrs Hawkswell.