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At South Stanley Infant & Nursery School, we believe that children learn best when they are interested, inspired and motivated to learn. With that in mind, we draw on the knowledge and skills of others by welcoming regular visitors into school who broaden and deepen our children’s knowledge and understanding. We also believe that taking children on visits to important historical, geographical and cultural locations enriches our children’s experiences and helps to develop a more rounded child.
We hope that you enjoy looking at our photographs and reading about some of the exciting things that we have been experiencing.
The Punctuation Show
Last week we welcomed Barry and his Punctuation Show into school. KS1 children had the chance to learn all about punctuation and had an amazing time singing songs and joining in with the show.
SLP Star Awards
Congratulations to all our winners and runners up in the first annual Stanley Learning Partnership Star awards. Special thanks to Town Mayor Alex Clegg and Cllr Carole Hampson for making the presentations and sharing our special day with us.
Father’s Day – World Cup Celebration
What a fantastic afternoon we had in school celebrating Father’s Day and of course the World Cup. Dads, Granddads, Uncles and brothers all came to join in with fun activities with Mr Patey demonstrating some amazing skills in football and dancing. Whilst some were outside showing off their skills, others were relaxing in front of the big screen enjoying the football with their children. The children all made special biscuits for their grownups to enjoy and the children presented their grownups with a special medal to show how much they care about them. This was a perfect end to our Mini-World Cup week.
World Cup Football Festival
Children from all over Derwentside participated; Collierley Primary school, East Stanley, Bloemfontein Primary School, St Josephs Primary in Stanley, St Patricks in Consett, and Benefieldside.
Teams from KS1 participated in a Mini-World Cup festival where they represented different countries participating in the World Cup. A huge effort was made by all the schools involved showing an incredible team spirit and enthusiasm. Some schools brought along their own supporters to cheer them on with flags and some even painted their faces in their team colours. All children received a Mini-World Cup medal for their participation and fun was had by all!
A huge thank you goes to everyone who took part, we’re sure everyone had a brilliant time and well done to East Stanley for winning the signed England football.
Multi-Skills Festival
Class 5 had a fantastic opportunity of attending a multi-skills festival at Greenland Primary school. The children took part in various activities developing their co-ordination, agility and team skills. They all had a fantastic time.
The Premier League Trophy visits South Stanley Infant and Nursery School!
As part of our prize for Class 6’s success in winning the North East Premier League Primary Stars Poetry Writing Competition, we were lucky enough to be visited by staff from the Premier League who brought the Premier League Trophy with them!
It was so exciting to get so close to the trophy – even though we had to be careful not to touch it as you have to wear special white gloves if you touch it! The whole school got an opportunity to ask questions about the trophy and we even had our photographs taken with it!
Delilah from Sunderland AFC also came along with some staff from Sunderland AFC and we had lots of fun enjoying football activities with them.
It was an amazing afternoon – well done to everyone and especially children from Class 6!
Cycling Taster Day with Phil Bateman
Our Nursery and reception children took part in a fantastic balance bike session learning lots of new skills. They all had a fantastic time. Key Stage 1 children brought their own bikes into school.
England Training Camp Visit
As part of our prize for the Show Racism the Red Card Award, a group of children representing our school visited the England football team’s training ground to watch them train. The children got the chance to meet and get autographs from some of the England Football team players and have a chat with Gareth Southgate, England Manager who even remembered us from last years Awards Ceremony. The children are very excited to know that some of the players they met are now in Russia playing in this years World Cup. Good Luck England!!
Dinostar visit
Dinostar (aka Steve the palaeontologist) came all the way from Yorkshire to visit Key Stage One as part of our topic on dinosaurs. He shared some of his amazing fossils with us, including the footprint of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and the tooth of an Allosaurus! Steve gave us lots of information about dinosaurs and we even got to make our very own fossils and do some fossil rubbings. What a fantastic day we all had!
Firework Safety – Firefighters Visit
Show Racism the Red Card – Awareness Day
Multi-Skills Sports festival
What a fantastic two weeks we have had hosting our first multi-skills festival for key stage 1. Our year 1 and 2 children participated in fun sporting activities alongside schools in our local area. All of the children really enjoyed taking part and we would like to say a big thank you to Collierley Primary School, The Grove Primary School, St Mary’s South Moor, Burnhope, Greenland, Annfield Plain Infants, East Stanley Primary, Delves Lane and Bloemfontein Primary School. We all hope you had as much fun as we did and we look forward to many more events.
Harvest Festival
Thank you for all the kind donations for our Harvest Festival.
Story Chair
We recently had the unveiling of our magnificent story chair. In our school we all know that children have the right to be listened to and have their opinions valued so our brand new story chair was designed by every single child in school last year and was put together and made by the magical Naomi Gnome. We were lucky enough to have the chair officially opened by Sally Waterston whose kind donation towards our chair helped to make this project possible. Many thanks also to the Year 3 children from South Stanley Junior School who helped with the design when they were Year 2’s at our school and for joining us for this special moment. Our chair now has proud of place in our school library and will be enjoyed for many more years to come.
Library Visits
Our lovely library visits began again this week with Class 5 being the first to go along to South Moor library. As we walked to the library we were shocked! There to meet us was a VIKING! The Viking (also known as Lisa the librarian) took us into the library and read us a story about Vikings and let us look at her sword and her enormous shield. We had the most amazing time at the library. Isn’t reading FUN!
NSPCC – Stand Your Ground
The children have had a fantastic time doing the Stand Your Ground Fundraising Challenge. Well done to Class 4 who came first in the class challenge with a combined score of 525.
World Book Day 2017
This year’s World Book Day was a very special day because World Book Day was 20 years old! Our theme for this special World Book day 2017 was snuggle stories. All the children and teachers enjoyed coming into school dressed in pyjamas with their favourite bedtime stories to share with friends.
We had a fabulous day and thoroughly enjoyed having different teachers in our classes reading their favourite stories to us and doing some exciting activities from the book with us.
We also managed to raise an incredible £136.02 for Book Aid International to help to provide books for children in Africa.
Thank you all!
Chinese New Year 2017 – The Year of the Rooster
Right across school we all enjoyed celebrating Chinese New Year. As well as learning all about the Chinese Zodiac and how the animals came to be associated with each year, we had loads of fun cooking, painting and creating.
We enjoyed making traditional Chinese food which was delicious, learned a Chinese dragon dance and we had so much fun making our Chinese dancing dragon puppets. We even learned some Chinese numerals and began to do some number problems using them. We loved making our beautiful Chinese blossom pictures, using paint and chalks and collage.
We had so much fun celebrating Chinese New Year!
LOCOMOTION!
Reception were very lucky to have a trip to Shildon Railway Museum. We had a fabulous time looking at the trains and handling artefacts from the past. We found out that the train driver would cook his breakfast on his coal shovel! We had a peek inside a Royal train, got to blow a train horn and we even dressed up as people from the past.
Gymnastic Competition
24th February 2017
Six children from Key stage 1 had the fantastic opportunity of representing our school at our first gymnastic competition along side four other schools in our local area. The children had to learn two key step routines for the floor and the vault. The children were fantastic and should be very proud of themselves as they demonstrated excellent co-ordination, balance and competitive skills, The children came third but only narrowly missed out on second place. An excellent effort for our very first gymnastic competition and we look forward to many more.
World Kindness Day
Monday 14th November saw us take part in World Kindness Day. It is a day when people around the world celebrate the importance of acts of kindness, both small and large. During the afternoon, each class took part in activities thinking about acts of kindness that they could do for others, both at school and at home. We also thought about how that would make other people and themselves feel. We ended our day by enjoying a whole school assembly with each class sharing what they had done.
It’s definitely nice to be nice!
Beamish Mining Visit
The Tommy Armstrong Project
To kick start our topic for Autumn 2, KS1 children were treated to a visit from Bill from Beamish Museum who brought a huge selection of artefacts from mining days into school for us to explore. We learned a huge amount about how different and difficult life was for miners and their families. Bill also taught us some fantastic mining songs from the North East and talked to us about the West Stanley Pit disaster of 1909. Thank you Bill from all of Year 1 and 2!
Remembrance 2016
Poppy Day Assembly
Our Poppy Day Assembly this year was all about remembering. Mrs Johnson held a quiz to see what we could remember. It was easy to remember what we had done last week and last year, but we all found it harder to remember things that happened a long time ago.
Mrs Johnson told us that 100 years ago there was a war and people started wearing poppies to remember their family and friends who were hurt or killed. Over the years there have been more wars so we wear poppies at this time of year to remember everyone involved in these wars and to be glad that we live in a peaceful country.
We also found out that on Poppy Day some people stop what they are doing at 11 o’clock and stand quietly for two minutes. We sat quietly in the hall for two minutes at the end of our assembly remembering together.
When we went back to our classes we made a big poppies and added drawings of our faces.
Jack and the Beanstalk
Green Watch visit South Stanley Infants
Knowing how to keep ourselves and others safe is a very important part of our learning at school. With Bonfire Night just around the corner, Green Watch from High Handenhold fire station came into school to talk to us about staying safe around fireworks. They gave us some important tips about using sparklers and reminded us how much safer it is to go to an organised fireworks display.
What an exciting morning we had; we got to have a look around the fire engine and we even got to squirt the fire hoses. Thank you Green Watch!
Forest Schools
Year 1, Nursery and Reception children have had the exciting opportunity of taking part in a forest school adventure within our school grounds. The children had a fabulous time developing a range of knowledge and skills across the National Curriculum through exciting outdoor activities. The children had the opportunity of cooking delicious popcorn on an open fire and understanding how heat can change things and the importance of safety when using a fire. During the afternoon the lovely weather decided to change from glorious sunshine to pouring rain. But this didn’t stop the children from having fun, as they were challenged to make a shelter to keep their group dry. The children had to work together to decide on what materials they were going to use and how they were going to build it. Through a lot of hard work and getting wet, the children were able to create a fantastic shelter that was attached under the trees and kept them almost dry! All of the children had a fantastic time and a lot of fun learning outdoors.
James Denny Sports for School
We had the exciting opportunity of a Commonwealth Diver Silver medallist James Denny attend our school this term. The children participated in a circuit of exercises that lasted for one minute each. At the end the children were able to ask James questions about what he does and what he had to do to get where he is today. He even demonstrated how to do a back flip and handstand off a diving board! WOW! We would like to say a big thank you to all of the children for taking part and to all of the groups for their generous support. The money raised will help to buy new equipment for our school and help promote a healthy lifestyle.
Conflict Resolution
On Conflict Resolution Day 2016, each class in school thought about ways in which they can solve disagreements peacefully. Some children acted out situations and thought about how they might solve different conflicts. Other children made posters (look out for them appearing around school as reminders) and some children made their own ‘wheel of choice’ to help them to remember different strategies that we can all use.
Harvest Festival
The children provided two fantastic shows for our families to attend! This year, having so many children and such fabulous audience support for our events, we needed to do two performances which were as always wonderfully attended.
Many thanks for your generous donations, all of which went to very worthy local food banks.
The Great Fire of London Drama
To deepen our understanding of the events of The Great Fire of London, KS1 children took part in a fantastic retelling of the dramatic events of 1666.
Amy helped us to retell the events through actions and song and we learned so much more about what happened during those four days. We had such a fun and exciting time while we were learning!
The Duke of Kent visits Stanley
We were so excited to be invited to take part in the official opening of The Venue, the new Community Centre in Stanley by His Royal Highness, The Duke of Kent.
Not only did we get to see His Royal Highness arrive at the Community Centre but we also got to see him arrive in the enormous helicopter that he borrowed from his Cousin, The Queen! Click helicopters to see an amazing picture drawn by one of our children.
Good luck with the new Community facility at The Venue from everyone at South Stanley Infant & Nursery School.
Visit to Hetton Lake
On Wednesday 11th may 2016 our school worked with Real Adventure Through Sport staff members to give the children the fantastic opportunity to learn through outdoor activities. The children took part in Forest Schools giving them the opportunity to make a fire and toast marshmallows and make popcorn. We discovered our fantastic climbers on the inflatable climbing wall.
After lunch we took part in the nature trail discovering the hidden pictures in the trees around the lake. Lastly the children got the chance to try archery and grass sledging. A good day was had by all.
The Queen’s 90th Birthday Celebrations
Here at South Stanley Infant & Nursery School, to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s 90th birthday, St George’s Day and Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary, we held a ‘Britain through the decade’s week’ during the week 18th April – 22nd April.
Each class chose a different decade to study from the 1920s onwards, learning about the fashion, music, toys and games and of course significant events in the Queen’s life from each decade.
The highlight of the week was of course the Queen’s 90th birthday when the children and staff came into school dressed in either red, white and blue or in clothing from the decade they were studying.
The weather was particularly kind to us and we were able to enjoy a special Queen’s birthday lunch outside in true ‘street party’ style, complete with bunting, music from across the decades, St George’s cakes, jelly and ice cream and a special visit from our very own Queen.
Many thanks to all of the Parents (and Aunties, Grandparents etc) who entered our music through the decades quiz. It was tricky and so many people managed to do so well with the quiz that we put all the entrants into a hat and pulled out one winner from each class. For those who are interested the answers can be found here quiz answer sheet
A fantastic day was had by all and a huge thanks to all the parents and adults who helped to make it all possible!
A special thank you to our wonderful kitchen staff who prepared all the amazing food for our street party.
Dance Through The Decades
As part of our ‘British Values Week’ and The Queens 90th Birthday Celebrations each class learned a dance from a particular decade from the 1920’s to the 1980’s
KS1 Mini Beast Visit
Our exciting starts to our topics continued this half term with a visit from Silverband Falconry’s astonishing mini beasts. Bob (aka Jacinta) bought lots of different animals into school for us to look at, learn about and handle. We had a fantastic time learning about animals such as the Jungle Nymph, Giant African Snail and the Bearded Dragon. We learned how we can tell if an animal is a reptile and we learned loads of disgusting facts about snails (which we REALLY enjoyed!)
A fantastic day was had by all!
Power Up With Patey
Not only do we ensure that all our children take part in lots of sporting activities…………………….we also encourage parents to become involved!
ARE YOU READY FOR THE CHALLENGE?
Sport Relief
We think it is important that children are aware of charity events that take place throughout the year. This year we chose to take part in Sport Relief 2016 and organised fun activities throughout the day for all classes. Not only were we getting fitter, We were raising money for good causes. Of all the money raised by the public through Sport Relief 50% is used to make a difference right here in the UK, and 50% goes towards transforming lives across the world’s poorest communities. For example 189,000 children can now attend school and get and education, 16,500 people get the support they need to improve their mental health, over 734,000 children have been given life saving vaccines and there is funding for 23 projects that support people living with dementia.
So we know the £886.10 we raised will certainly make a difference!
Football
We have had lots of fun playing games against other schools in the area. This allows the children to gain valuable early experience, learning the game in a fun, safe and organised manner and on a real football pitch. Very soon we will be able to invite other schools to play games on our newly acquired football pitch!
Jet and Ben Visit South Stanley
As part of our learning about staying safe, we were visited by PC. Kerr and the lovely police dogs, Jet and Ben. PC Kerr talked to us about stranger danger and we learned Jet and Ben’s song about staying safe. The best bit was when we all got to stroke Jet and Ben and say thank you to them for visiting us!
Easter
The Curate of St Andrews Church, Andrea Dart came into school and told us the story of Easter. She also had the very tough job of judging the amazing decorated eggs made by the children.
World Book Day
Our theme for World Book day 2016 was bedtime stories. All the children and teachers enjoyed coming into school dressed in pyjamas with their favourite bedtime stories to share with friends.
We had an amazing day and enjoyed having different teachers in our classes reading their favourite stories to us and doing some exciting activities with us. We managed to raise an incredible £92 for Book Aid International to help to provide books for children in Africa. Thank you!
Many, many thanks to everyone who entered our competition to read in an unusual place. We will be judging the competition and will announce the winner very soon.
Many thanks again for all your support, we just love reading!
Planetarium Visit
To make sure that we had an exciting start to this half term’s topic of Space, we were lucky enough to have a mobile planetarium brought to us by the staff from the Centre for Life in Newcastle.
Inside the planetarium it was so dark but it meant that they were able to show us far away stars and we even got to visit some of the planets in our solar system!
We can’t wait to begin learning all about space!
Shildon Railway Museum
As part of our travel and movement topic reception recently visited Shildon Railway Museum to find out all about trains from the past and present. Take a look at all of the fun and learning that took place in the photos below.
Safer Internet Day
Safer Internet Day 2016 is taking place today, on the 9th February, with the theme ‘Play your part for a better internet!’
Yesterday the children enjoyed a wonderful day of drama workshops which helped them to learn all about keeping themselves safe on the internet.
If you would like to find out more about Safer Internet Day or to find advice about keeping yourself and your family safe online check out our E-Safety page here.
Chinese New Year
Remembrance 2015
During the week of Remembrance, every adult and child in school made a poppy to contribute towards our display based on the ‘Blood swept lands and seas of red’ art installation at Windsor Castle. In our assembly, we learned about the reasons we have Remembrance Sunday and Remembrance Day and then our whole school came together for two minutes silence at 11 o’clock on 11th November. There wasn’t a single sound to be heard while we thought about the brave soldiers who have died.
‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.’
Laurence Binyon For the Fallen, September 1914
Library Visits
Children in Year 1 and Year 2 are thoroughly enjoying their visits to South Moor Library every half term. Joan the librarian always reads us fabulous stories and we always have a great time choosing and reading books from the library. Did you know…..WE LOVE READING!
KS1 visit The Great North Museum
Our first day back after the half term holiday, saw Year 1 and Year 2 children take a trip to The Great North Museum in Newcastle to begin our topic of dinosaurs. We had an amazing time meeting Dr. Kate who helped us to learn about dinosaurs and fossils. We even got to hold a real fossil of dinosaur poo! Our favourite part of all was meeting a life size Tyrannosaurus Rex! He was SCARY!
M&M Productions
Peter Pan and Wendy flew in to visit us this week to tell us their story. We enjoyed a fantastic performance of Peter Pan with lots of dancing, singing and of course audience participation! There were some new characters and some more familiar ones. A great time was had by all!
Dino-Star
Dinostar visit South Stanley!
Dinostar (aka Steve the palaeontologist) visited Key Stage One as part of our topic on dinosaurs. He showed us some amazing fossils and told us loads of information about dinosaurs! We even got to make our very own fossils. What an amazing day!
Steven Waterhouse -Author/Illustrator
We were lucky enough to be visited in school by Stephen Waterhouse who, among other things illustrated the book ‘The Runaway Chapati’. Stephen talked to us about being an author/ illustrator and about how a book is made. He showed us some of his original drawings and they were fantastic! Stephen worked with every classes in school to produce our own versions of The Runaway Chapati based on a piece of food that runs away…..our imaginations went wild with runaway sausages, chips and the very popular runaway pizza! We will be sending our finished stories to Stephen to read. We had so much fun being author/ illustrators!
More information about Stephen and his work can be found at http://www.stephenwaterhouse.com/
School Council – Litter Pick
Tuesday 8th December 2015
The School Council decided that we need to do more to look after our world, and what better place to start than in our own school grounds? That was when the children got the idea to take part in a litter pick. We arranged to borrow litter pickers from Stanley Area Action Partnership, and set our date. We were very lucky to be joined by some super helpers, one of the school councillors grandmothers and another school councillors mum. It makes such a difference to have support from our families!
After getting ready in our boots, hats and gloves we had a quick safety briefing about how to use the pickers and not to touch anything with our hands, and we set off! We cleared litter from our playground, the nursery and reception garden, our school driveway and the parents shelter. There was quite a lot! But we are thrilled that now we have a clean, tidy and safer school grounds. The children were really proud, and can’t wait for spring term so they can do it again, although they are hoping that our grounds will be well looked after, and they plan to tackle the streets around our school next time!
Christmas Play
Sadly this year was the last year for our performances to be held in the Community Centre, but on a happier note the children were brilliant. The comments from Parents/Grandparents were extremely positive and everyone went home with smiley faces.
Captain Courage visits South Stanley Infants!
To kick start our new topic of Superheroes, Captain courage visited Key Stage 1 to help them to complete their training to become superheroes! We needed to complete lots of challenges ( such as an agility challenge and a stealth challenge) to finish our training but we managed it fantastically!
When we completed our training we were presented with our very own superhero certificate to take home. What an exciting start to our topic, we cant wait to take on more missions!
