I hope that you all had a lovely Easter break – we were certainly lucky with the weather weren’t we? It always makes such a difference when we have some sunshine!
It was lovely to welcome all the children back on Tuesday and we have certainly crammed a lot into just four days. Our progress with the iPads continues at a pace, they really have transformed the way we are thinking about learning opportunities for our children. Here you can see Mr Cruz’s class tackling some Maths problems..
One of the concerns staff had prior to the project starting was that children might become isolated and just work alone with the iPad. I’m pleased to say that the opposite has in fact been the case and the learning is more collaborative than it has ever been. Children are keen to share not only knowledge about learning, but the ways in which the iPads can be used and more efficient ways they have found of doing things! They are opting to work together which then brings additional advantages of learning to work as a team, take turns, effectively listen to others, critique their peers’ work, discuss different strategies, develop resilience, give more freedom to where the children choose to do their work ….the list really is endless. We were always excited about being a part of this project but the reality has proven to be even more exciting than we thought. Our next steps are to now involve our parents more by sharing some access to the work that the children are doing in school. We are just about ready to roll this out, so watch this space….
We must give a massive thank you to both Mr Dec and Mr Bright who never tire of us ‘mithering’ them – they have both been incredibly supportive.
On the day we broke up before Easter, Class 7 visited Hardcastle Craggs and had a brilliant time. Abu and Rudolf worked really well together to solve problems and navigate the area and as you can see, they were accompanied by Mrs Smith’s dog, “Deefer” – yes, that really does stand for D for Dog!
Abu took a particular shine to him and really didn’t want to let him go..
Over the holidays, we had some lovely additions to our Key Stage 1 playground – just look at these fantastic playground games!
They have already made such a difference and have massively increased the amount of physical activity the children are accessing daily. This week already we have had lots of Maths, English and PSHE learning going on outdoors. Fantastic!
We have also welcomed some new pupils to school as we continue to grow. Demand for places is such that we have had to open up another Key Stage 1 class and we have had three lovely boys join us this week – Eric, Zane and Tyler. What a delightful trio they are!
They have made a fantastic start to their time at Spring Brook – Eric’s family reported that he slept like a log on Monday night and Tyler ran out to his mum shouting that he ‘loves his new school’ – how wonderful 🙂
The older children have been fantastic in their support of the little ones – Donovan spent most of Friday afternoon playing Lego with Eric and it was wonderful to hear him ‘coaching’ him in play skills. Kyle too has been really helpful. It makes me so proud of our Year 6 boys.
Finally, the end of the week has meant that the performances of The Greatest Show are getting close and we have been down at New Bridge for rehearsals on Thursday and Friday morning this week. We have 10 children taking part (watch out for the acrobats and the strongmen!) and rehearsals have gone well. I have to give credit to our children who had to spend long periods of time watching and waiting during the two days but they were absolutely great. We are really looking forward to the shows next week and hope that many of you can make the evening performances too – there are still a few tickets left if you haven’t got yours yet.
That’s it from me – last league match of the season tomorrow so I’m off to Hartlepool (in fancy dress!!) I don’t think the sunshine will be with us unfortunately, but enjoy the weekend and we will see you all next week.
Miss Thomason
Head of School
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