At St. Andrew’s Primary School, one of our key curriculum drivers is “Aspirations and Possibilities” and we feel it is our role to help inspire our pupils to be whoever they want to be when they grow up. At the end of careers week, children dressed in the role of their dream job. We had quite a range of jobs come though our gates! From police officers to dogs trust carers, from video gamer to nurses and from teachers to business managers. Children talked lots about their future selves and what journey they would need to take in order to secure their dream job. Overall, the message to our pupils was – “Dream big – be whoever you want to be!”

We invited parents and carers to school and work with their children to create Easter bonnets.
We just managed to get you all in the school hall! What a fantastic turn out.
It was great to see everyone using their craft skills to create some amazing bonnets which some of the children wore to the Easter Service at St. Andrew’s Church the following day.
Mrs James had a very difficult task to pick some winners which were announced after the service.
Please watch this short video to remind you of the day.

Class 2 were invited to a local house building site not far from our school. The builders, Linden Homes, are building a new estate called Bishops Park and wanted to tell our children about the dangers of playing on a building site. As the local schools have broken up for Easter, the company thought it was very important to get the message across.
The children were shown lots of equipment and materials needed on a building site and a lot of safety signs were pointed out.

The school’s Roving Reporters wrote this news report about our visit from Hoopstarz.

On Friday 1^st of March, Tracey from Hoopstarz came to visit St Andrew’s Primary.  She had come to work with every class, showing them new tricks with hoola hoops.  The event took place in the main hall, as the weather was not great day.  All of the children and even some teachers took part.
Tracey is a brilliant hoola-hooper.  She is better than all of us but always helped us learn.  She showed us some tricks using different parts of her body to spin the hoop.  An encouraging teacher, Tracey never made anyone feel bad for not getting it right.  She is motivational.
Hoopstarz visit our school regularly.  Learning to hoola helps us to keep fit and is fantastic exercise.  It can help our arms have lots of strength and also develops our balance and concentration.

While Tracey was here, every class came to the hall for a hoola hooping session.  Each class learned different tricks, as well as getting better at the tricks they already knew.  The tricks included: using hips, necks, arms, hands, hopping, jumping, running on the spot, kneeling and then combining some of these.  Everyone was extremely happy with what they learned that day – even the teachers!  As there were lots of different ways to use the hoola hoop, everyone was able to do something.  Even if there was something we could not do, there were plenty of other tricks that we could try.
At the end of the day, we had an assembly where children from each class demonstrated what they had learned.  It was fun to see even the youngest children showing off their skills.  The last group to show off was the teachers.  Mrs James even took off her high heels to show us.
We have lots of hoops in our playground and we will practise all our tricks in the yard.  Using these, we will improve our technique as well as our fitness.  We don’t have to wait until Tracey visits again, we can learn new skills any day.  We might even challenge the teachers to a hoop off in the summer term!
Tracey from Hoopstarz is the hoopiest girl we have ever met in our whole entire lives.
We would love for Tracey to come back and teach us some new tricks.  Please!

We invited dads, stepdads and granddads into school to become superheroes for the day. The children worked with their family member to design and create a Superhero costume and name. The dads were great sports and dressed in their new superhero outfits before being photographed for a fun Photoshop picture. The children and dads created stories on comic strips too. All children received a book of their choice to take home and read with their grown-up that night. It was a “super” morning.
Here is a short video of the morning, including a few of the Photoshop pictures.

Our Breakfast Club sponsors, Warrens Group PLC, welcomed children from Class Two to come and visit their Newton Aycliffe site to learn about how they turn everyday food waste into valuable bio gas. The children had been learning about how to save our planet and how recycle things in class but then saw it in real life at the site. Our children amazed us with the excellent answers they gave to some of the questions they were asked and learned so much more, which they took back to the classroom.

Our school vision is really important to us.  In order to be part of a caring community, we decided to organise events for charity. In March, the School Council organised fundraising for Comic Relief.  Selling red noses and having a bake sale, we raised £290.

During one of our Action Group meetings, we identified lots of different ways to make money for charities, but this was definitely the most popular! We asked for donations of shop bought and homemade cakes and treats to sell on the day, as well as selling red noses throughout the school in the days before.

We set up the stall, set prices and made labels, iced biscuits and organised jobs between us.  The sale was a huge success and we would like to thank everyone who was involved: pupils, family members and staff, especially Mrs Dinsdale for helping us set up.

2018 marked the centenary of the end of World War 1 and our school felt it was important to mark the event with a series of commemorative activities.
The whole school contributed to a large commemorative display in the school hall, which featured letters from soldiers, poems and art work from children of all ages.
Author, Adam Bushnell, worked with pupils across the school to create thought provoking character descriptions of soldiers and poems from the trenches. All class teachers choose class texts that focused on war. Class 2 read, “Where the Poppies Now Grow,” by Hilary Robinson, Year 3,4 and 5 read “War Game, ” by Michael Foreman and Year 6 read, “Goodnight Mr Tom, ” by Michael Magorian. The texts opened the children’s minds and imaginations to the issues caused by war and inspired them to write their own stories and poems.
The whole of Key Stage 2 visited Eden Camp Outdoor Museum, in North Yorkshire, to learn more about life during the war. They experienced real trenches, the sights, sounds and smells of an air raid and the perils of being a prisoner of war. The children enjoyed the day and learned so much to bring back to the classroom and apply to their learning in class.
In assemblies, children heard about the Battle of the Somme and prayed for the soldiers who lost their lives for our country.
We invited elderly residents from our Local Residential Home, to enjoy a Remembrance Day lunch. One of our visitors was 101 and enjoyed the World War songs playing during the lunch time. The guests talked to the children about their memories as children living through the aftermath of the war.
Overall, the commemoration was poignant and fitting for the occasion. Children, staff and parents took time to think about the impact the war had on the lives of those who lived it.

“Lest we forget.”

Mrs James (Headteacher)

Please watch our short video

Thank you to everyone who attended our Harvest Festival at St Andrew’s Church, it was a fantastic turn out this year. The children were outstanding in their performances and we would like to share a  reminder of the afternoon with this  short video.

Please watch our short video of our Green Day trip to the seaside.