Simba - Spring 2009

Excellence through care....

BABLAKE JUNIOR SCHOOL COUNDON ROAD COVENTRY CV1 4AU TEL: 024 7627 1260 www.bablakejuniorschool.co.uk

Simba

Bablake Junior School Spring 2009

CROSS COUNTRY

This has been a stunning term for all of our Cross Country runners. Everyone has been training hard since September and all this hard work came to fruition as Bablake Junior School runners achieved outstandingly at the Coventry Schools events.

The boys teams led the way last November with victory in the B team race and coming second in the A race by only two points. The girls went one better in January, winning the A race and coming runners up in the B race. This form was carried through to the relays where, last weekend, our teams ran magnificently to win both the boys and girls races. The mixed team too ran with determination to come in fourth.

With over twenty four schools taking part in these events, our runners’ success was a tremendous achievement. Well done to everyone in Cross Country Club and to their coaches, Mrs Price and Mrs Reed.

Lots of fun in the snow at Bablake Junior School

NETBALL

On Wednesday the 25th of February Bablake’s under 11’s A team were invited to Rugby School to play in a netball tournament . We got off to a good start, and won our first match against Beachborough 6-2 . Our second match against Kimbolton was a close game with the final score 1-2, unfortunately Kimbolton won the game.

Our third match was against Wellingborough, unfortunately we lost that 3-2. After the three tiring games we qualified for the plate competition In the semi-final we had to play Bablake B team and we won 6-0. That win got us to the plate final which meant we had to play Beachborough again and won 5-1. So we won the plate. !! WELL DONE GIRLS. Last Thursday 12th March the Bablake Year 6 Netball team were presented with a trophy by the England Captain, Karen Atkinson, after winning the Coventry East High 5 Netball Tournament. They now represent Coventry at The County Tournament on April 2nd. Good luck to all the players!

RUGBY

Our first full Rugby season ended with a fitting climax at the Barker Butts Stadium where the Under 11 Boys lost narrowly to King Henrys. Tremendous progress has been made by all of our players since September and once their new skills are embedded even further, we can look forward to both the challenges ahead in the Junior School and a little better preparation for Rugby in the Senior School. This will undoubtedly reap personal and team dividends.

A Message From Neil Price As we enjoy bathing in the beautiful March sunshine it seems remarkable that only a month ago school life was stopped through the most significant cold spell for thirty years. There is life in a nutshell – a series of memorable extremes punctuated by great swathes of normality. It is of course the steadiness of the usual life of our school that helps make it so strong. The children enjoy coming to school, are stimulated by their lessons and are happy in their relationships. The steady and reassuring regularity that school offers might easily go unnoticed and be undervalued. Academic, sporting and musical success is built up over many years, as too is the ability to socialise, get on with and enjoy the company of others – all life enriching phenomena which will reap wonderful long term rewards. School days should be enjoyed and mimic the steadiness of a great sailing ship crossing the oceans; exciting undercurrents within a steady journey. That is Bablake. I think we are all blessed to be here.

“Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!”

Design & Technology

SCIENCE EXPERIMENT We tried an experiment in science to see which drinks were bad for our teeth.

We used eggs to see how different drinks damaged the shells, like our teeth. We soaked eggs in milk, coke, still orange, orange juice and water. I predicted that coke would have the worst effect on the eggs and our teeth as it had the most sugar in. I was surprised to see that the orange juice was the worst, the egg was rotting away. It was disgusting. The stale milk smelt awful. The water and milk caused the least damage.

Shannon Maguire 3D

In Year 3 Design and Technology, we have been making sandwiches. First we carried out a taste test on a selection of different sandwiches. We gave them marks for taste, texture and appearance and decided on our overall favourite. Next, we practised some essential skills such as grating carrots ( or cheese) , spreading margarine (or butter) and chopping vegetables. We then looked at food hygiene and planned our ‘healthy’ sandwich. Finally, we went to the dining room and made our own lunch.

Obviously these were the best sandwiches out of all that we had tasted as part of our project. We’ll all be volunteering to make the packed lunches from now on!

Year 5 pupils have been baking biscuits in Design and Technology.

After baking a basic biscuit they had to invent their own biscuit with some interesting flavourings.

HOLLYOAKS ACTRESS RETURNS TO BABLAKE Hollyoaks’ new star, Melissa Walton, took advantage of a break in filming to return to Bablake, where she was a pupil at both the Junior and Senior schools.

Melissa, who plays new character Loretta, had a chance to refresh her Bablake memories, meeting staff who had taught her and a number of students who would dearly love to follow in her footsteps. She faced a Question and Answer session with a Year 6 class who wanted to know everything about her as well as grab a treasured autograph. Yes, they wanted to know everything, what TV she watched, where she lived, what she did with any spare time and obviously plenty about Melissa’s current show and her path into acting. All bar questions about future plot lines were answered directly and prompted many more.

In Year 3 Maths this term, we have been looking at mass and how heavy things are.

We looked at the metric units of weight kilogram (kg) and grams (g). Do you know how many grams make a kilogram? We used bathroom weighing scales to measure how heavy we were. Then we used bucket scales and weights to estimate, then measure, how heavy different objects were in class.

Some of us used kitchen scales to measure our objects as this meant we also had to read a scale.

The Bablake Junior school chess team continue to go from strength to strength.

In the Coventry Schools chess league, the team put together a stunning victory over Arnold Lodge A. This ensured a fourth place finish in the league and a place in the league cup semifinal. Tensions were high as we were playing the league champions, Bablake School C team.

However, our players prevailed and set up a final with Arnold Lodge. Despite drawing 3-3, Arnold lodge just won the cup as their board count was lower. What a season! Fantastic fluent chess week in week out. Mr Norman would like to thank in particular: Jonny Leong, Thomas Betts, Rajan Parekh, Madison Cotteret, Mantaran Dosanj, Ciara Wyman, Aman Sandhu, Arjan Basra, Arun Nahar, Lawson Moore and Albert Jie.

Creative Writing Story Openings

This term, Year 4 have been discovering what makes a good story opening. We want to encourage our readers to continue, so why not read on and you’ll be amazed…..

Once there were three very unfortunate children whose names were Charlie, Madison and Sophie Bennett.

They lived in a cosy orphanage. It gleamed as it was cleaned till spotless by the maid. It had a lovely warm kitchen with veils of cloudy steam floating out of the old-fashioned cooker. The kitchen had a warm log fire with dancing sparks and flames that looked like pixies having a lively party!

The bedrooms were all beautifully furnished with polished wood chairs and beds and lovely and soft blankets, pillows, cushions and duvets. Fires were lit in the bedrooms as well as the kitchen.

The orphanage was such a lovely welcoming place to be. The best thing of all was that only a few children were there and it made it all the cosier.

But did it stay like this forever? ...

By Caroline Smith 4F

The thick layer of white snow came fluttering through the air and settled on the floor almost like patterns, as I listened to the breeze flow through my ears. “I’m in the land of mysterious happenings,” I thought, because I’d never been here before.

As I carried on for my walk, I saw a massive, vast mountain almost standing like a soldier in the middle of this land but then in the other corner of my eye were some steps. So I cautiously walked through as I kept thinking to myself that this place got weirder and even weirder and I saw a bright blue stone which looked like a pearl. I know I shouldn’t have touched it but it was almost as if it was saying, “Pick me up.”

Ten Little Children TEN little children Standing in a line One fell over a cliff And then there were NINE NINE little children At the school gate Along came a roaring lion And then there were EIGHT EIGHT little children Travelling to Devon One vanished in a puff of smoke And then there were SEVEN

SIX little children Doing the jive One slipped on a banana skin And then there were FIVE

John Harris is one of only a handful of full-time professional Storytellers in Britain, and the only one who works exclusively with younger audiences.

His visit to Bablake junior school was a great success.

In the dark mist, I walk in the long grass that scrapes water onto my legs. Sunlight was gone, I couldn’t see anything. There was something in the distance, shining like gold. I heard snow crunching beneath the snow. Suddenly something hit me. I tripped over. On the floor was a golden stone, perfectly carved, smooth like a ball. Cautiously, I stepped in the moist snow. There was an enormous footprint! It was the size of my body! I was thirsty and my lips were parched. I found a lake so I drank some of the soothing water, but what was living in the lake?

FOUR little children Swimming in the sea One was attacked by a shark And then there were THREE

By Suraj Lall

As Castus turned the narrow corner, he saw a thick dark gloomy large cave.

When he stepped in, he could not see a thing but he lit his torch and he paused.

There were large puddles of blood. When he looked at the floor, there were bones and dead bodies! He nearly collapsed and he leant on the wall. It was hairy and he looked again. That wasn’t a wall! It was a large hairy man eating monster and spiders! He stepped back and saw his guards lying dead on the floor. He was alone! He could smell rotten mould and he could hear the monster roaring.

John Harris

By Camren Bisal

A sudden mist rolled in, covering acres of land with a blanket of white. It was so dense you couldn’t see 15 centimetres in front of you! I was running as fast as I could go …. But it was no use my hay fever kicking in and the grass was just too thick to run through. Ever so slowly the mist was clearing and the grass was getting thinner. I found myself walking tentivly on rock solid ice.

It was getting colder every minute. Unfortunately I forgot my gloves. I was thinking of turning back but I had come too far to go back. Suddenly I heard a cracking sound and it was coming from underneath me….I bolted down through the weak ice. Some time later, I got back on to solid ground and then I saw the strangest stone…..

By Brooke Walton

SEVEN little children With a model to fix One got attached to the glue And then there were SIX

FIVE little children Going on tour One fell out of the window And then there were FOUR

By Andrew Wong

As she landed, she couldn’t believe what was right in front of her. It was an enormous cave with sharp, brown, dusty rocks at each side. She couldn’t even move for at least a minute. Then, when she finely moved, she took her black torch out of her backpack and turned it on and then stepped inside the cave. She was standing on rotting bones and they weren’t very pleasant either. The bones made a kind of CRUNCHING sound but they also made a CRACKLING sound . When Theseus heard that noise, she began to be not so confident anymore. Then she began to feel her way around but when she put her hands on the rough cave wall, she felt a slimy sticky feeling on her hands, so she quickly turned the torch towards them.

She found that it was blood. She knew she was getting closer to the MONSTER

THREE little children A ghost went “BOO” And scared one away And then there were TWO TWO little children Trying to lift a tonne One ran away And then there was ONE ONE little child Looking for a magic bun Disappeared into a pond And then there were NONE By 3L and A.A. Milne

If we want to encourage children to read we have to begin by nurturing their love of stories, and no-one can do that better than a good Storyteller.

A well told story can take an audience from a gasp of shock to a scream of laughter in the twist of a phrase. It can leave the listener more exhilirated and moved than anything on a screen can do - the immediacy and intensity of a live performance which reaches every child in the audience is priceless.

A good Storyteller takes children to another world, where they stretch their imaginations and run the gamut of emotions; they can sympathise and empathise, rationalise and quantify.

Their own experiences can be related to others and learned from, and their understanding of the world around them is developed. Listening to a good Storyteller can help enable a child to find their own voice in the world.

John Harris the storyteller was absolutely amazing. His stories made me so excited, I couldn’t wait to hear what happened next.

Some of them were true but he made them more interesting and magical.

You could really tell the characters emotions because he uses such great expression.

John made everybody laugh so many times.

Everybody thought it was fabulous.

Mehreen Kazmi. 3D

John Harrris’ stories were very funny, I laughed so much that my cheeks were aching. His expression was phenomenal. I believed every one of his myths and legends. It was so AWESOME! He was so good that I might borrow his ideas for story writing. If I had to give him a mark out of ten, I would give him 10.

Megan Rose 3D

Bablake Science & Maths

Open Evening

Year 3 have been having a great time learning how to clean their teeth.

Friday 19th June 2009 5.00pm - 8.00pm

TEETH In Year 3 Science, as part of our teeth topic, Mrs Chalker and her colleagues from Park Road Dental Practise generously came into school to teach us how to look after our teeth properly.

We used disclosing tablets to highlight the plaque on our teeth. We recorded this carefully before brushing our teeth for at least 2 minutes.

We brushed the front, back and biting surface on our upper and lower teeth. Luckily, all the red had disappeared after this.

HANDS ON SCIENCE

Junior School 7-11 Years Senior School 11-18 Years We are writing this letter together to thank you for coming into Bablake Junior School this morning. We really enjoyed learning about how to brush our teeth and look after them properly.

We loved the part when we got to see our teeth go red. This was because of the liquid (Amrit called it disclosing liquid).

Brooke thought that the disclosing liquid tasted like cherries and was much better than the tablets she had tried before. The liquid stuck to our teeth when it found some plaque on them. Plaque mixes with the sugar in food and drinks to rot our teeth and make holes in them. Manveer was a bit worried about the liquid, as he thought his mouth would be bright crimson. Ravi was quite excited because he wanted to find out how well he’d brushed his teeth that morning. Navpreet had beautiful looking lips as well, after pushing the liquid around her teeth. Then, we made a record of what we could see on our teeth, when we looked in the mirror. We gave ourselves a score from 0 to 5.

Next, we brushed our teeth. James thought that the brushes were very good, especially the sticky feet. Molly liked their smiley faces. We had to brush our teeth on the front, back and on the chewing surface. We had to do this for our top and bottom teeth, for two minutes. Some of us still have milk teeth but all of us already have an adult tooth. Izzy thought the brushing felt like a really, really, really long time. After brushing our teeth carefully, we looked again in the mirror. We were pleased to see our teeth were white again.

Thank you for answering our questions and for the goodie bag. Kare thought it contained all you needed to look after your teeth properly. Lewis enjoyed the dot to dot and successfully completed it in under two minutes. Hannah liked the timer and she’s going to use it tonight. Olivia liked the tooth mirror and felt like a real dentist using it. John enjoyed the word search, as it had everything in it and it was fun.

In conclusion, we would like to say a massive thank you, for all of your time and expert help. We are taking our gifts home tonight and will be removing all the germs and their “poo” from our teeth. 47 out of 47 children said they would be brushing their teeth really well from now on. Would you like us, to let you know about the results of our experiment with eggs in different drinks?

BABLAKE

SCHOLARSHIPS

CHARITY NEWS

Several pupil led events have enabled us to raise £400.00 for the NSPCC this term as well as over £250.00 for Comic Relief. Jake Sexton and Oliver Brindley initiated our efforts and Year 4 held a successful Bring & Buy Sale. Year 5’s held cake sales and a ‘Guess the Baby Competition’, all of which were very popular. We were pleased to welcome Mrs Deborah Sharp from the NSPCC into one of our assemblies and Red Nose Day saw everyone wearing their pyjamas for a little comic relief.

Four Junior School pupils have won scholarships for Bablake School Entry in September.

All four pupils were awarded general academic scholarships with Tom Betts gaining Bablake’s top award. They were not the only ones working hard in Year 6 however, as all the pupils who applied to the Senior School were offered places. A tremendous achievement for everyone concerned.

We are all very happy to welcome Cheshunt Schools’ integration as Bablake Pre Prep from next September. This development forms part of the process towards the planned building of the new Bablake Junior School in 2012. Many pupils currently at Bablake enjoyed a most successful time at Cheshunt and the new expanded school will now enable pupils to gain the benefit of a Bablake education from pre school to university entrance.