Well done to all the children who entered the photography competition. There were some wonderful entries from all year groups. A special congratulations to our lower school winner, Issah and our upper school winner, Ava-Rose.
This week and last week, year 5 have been lucky enough to have eleven beautiful, fluffy chicks to look after. They arrived on Monday 26th January and were all hatched by Thursday morning! The children watched some chicks hatch which was such an amazing experience. They have mostly lived in 5P under the watchful eye of Miss Porter and the children, but this week they've moved around the year 5 classrooms and the children have had a chance to hold them. We have loved having these adorable (not so) little creatures with us and will miss them when they're gone.
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This week, 6C and 5P were lucky enough to take part in a Lego workshop led by Affinity Water. We enjoyed working together to build Lego robots which we then programmed to carry out water saving challenges. It was great fun to learn some coding and then see our robots moving.
A message from Zoe:
Dear Year 5P and 6C Students
I wanted to send a huge THANK YOU to every single student who took part in the LEGO Affinity Water workshops this week. I was so impressed by your fantastic teamwork, building and coding skills, and the incredible water-saving tasks you completed. You truly showed off your skills as engineers and environmental heroes!
And now for the most amazing news - your school saved a total of 7,876 litres of water as a result of completing the tasks during the workshops. That is absolutely massive. Keep looking for ways to save water at school and at home, and most importantly, keep working towards the goals you set in your pledges. Remember, every drop counts!
Best wishes
Zoe
Pupil Voice
Louis: I am really grateful to have this amazing opportunity. I loved that we got to code our robots and make them move.
Ola: I liked how we got to build the robot with our friends and how we got in groups of 4 and 5. I had fun and enjoyed it.
Ella: I really liked the workshop because it taught us teamwork and how to not waste water . The challenges they gave us were tricky at times but were fun.
Savannah: What I enjoyed most was being able to learn coding and saving water. A fun fact I learned was that out of 100 drops of water, only one is drinkable.
Ronnie: It was fun working out how to code and operate robots. We could do test runs. I've never seen Lego which is Bluetooth.
Olivia: I found the Lego workshop fun and I think it really tested my patience and how well I work with people. When I was coding, I found it funny when you could make your robot talk.
Last Friday, Year 3 were lucky enough to receive a visit from Nick at Junior STEM. He spoke to the children about what STEM meant and they all had a go at making their own Lego cars. All the children were successful at designing, building, fixing and creating new ideas and designs. They also became programmers and were able to use algorithms to program their cars to move and make sounds! All the children showed great teamwork and co-operation throughout! We were very proud of them and wonder if we are looking at our future car designers...
On Wednesday, Year 5 had the opportunity to visit Cineworld in Stevenage, where we watched a documentary all about space: Deep Sky. This linked perfectly to our current Science topic. The documentary focused on how NASA built the James Webb Space Telescope to study cosmic landscapes approximately 1.6 million km from Earth! We saw images of distant galaxies, planets orbiting other stars and nebulae, which had not been previously seen by telescopes. Some of the stars that the telescope captured, were so old that they exploded before Earth even existed. The light from them had been travelling for billions of years. The children were well-behaved and represented our school well on the walk there and back. The documentary gripped lots of our Year 5 space enthusiasts and we all felt aware that really, we're just a small moment in an infinite universe!
We have had 4 winners from Almond Hill who entered the Stevenage 'Design a Christmas Bauble' competition. Lilly in 5J was the overall winner with her Santa chimney design and Maeve in Year 4, Cody and Felicity in Year 5 were commended entries.
All children have been invited to switch on the Christmas tree lights in Stevenage Old Town on Saturday 29th of November, 5-6pm. They will receive a prize and their designs will be hung on the Christmas tree. Lots of the other children's designs will be hung on the railings on the Bowling Green. Please look out for our winners if you attend the event.
On Wednesday 12th November, year 5 set off to Leicester to visit the National Space Centre! As soon as we arrived, we hit the gift shop. The children bought a whole array of different space themed items and it definitely tested some mathematical ability too! We then had time to explore the different areas in the centre including walking up 144 stairs to see three different rockets, learning all about Earth and space and seeing different space suits astronauts have worn throughout the years. We then had the planetarium show where we learnt amazing facts all about the different planets in our solar system and our knowledge was put to the test with interactive questions that we got to answer. We learnt about the temperatures of the planets, how old they are, whether we think life could exist on them, how they orbit and storms or weather they have too. It was a fantastic day!
Pupil Voice:
‘It helped me understand how far away the planets are and I learnt things like how cold they are. It helped me learn that we might be able to go to other planets in the future but some planets we’ll never go to. I learnt about how they live in the space station too. The shower was so small and I don’t think I could use it.’
‘I think year 5 next year will really like it. We can tell them about it too.’
‘It could help you if you want to be a scientist as a job and I think you learn about space at secondary school so that will help you.’
On Friday 14th November, 6W and 6C went to Cineworld (the cinema) to watch Bad Guys 2. We walked and it was really fun, even though it was raining! My favourite part of the film was when they were at the fake funeral and then came up with a plan to help as secret agents. It was a good morning! - Emelia 6W
Our art club are taking part in this year’s Stevenage Creative Network art trail in Westgate Shopping Centre. Children have transformed a box into a 3D Christmas present. There are 8 schools taking part including Almond Hill and the boxes will be hidden amongst 8 shop windows. A trail sheet will lead people around the shopping centre to find the presents and collect the letters to win a prize. If you’re in town, why don’t you have a go at the trail and see if you can spot our Christmas present!
Ross Lanning, from Herts Music Service, visited Almond Hill this week to tell us all about his journey as a musician. He also entertained us with some amazing renditions on his different guitars. The children really enjoyed hearing some live music and were inspired by his talent and dedication to music.
Last weekend, our Year 6 children enjoyed an amazing residential at Grafham. Many described it as “the best time of my life” and said it was something they’d never forget!
Throughout the trip, the children embraced new experiences, pushed themselves beyond their comfort zones and showed fantastic teamwork, all while having an enormous amount of fun. The staff who went would like to praise the children for their positive attitude and exemplary behaviour! Miss Simmons and the rest of the staff couldn’t have been prouder (although that didn’t stop them from getting soaked during the Grafham challenge!).
All in all, it was a brilliant weekend spent with an amazing group of children. Parents, you should be very proud!
I’m sure parents will join me in thanking the staff members who gave up their weekend to accompany the children and helped to ensure lasting memories were made!
Adam - I personally enjoyed Grafham very much particularly the bike ride around the lake. I also very much enjoyed the Kayaking and the canoeing. The food wasn't bad and I didn't starve! It was fun to share a room with my friends and all in all I really enjoyed Grafham.
Stanley - I think it was really fun especially the raft building. It was really hard and challenging but in the end, when we were on the water with it, it was really fun. This was my favourite bit. I also liked the climbing wall and I got all the way to the top. I would like to go to Grafham again!
Kailie - The bike riding was hard but once you get going it got easier and I enjoyed it. The wall climb was probably my favourite thing and I almost got to the top. Being in the rooms with friends was fun but the boys were upstairs and it sounded like they were jumping up and down and stopping us from sleeping! If I could, I would want to go back and do it again - I loved it.
Jax - I enjoyed Grafham. It was 10 out of 10. I liked the mountain biking best because it was relaxing! I liked Kayaking on the lake. We all had our own and it was really fun.
Year 4 were very lucky to be able to visit the Zoological Education Centre at Shuttleworth House. They had some amazing experiences including seeing so many different animals that they had never experienced before; feeding the capybaras; stroking an armadillo and being able to stand in a rainforest biome. This trip supported all of our learning this term about animals in Science and helped us to bring to life our learning on South American including the Amazon Rainforest in Geography.
I am so proud of all the children who took part in the Underpass art competition and it was lovely to see your work on display today. Well done to Nilashini and James who were fantastic representatives of our school. We heard speeches from different representatives of Stevenage Even Better who were all blown away by the talent on display.
Mrs Campbell
Nilashini - 'Everyone's work was great and they are really talented. I felt proud of myself and it was great to see my art work on show.'
James - Today was really good and I was impressed with the art work. I was amazed to see my picture and I'm going to bring my family along to see it soon.'
On Monday 30th June year 5 went to Barclay and did science there. The first thing we did was discussing the rules. These rules included wearing safety goggles, keeping your hair tied up, no eating, no running and there has to be a teacher in the room. After that, we got water, golden syrup, sunflower oil, baby oil and detergent. First, we poured the detergent in the golden syrup. Then poured the water in the detergent and we tried not to mix it. Then we poured the sunflower oil and the baby oil in the water. We succeeded to layer it. The next experiment was where we had to mix different chemicals slowly to make a redish, greenish and yellowish layer and it made a rainbow mixture.
Written by Sienna and Nabhan in 5P
Year 4 enjoyed their tour of the exciting 'Regeneration Stevenage' project happening currently in their town. They learnt about the history of Stevenage Town Centre and were interested to know that Stevenage was the very first new town in 1946 - opened by the Queen! They identified and explored various landmarks in Stevenage - including the clock tower and the tiled mural artwork above the Primark store. The children were informed of the 1 billion pound project taking place over the next 20 years to ‘make Stevenage even better’ and how this will impact them as the future generation of entrepreneurs! With more housing, updated public spaces, lots of Science based jobs and many creative, forward thinking ideas - we think Stevenage is the place to be! Aim high Year 4!
Year 3 were delighted to welcome the Stevenage Regeneration Team. They filled us in on the latest town planning activities and showed us excellent models of our up and coming (and soon to be very fancy indeed) town centre! We got to put our thinking caps on and design our own awesome buildings and areas for the town. These included Pokémon museums, monster truck arenas and skate parks with diner food. What a fabulous morning!
Almond Hill have been lucky enough to receive a donation of two fantastic electronic microscopes from Catapult Cell and Gene Therapy. As the link was made through Miss Porter's mum, 5P were the first class to try the new microscopes out. They spent two afternoons exploring how to use the microscopes and looking at a range of materials such as sugar, salt, liquid soap, onion skin, selotape and more. They made observational drawings of what they saw and were even able to take screen captures of the materials under the microscope too. Soon, all of the other classes in our school will have a chance to use the microscopes too and we will also explore how to share the equipment with other schools! A huge thank you to everyone at Catapult. Here's what some children in 5P had to say:
Miss Porter's mum kindly gave the school two microscopes. 5P was the first to use the microscopes and they were very fun to use! When we got the microscopes out, Miss Porter showed us how to use them. First we went outside to collect items to use but we had to get things that were small and a bit see-through. After we collected bits from outside, we got one petri dish each to put our material into. The microscope was a special one – it saw things from below and had a big screen! Some of the things were really interesting under the microscope like water and salt. We loved having the microscopes and can't wait to use them again. Thank you Catapult!
The mosaic tiles that were created by some of our children are now up and on display at Junction 7 Creatives!
Families can go and see them any Saturday at 17 Town Square up to and including the 12th of July, whereafter they will travel along to be displayed at Stevenage Museum up to the unveiling of the new Bus Interchange sculpture in September!
Year 3 had a fantastic time taking part in the 'Bags of character' workshop today. We discussed the importance of communication in teamwork and got to put this into practice with a variety of team building activities. Year 3 used verbal and non- verbal communication skills to help them navigate obstacle courses, cross 'minefields' while blindfolded and get their whole team quickly across a 'river'. We were so impressed with how the students cooperated with each other, well done Year 3!
On Wednesday 7th May, Year 5 had a fun event at school called 'Bags of character'. In this event, we had to get into groups of 5 and 6 and completed five challenges. There was a skipping challenge where two people were swinging a giant rope and the others had to jump it, a blindfolded challenge where we had to guide our partners carefully to 'safety', a connect four challenge and a colour challenge where we had to try and remember an order of set colours. We had to work well as a team and show our 'working together' learning behaviour. We had lots of fun! - Eva (5W)
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Year 4 were lucky enough to take part in Bags of Character last week. The children had to work in groups to achieve all the challenges and tasks such as skipping in a very large rope, crossing the river, a blindfolded challenge and more! They had to be resilient and work together in order to be successful. All the children tried really hard and enjoyed themselves. Their teachers will be looking to see if they can apply these skills in their future PE lessons - there are definitely house points on offer!
From the 28th April - 2nd May, Year 5 have been taking part in something called Bikeability. On day one our two instructors called Tina and Rory kept us on the playground where we learnt about the basics of cycling on roads. We learnt about signalling to other drivers, checking behind and the difference between sharing and control position. On day two, we began to cycle on the roads and going up against real cars! At times, it was nerve-racking but once we got the hang of things, it was easy. Thank you to Mrs Fordham and all the Year 5 adults for planning and organising it for us. It was really fun! - Jack D & Scarlett H 5W
On the 23rd and 24th April, year 5 took part in a KNEX challenge. Children worked in pairs and each pair had one hour to create fairground ride. One winning pair was selected. In 5W, the winners were Jack D and Adam D, in 5S the winners were Addison and Millie R and finally in 5P the winners were Ava and Mason. Everyone enjoyed it very much. Our leader, Andre, taught us to persevere and always ask questions. At the end of the session, he asked us what we wanted to do for a job when we were older and to always follow our dreams. He taught us that STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and that lots of jobs use these skills. We said a big thank you to Andre and then he left the building.
Written by Liv and Ava in 5P
Thank you and well done to the Y6 children who attended Easter School. Excellent behaviour. Impeccable manners. Lots of gratitude and some learning thrown in for good measure! On the final afternoon the children completed an arithmetic test in the 'comfort' of an outside camp they made. It was a lovely day for some outdoor learning.
On Saturday 23rd March, the Almond Hill choir went on a school trip to London. In London, we went to The Royal Albert Hall to sing in a concert. The concert only happens every two years. There were primary and secondary choirs. There was also dancers, musicians, a conductor and some actors. We sung 5 songs. These songs were Believer, Make Your Own Kind of Music, When I Grow Up, If I Had Words and Your Voice.
The Royal Albert Hall is a big circular building with lights that are orange and yellow at night. It was a 1-2 hour drive by coach and about 50 other schools took part. Inside was giant with about 2000 seats and lights that shone in their colours: yellow, orange, red, blue, pink and purple. Everyone wore different coloured t-shirts. Thank you to Mrs Fordham, Mrs Cleaves and Miss Simmons for being there.
Written by Elizabeth and Savannah.
This year, the theme for British Science Week was 'Change and Adapt'. Children across the school took part in an investigation that focused on how water lilies adapt to live in ponds. These beautiful flowers are able to open and close their leaves at different times of the day. We made paper water lilies and investigated how long they took to fully bloom. Each year group tested a different property of the paper flowers with Year 3 investigating paper types, Year 4 investigating the size of the flowers and Year 6 investigating the number of petals on the flower. This investigation really got the children talking and there was such a buzz across the school! Well done Almond Hill for such great science work!
Year 4 had a fantastic trip to Bhaktivedanta Manor on Wednesday. We learnt so many new things to support our learning about Hinduism and saw some amazing things. We were allowed into a service in the shrine and saw all the different murtis. We rode down to the farm in a cart pulled by oxen before getting to feed the cows. We were able to try wearing some traditional clothes and we even visited the garden dedicated to George Harrison (who bought the manor so it could become a place of worship)
About two weeks ago in year 5, we had a special delivery ......CHICKS! On day one when the chicks arrived at our school, Miss Porter and Miss Wase decided to make the chicks a cage in 5W because they were the quietest and calmest class (and chicks need calm!).
If you didn't know:
chicks need a bigger space when they get bigger
they need a quiet room at all times
they need to be in a warm and happy place
Update...
Last Friday in assembly, two people from 5W came up and spoke about what has been happening. Thank you to Adam D and Kayal. On Monday the 17th and Tuesday 18th, the chicks were ready to be held. Each of us got the chance to hold one of the chicks and have a photo taken too. These photos will be used to make an Easter card nearer the end of term.
The chicks have now left us but we are so grateful to have had them. We got to see them hatch, grow and develop personalities! There were quite a few mischievous chicks in there! Thank you to the children who gave up their time to help clean the chicks too.
By Amelia 5P and Miss Porter
Year 5 took part in a STEM challenge to design a glider. Children worked in small groups with specified resources provided to us by the Smallpiece Trust. The challenge linked to children's learning of air resistance and provided an opportunity to create an aerodynamic glider. The children thoroughly enjoyed the activity, especially testing out their designs! It was a lovely opportunity for the children to be creative and we were thoroughly impressed with their efforts. Well done Year 5!
In year 5 over the next two weeks, we have the incredible opportunity to incubate and care for some very special visitors- chicks! Our adventure began when we received a set of eggs from the Happy Chick Company on Monday. The children were buzzing with excitement. At the beginning of the week, all year 5 children were eagerly checking the incubator, wondering when the eggs would hatch. It was worth the wait when on Wednesday, we witnessed the magical moment of a chick hatching. The children were so fascinated. Once hatched, the chicks were kept in the warm incubator for about 20 hours to dry off and fluff up. They have grown and have now been moved to their brooder box for some more space and some food and water. The children have really enjoyed this opportunity and have been fully engrossed by it. Next week, we will continue to observe and care for them.
Many of you submitted entries for the underpass competition and we have now had the results back. There were a total of 950 entries from a number of schools in Stevenage. Of these 950, 268 were chosen as winners and 32 of those came from Almond Hill! The artwork will be featured in the underpasses in Martins Way and the Hitchin Road roundabout. We have also been invited to the unveiling in the Spring and Mrs Campbell will be selecting 2 children, from the winning entries, to join her.
The competition has even made the press! Click the following links to see our success celebrated in the Comet, on the local government website and on Instagram.
Children's artwork to be displayed in Stevenage underpass | The Comet
Designs from Stevenage school competition to feature in underpass
@Stevenagebetter
Year 3 had a brilliant time at the North Herts Museum where they explored a range of artefacts spanning from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, linking to our History topic. They got the chance to try on clothes, build a shelter and even held a real bronze sword! Our hosts were very knowledgeable and we left feeling like expert historians. The children were very well behaved and asked lots of interesting questions demonstrating a real sense of curiosity
Year 4 have spent the past few weeks learning all about the Romans and their invasion of Britain in their History lessons so they were very excited to meet a visitor from North Herts Museum on Monday. They were very lucky to be able to see and touch Roman artefacts found in the local area including the sole of a child's shoe, roof and floor tiles from a villa and a bone hair pin. They pretended to be archaeologists and thought carefully about what they could learn about these Roman families from the artefacts. They also got to see what a Roman solider would wear and learnt how to put on a toga. It was an excellent addition to our Year 4 unit - thank you to Miss Porter for organising.
On Wednesday the 27th November year 5 went on a trip to The National Space Centre. There we got split into groups. I was in Miss Porter’s group. First, we went to the rocket tower and there were all sorts of rocket themed games and facts. We got to see a real-size rocket which was 43m tall! Next we went into lots of different rooms where we learnt about The Sun, The Universe and Earth. After lunch, we went to The Planetarium which in my opinion was the best part! There we watched a video about how to become an astronaut and learnt how difficult this job is! Last but not least we went to the gift shop. People bought posters, chocolate, sweets, pens, keyrings, crystals and more! Each pupil could bring £7.50 to spend in the gift shop. A big thank you to our parent helpers!
Written by Ava 5P (and Miss Porter)
The Year 6 children had a fantastic trip to Grafham before half term. The children were heard telling each other how it was "the best time of my life" and that they would never forget it! Children tried new things and conquered fears, they worked collaboratively as teams and had a whole load of fun while doing it. The Grafham staff commended the children's behaviour with two instructors suggesting our children this year were the best groups they'd ever worked with - what a lovely compliment to receive. This made Miss Simmons and the other attending school staff very proud (but it didn't mean we squirted them with water any less on the Grafham challenge!)
All in all - a fantastic weekend with wonderful children - parents you should be very proud! They didn't sleep much however but you can't win them all!!
