Steam Power

We have been learning about how a steam engine works.

Fields of gold

What a stunning scene.

Cracker Development Weekend in Brightlingsea

A development weekend at Brightlingsea consisted of winching Cali up the mast so that she could complete the task of marking the spreader positions on the new #1 and #2 sails before we applied patches to the kevlar and carbon fabric. Whilst she was there, she also lubricated the blocks with MacLube.

Luckily it wasn't me up the mast, or my phone!

St George's Day Jousting Horse

Almost complete. The boys turned up on a sunny Saturday afternoon to put the finishing touches to the horse. They loved spray painting - it was almost as if they'd done it before some place else.. !?

Read about the winning success of the St George's Day Jousting Competition.

ANZAC Day

Besides making a plywood cut out of a jousting horse for St George's Day, we also made ANZAC biscuits. ANZAC day remembers those in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp who fought in the 1st World War.

Bird box

My nephew and I built a bird box last weekend. He wanted me to put it in my garden, so here it is. I'd quite like to refocus the webcam on the box to capture any comings and goings.

Jenga Challenge

So what do you do when competing against the Headteacher in a Jenga Challenge? Win of course!

We have been trying to find a moment to play our staff match for a while now. The children looked on and became immersed in the atmosphere and tension that was present. The pupils were very supported of both players and it was a delight to see their involvement. It was another reality check for them to see that teachers and headteachers are just as competitive as the children are.

Check out the children's faces as they look on.

(Thank you to Alan who took the photographs.)

Forest Schools Outdoor Education

More images and explanation of the activities can be found here.

Ready for Swimming?

Cracker passes the Millennium Dome

As Cracker passes the Millennium Dome a few members of the crew reflect on our involvement in designing what went on inside.

We didn't have long however as the Thames Barrier was fast approaching. Helming along the Thames requires a great deal of concentration as you avoid shallow waters around the inside bends and fast moving taxi boats which move swiftly up behind you like an Audi on a German Autobahn

Lock-out at St Katherines Dock

Cracker leaves her Winter residence at St Katherines Dock for Brightlingsea, but not before going through the lock gates.

Me Ol' Bamboo

This is a game that we haven't played in years. Each player has a bamboo pole and instructions are given for players to move one to the left or right. They leave their poles balanced where they are and move on to catch the next one. The command "stay" means to do a full turn on the spot. Anyone who fails to keep their pole from falling is out.

3D Towers

A problem solving activity during our Scout evening.

We gave each group 20 garden canes and a pile of elastic bands. The challenge is to build a tower as tall as possible. It must be free standing.

Pupils not stumped by ICT at the Essex Cricket Ground

This evening I accompanied 14 youngsters from Kings Road Primary School to an after-school ICT Learning Centre located at the Chelmsford Cricket Ground. It's an unusual place to find a computer lab, but in partnership with Essex Cricket Club and Essex Advisory Service, a learning centre has been established. Over 6 weeks, pupils have engaged in a variety of activities from making CDs, through to producing comic strips using Comic Life and digital video work.

Andy, who runs the centre has been impressed with the children's enthusiasm and commitment to the tasks.

Under the floorboards

I've been having problems with the central heating so I ended up
crawling under the floorboards to check for leaks.

Grow Your Own Sunflower Kit

Inspired by the Enterprise Week at my school and our brilliant idea to sell Sunflower Growing Kits, here is Max putting the kits together for members of his family. They made great little Easter gifts.

Snowman

I spent a happy hour or so helping build a snowman with my nephew, Max. It all became a bit desperate towards the end as the snow began to thaw. Quite a hard lesson for any youngster to understand really.

Winter

A reminder that Winter is still here, despite nearing the end of March. Doesn't look like it will last very long however as it's starting to thaw already.

Learning Conferences

Tonight I met with both parents and pupils to discuss the pupils' progress. I was delighted that many parents reported that their children had been talking more about the work they are doing at school and the learning taking place.

It struck me that our focus on writing learning reflections on the school blog site could be related to pupils sharing the school experience at home.

Could it be that the articles that have been written on the website helps to

• focus children's understanding of what they have been learning, whether they have written the article or not.
  
• remind them of the activities that they have been engaged in.
  
• informs them about what their children are learning and therefore could be the basis of developing a conversation beyond the usual 'What did you do at school?' to 'Can you tell me what your creative story was about today?'
  

It's not at all clear at this stage that there is a link between the blogging work and pupils sharing work more readily at home, but it's something that several parents mentioned this evening.

Sugababes - Rave on ...!

One word. Amazing.

Enterprise Week

Today, pupils at Kings Road Primary School have an opportunity to buy the products that were produced during the excellent Enterprise Week. Here is The F Factor stall, with our sales team behind, selling Grow Your Own Sunflower kits, Easter Cards and Pom Pom's. Much of what was made is now 'sold-out', which should be good for our business model!

I'm looking forward to the evaluation session, looking at what worked well and what didn't work so well.

Joseph in London

We've just arrived.... the show begins at 7pm!

District Scout Night Hike

Team 4 from 3rd Billericay, Orion Troop before they set off on the District Night Hike. The scouts were issued with local maps and a route card, which they subsequently used to plot the route. The route took us from Runwell Scout HQ, to the village of Ramsden Heath, passing through Downham before heading back to the HQ at just after 11:00pm.

Being a clear night, we were able to use the stars to navigate for much of the hike, using the compass only to find footpaths which weren't easily identifiable.

Here are the results from the District Night Hike.

1st Team 4 (3rd Billericay) - 1150 points
2nd Team 1 (5th Billericay) - 1100 points
= Team 2 (2nd Wickford) - 1100 points
4th Team 10 (1st Ramsden) - 1000 points
5th Team 3 (3rd Billericay) - 950 points
6th Team 12 (1st Runwell) - 900 points
7th Team 7 (Columbus Explorers) - 850 points
= Team 5 (1st Wickford) - 850 points
9th Team 6 (4th Wickford) - 700 points
10th Team 9 (1st Runwell) - 650 points
= Team 8 (Columbus Explorers) - 650 points

Primary Framework, Guided Writing session

The course today focussed teachers on developing Guided Writing opportunities as part of the Primary Framework. As we know, the Primary Framework builds on much of the work already done in the National Literacy Strategy, so we spent some of the day looking at some of the refinements.

The highlight was a presentation given by a Leading Teacher, Emma from Earls Colne, who demonstrated how Guided Writing was being run and developed in her own classroom. There were several aspects which I noted and will develop in my own classroom practice.

I was impressed to see how Emma had encouraged peer review and assessment of each others' work something which I do on a regular basis as an oral exercise. However, Emma had the pupils annotating and highlighting examples where pupils had met the success criteria. The children's books were 'alive' with comments and highlights, each one suggesting either success or areas for development / improvement.

We watched a clip from the Primary Framework of a class teacher sharing the Success Criteria on large sheets of paper around the room meaning that the children are able to access and refer to these throughout. In addition to these, there were also the indicators of success, like a checklist of things that needed to have been met to reach success.

Something that stuck in my mind from the course today is the shift from teachers controlling the learning to enabling learners to drive it forward for themselves. High quality teaching is now about providing the pupils with 'pathways' through their learning.

Scouts get a good soaking

Later, one of the appliances was driven outside to the yard and several hose pipes were unreeled to give the Scouts an opportunity to squirt some water. Their challenge was to squirt water to move a traffic cone about 10 metres with the water from the hose alone. We used the smaller of the hoses to begin with before moving onto the larger hoses which required adults to help the boys hold the hose steady, such was the power of the water running through them. It was a chilly evening, so we tried to discourage the boys from getting too wet, with the promise of taking them back during the Summer to squirt more water on a warmer day.