Who is being a good friend?

In our classroom we have been learning how to be good friends with everybody. We have got a friendship tree and when we are good friends we can put our hands onto the tree. We each made a hand by drawing around our own hand, we then had our pictures taken and these were stuck onto the hands.
On Friday Miss Geach saw some of us being good freinds and took some pictures.

Y5/6C Control systems

Year 5 have been working on various control systems in ICT. They have given the computer program command instructions to undertake. These commands have controlled home security, traffic lights, a fun fair, a haunted house and even plant care.

Check out some of our examples

Snakes in Reception!

Yesterday, we were making snakes from the links. So Stacey brought in her pet corn snake for us to look at. We wrote about him in Big Write.
Mrs Rollings

Story openers

Today Y12S have been discussing interesting story openers. I was really impressed with some examples of story openers that my year 1 and 2 class were able to come up with. Here are some of their ideas.

Far, far away in a deep dark forest where green trees live there was a delicate fairy living in a hollow tree.
-Ruby and Alvin

Far, far away in a quiet land where no one ever goes there lived a scary monster.
-Leyahn and Kameron

Once upon a time amongst the pretty flowers and mushrooms there lived a beautiful fairy.
-Niamh and Ruby

Far away on the moon, where craters are smashed together, a robot army planned to attack.
-Bridie and Hamze

Y3/4's local dialect

In our Literacy groups we are looking at stories from different cultures. One of the key features we've identified has been how the characters in the stories talk in a 'non-standard' form of grammar. This has taken shape in different forms depending on the locality in which the story has been set. To try and show the difference between standard English and a 'non-standard' form, my Literacy group practiced changing a short extract from 'Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone' into 'Bristolian'.

Elliott's 'standard' English reading.

Ailis' 'Bristolian' reading.

Yasmin's 'Bristolian' reading.

The sound might be a bit low so you will probably have to turn your speakers up.

Mr Tilmouth

Koozac

Have you tried the new exciting game of Koozac yet?

It's brilliant for improving the speed of mental addition. It can be found on both the Big Number Crunch website and St Joseph's challenges.


Tell me how you get on!

Y5P Narrative Poetry

As part of their poetry topic, Y5P enjoyed reading and studying The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. They particularly liked the powerful imagery in the poem and the author's use of similes and metaphors . Below, is an example of writing produced during the topic.
From Tim, the Ostler's Diary
Dear Diary,
Today I saw Mr Highwayman sing to Bess, the landlord's daughter, I felt rotten. She was plaiting a love knot into her hair and she lowered it down for him to kiss! He blushed as red as a rose. She would never do that for me. He is a thief, I am not. I don't go out and steal, I found a job and get paid. He was whispering how he was going to take her away on his horse. If he ever tries, I will kill his horse!

The landlord's black eyed daughter, with her fine black hair, will be going away with that thing! She will be in prison before she is 16 years old. I will not trust him with my future wife. He will not get away with this like he gets away with everything else. I will first tell the landlord. No! He might kick me out for offending his daughter. What should I do........?

AAHH! I will get King George's army to wait for her and Mr Highwayman, then they will threaten her with a gun so she will not scream or tell anyone. There will be death at all windows and hell at one dark window. Yes, yes, yes!!! I've got it!

The Thoughts of Bess
I am in my long house with a musket gun under my breast. I don't know what to do. The love of my life is coming to get me and he will get killed. I can't move my hands because they have tied me up. I feel like I am in hell! My hands are covered in sweat and blood.

I can't think how I will save him? How will I save the highwayman? It keeps going round and round in my head. I wish I was brainier, then I could think of a way. Someone come and rescue me from these soldiers. I'm not even 16 and I am going through this. I know what to do. If I can just get hold of the lever - I can hear him coming - BANG!
By Mirhaed.

Eggstravaganza!

Thursday saw the judging of the PTFA egg competition. Each class had their own theme to base their designs on. There were so many entries it was 'eggstremely' difficult to choose winners! Well done to everyone who entered.

Reception Class Assembly

Today Mrs Rollings' class performed their assembly. It was the story of the three trees to celebrate Easter. The children used lovely, strong voices and sang a wonderful song. It was great. Well done.

Y6J Journey into space

Y6J have been creating vocal soundscapes on the topic Journey into space. Check them out and see if you can hear the aliens!



Y6J Journey into space

Successful Learning

Today we were visited by Jane Durbin who is a teacher from the Isle of Wight. Jane used to teach in Chester Park Juniors in Bristol and came to find out how 'Successful Learners' is being developed in Bristol. We enjoyed talking to the children in Years 1,3 and 5 about their learning - in particular we were impressed with the children who were able to talk about their 'next steps' and use of success criteria. We hope to link up with the Isle of Wight to develop assessment for learning over the next couple of months.

Our Trip to @Bristol. By Milo Y5P

When I arrived at school, I was so excited. Mrs Workman, our teacher, said the register and I got even more excited. In fact, I was like a child at a birthday party.

We got on the coach, which was very long, and me and Liam sat next to each other, talking about how excited we were.

When we got there, the first thing we went to was a skeleton, which you moved by pressing parts of the brain. It was like magic. Then we went to the heart beat counter where you had to put your hand on a desk and it showed you how many heart beats you have in a minute. Mine was as fast as a cheetah’s.
Next, it was everyone’s favourite, the hamster wheel. I climbed up the side and you have to be as strong as a wrestler.

There were many more things to see, including the Planetarium. My favourite star is ‘Nigel’.
That was the best trip we have ever had!!

St Patrick's Day

We were treated to some Irish dancing in assembly today to celebrate St Patrick's Day. The girls performed a routine that they had created and it was wonderful! Don't their dresses look pretty?!

Challenging Maths

A few gifted and talented mathematicians from year 5 and 6 have been meeting regularly on Monday afternoon’s for challenging maths sessions. They have been joined by children from other local schools, working on various problems.

Joseph performances

We have been blown away this week by outstanding performances of Joseph. There were two evening shows, followed by a performance to the rest of the school on the Friday. With fantastic costumes, brilliant acting, amazing singing and cool dance moves this was one show not to be missed.

Tuesday's after school sports clubs

In the hall on Tuesday's is Miss Geach's Gym club for infants and starting this week is a new netball club for year 5 & 6.

Maths Club

On Tuesday’s some of our year 6 children are joined by pupils from Summer Hill and Chester Park School for after school maths sessions. The club run by Mr Conlon is for several weeks leading up to SATS. It gives the children the opportunity to practise test questions and build confidence.

at-Bristol

Year 5 & 6 spent today exploring at-Bristol. We had fun playing around the interactive exhibits, were in awe of the Planetarium and undertook a special lesson on graphs.

Y3/4 Newspaper articles

For the last couple of weeks our Literacy groups have been looking at recount writing. The culmination of this work has been to write a newspaper article about the events in a comic strip. Some of the children used a great programme called 2Publish+ to publish their work in the style of a real newspaper article. Ailis' is a great example!

Mr Tilmouth and Mrs Bell

Y12S Art

Today in art our class have been making pictures of a beautiful lady from a 'strange world'. Some of us used pencils, some of us used chalk and some of us used paints. Some visitors from reception came and joined in. We are really pleased with our amazing pictures.

World Book Day

Today, for World Book Day, the children from Year Six and Reception shared books with each other. We brought our favourite books in from home and the library. It was great to have time looking at the books with younger children. The reception children really enjoyed spending time reading with the big children.

St Joseph's 'Club Links' board.

You may have already seen in the playground our new 'Club Links' board. It is displaying some of the clubs that children from St Joseph’s go to outside of School. The idea of it is to allow children who might be interested in joining a similar club to know where one is in their local area and maybe know someone who is already there. The hope is that this will encourage more of our children to be involved with clubs and groups outside of school.
A big thankyou to all those parents who returned the information about this in the Autumn. If you have any updates for this board e.g. your child has joined a new club or you would like your child's club to go on the board for the first time, then please write these details with as much information regarding times and address on a piece of paper and put it in the parents’ suggestion box at the front of the School.

Alternatively you could leave the information as a comment on this post!

Mr Tilmouth

Bristol Rovers

Some Year 6 children have been lucky enough to attend after school learning courses at Bristol Rovers. Today was a busy session, with the children working on ICT skills, making badges and taking photographs around the stadium.

Measuring forces and motion

Today my class (Y12S) were learning about science. Our topic is Forces and Motion. We did an investigation about how far a car travels down a ramp. We changed the number of books under the ramp and measured how far the car moved (in cm) and recorded our results in a table. We all enjoyed doing the experiement.

Thanks for being 'Successful Learners'

Dear Matt, staff and children of St Joseph's

I have just returned from Neath where I have been leading a professional development day on developing the Successful Learner Model for the Neath Cluster. All the teachers who visited Bristol last week attended the training session today. Those teachers who visited you at St Josephs had a wonderful time - they really appreciated the way in which they were welcomed into the school, for the attention they received during the day and for the thought that had gone into preparing for their visit. They were full of admiration for what they saw and experienced and were very impresssed by the articulate way in which the children were able to express themselves and talk about their learning! You gave them lots of ideas!

A fitting tribute for all your hard work! Congratulations and thank you for all your effort and enthusiasm. I look forward to visiting you all soon!

Best wishes

Di (Di Pardoe - Bristol Assessment Advisor and author of 'Successful Learners'

Joseph rehearsal

The school's performance of Joseph takes place on the 12th and 13th March. Tickets are now available.

As we look forward in anticipation, here are some photos from today’s rehearsal.

St Joseph's Challenges

This term's challenges are now on the website www.stjosephschallenges.ik.org


The special challenge ends Friday 7th March. So you will have to be quick.


All other competitions have a closing date of Thursday 3rd April.

So check out the website there are some egg -cellent competitions and prizes this term.

Y5P Choral Poetry

This week in literacy, Y5P looked at choral poetry. Here are some examples of their excellent performances.