Message from the Head
The last few weeks have been a busy and exciting time in the Junior School reflected in this bumper 8page edition of theMonthly Messenger.
Choirs have performed on local and national stages, our Dance group has qualified for a national final and our sports teams have performed brilliantly across the sporting spectrum; and in all of these external events, our pupils have conducted themselves impeccably making all the staff involved feel very proud.
This Messenger is also packed with reports of the children’s endeavours within school, from Year 6 Leadership Club’s stimulating and inspiring Hymers Book Day, to French cheese tasting in Modern Languages and outstanding project work in Art and Design Technology. As when representing the school in competitions, the children continue to approach their studies and extra-curricular activities in school with enthusiasm, determination and resilience.
I hope you enjoy reading the Messenger and I wish all Hymers families a very restful and enjoyable Easter.
Peter Doyle, Head of Junior School
National Choral Competition Finals
On Tuesday 28th February, the Year 6 Choir competed in the Barnardo’s National Choral Competition Finals held at the Birmingham Symphony Hall as one of fourteen of the best junior choirs in the country. They sang their two songs, ‘Cantate’ and ‘Why We Sing’, with bags of enthusiasm and, although not placed on this occasion, had a fantastic experience as well as learning a lot. The event also raised lots of money for Barnardo’s. Well done to everyone!
Music Festival Success
The Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5 Choirs competed successfully at Cottingham Music Festival in February, achieving great scores. The Year 3 Choir won their classes with a super mark of 87 and the Year 5 Choir also gained 87 marks in one of their classes. They won three trophies with the Year 4 Choir gaining second place certificates. In March, the Year 4 and 5 Choirs competed at Hull Music Festival. With both singing brilliantly against another two local choirs, the Year 5 Choir were thrilled to win School Choirs Class with an amazing 90 marks!! The Year 4 Choir were awarded a well deserved second place. However, the tables turned in the School Choir Hymn Singing Class when the Year 4 Choir were the victors.
The Year 5 Choir also performed at the Music For Youth Regional Festival held at the Albemarle Music Centre and gained some fantastic feedback. A huge well done to all the children for their dedication and enthusiasm!
Children in the Year 5 and 6 Dance groups, led by Mrs Marsden, travelled to Halifax to compete in the regional round of the Great Big Dance Off. They performed exceptionally well to a routine with the theme of Magic and finished in an amazing second place! They have therefore qualified for the National Finals to be held in Oxford on June 8th. Very well done and a huge thank you to Mrs Marsden!
Hymers Book Day
The Year 6 Leadership Club organised a fantastic Book Day. The day began with a parade of all the children who had come dressed in some wonderful outfits based on book characters. Some of the children from the Leadership Club read extracts from their favourite books and there were also some amazing plays which the children had devised in groups based on different books. As well as a book treasure hunt, the children enjoyed the teacher challenge which resulted in some members of staff being put into a Matilda style chokey! The day ended with children pairing up with their buddies to design a bookmark and read to each other. Well done to the Year 6 Leadership Club for organising the day.
Letters from the Lighthouse
Emma Carroll
There are three children and one of them goes missing in the air raid a week before they were due to be evacuated. I found the plot very intriguing as I’m learning about evacuation in history at school.
MY OPINION
My favourite part is when Olive and Esther Jenkins bring in the boat together because they weren’t very good friends before that.
CHARACTERS
The main characters are Olive, Cliff, Sukie and Ernest. My favourite character is Olive because she is brave, defiant and honest.
RECOMMEND
I would say that if you enjoy adventure books then you would love this book. I would recommend this book because it was nothing like I’d ever read before and I think it has a very important message.
By Francesca, Year 6
PLOT
Dissection
Budding scientists in Year 6 enjoyed their Junior course in dissection.
Mushroom: Teacher modelling setup, using apparatus, H&S and procedures
Tomato: Pupils to independently carry out dissection with a partner.
French Cheese Tasting
OnMonday27th FebruaryallYear5did cheese-tastinginModernLanguages.We havebeenlearningabouttheFrenchculture,birthdays,celebrationsandeverything!Frenchcheesesareeatenwitha baguette(atypicalFrenchbread)andred wine.Mrs.Exleytriedherbesttogiveus somethinglikeredwineandgaveusred grapejuiceandlemonadewithslicesof baguette.Wehadavarietyof tendifferentcheesesandMrs.Exleyexplainedthe originsofeachone.Mrs.Exleysaidwe didbrilliantlyandwereverysensiblein tastingthecheese.
By Isabel, Year 5
MFL Joke of the Month
What would a French dog who loves potatoes be called?
A pomme de terrier!
Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality learning has landed in the Junior School to further enhance children’s learning. From swimming with the sharks to holding a heart, our pupils will be immersed into the next level of learning, which will broaden their understanding of the world. The teachers can’t wait either!
Year 5 have been building these steady hand games. After much circuit testing and trouble shooting, they are finally ready to take home. Well done!
D.T.
After completing their healthy eating project, Year 4 were set the fun challenge of building a Lego tower to support an egg. They had to use the least amount of bricks to create the tallest structure. These pupils are celebrating after reaching a whopping 87cm using only 100 bricks! Well done on your fantastic team work!
Art
The art room is looking vibrant, and an array of artwork is decorating the walls upstairs. The self-portraits created by Year 6 have had many admirers and the children are, quite rightly, very proud of their work. Year 5 have created zines based on poems, using painting, collage and printing. The still life collages produced by Year 4 look wonderfully colourful in the art room. Year 3's cut paper collages, based on paintings from the Ferens collection, also look fantastic.
Author Visits
We were lucky to welcome two authors into Hymers recently. Lou Abercrombie spoke to Year 6 and Matt Dickinson and spoke to all year groups.
Book Club
In Year 3/4 Book Club, we have beenreading 'The Witches' by Roald Dahl. We made sugared mice as the witches are plotting totrick all the children in the UK with poisonous sweets and turn them into mice! We alsomade witches' faces.
HYMERS HOST HMC
On March 1st, Hymers hosted the HMC Football and Netball tournaments. Despite the weather, it was great to see around 240 children enjoying their football and playing in great spirit! Well done to our trophy winners, including Hymers B team who brought home the Vase! There was an amazing effort from all 30 netball teams. It was great to see so much quality netball being played in great spirit. Well done to all the trophy winners, including our B team who came away with the Vase. Our A team did really well, finishing 4th overall. Well done to everyone who took part.
Girls Football
Our Girls football team took on Griffin Primary in the Humberside Cup. Fortunately we progressed on penalties and all girls were a credit to their school!
SPORT Rugby 7s Success
It has been a busyterm so far for the U11 7s squad. The season startedwiththe Durham 7s at thestart of February, in whichweentered twosquads. We playedsomefantastic rugby and bothsides ended up inthe top group, alongwith Sedbergh. Unfortunately, our Ateamwerenot at theirbest against Sedbergh andwereunableto raisetheirgame. The B team battled reallywell, losing narrowly but thenwent on the beat a demoralised Ateamin their finalgame!
Afterthat disappointment, theA teamcame backstrongly in the Terrington7s tournament on2nd February. Theboys were fantastic and clearly learned from their mistakes at Durham, bouncing back to defeat Sedbergh convincingly inthe final gamein ordertowinthetournament outright.
Next up, onTuesday 7th March, the HMC 7s took place at St Peter’s. Again, both ourA and Bteams entered thetournament andwe were delightedto seeso muchgreat rugby being played. Our Bteamperformed admirably as the only Bteamin the competition and did not lookout of place, picking up a couple ofwins bythe end ofthe tournament. Our As cruised throughthegroup stages, beating Barlborough Hall, Bronte House and Barnard Castle. This meant we topped the group to play St Peter’s andthe QEGS. Aftergoing a try downv St Peter’s, the boys reacted fantastically and came throughto play QEGS in awinner takes all final. Theintensity from both teams was immense, and our physicalityshonethrough as we took a 3-1 lead. However, QEGSbrought it back to 3-3 and it looked likewe might fold underpressure. But, withthe Durham 7s lessonstill fresh inthe memory, theboys kept their cool and came through as 5-3winners, lifting the HMC 7s trophy, their fourth trophy of the year! A hugewell doneto all the boys involved.
Our U11 Rugby 7s teambacked up the Hymers7s and HMC 7s tournament wins bywinning theAshville 7s competition.They havebeen playing some phenomenal rugbythis season andthis trophy comes after top performances against Hymers 7s finalists Ashville, Aysgarth anda number of big club sides around Yorkshire. This makes it 6 tournament wins this year. It wasgreat tosee the boys play sowell and in thespirit of the game.
Rosslyn Park National Rugby 7s
For the first time in history, we entered an U11 side into the Rosslyn Park National Rugby 7s tournament, which is the biggest schools’ rugby tournament in the world, attracting most of the big rugby schools nationally. We entered our U11s into the top tier of this tournament on the back of being a dominant force in the north of England all year. This proved to be the right decision, as we went undefeated right up until the final game against St Paul’s, who have one of the most established rugby backgrounds in England. The boys fought hard, but with a couple of players down, we were not quite able to get over the line in the last game. Nonetheless, we can be incredibly proud to be the 2nd place side at a national tournament and it bodes extremely well for this set of players as they move into senior school. Congratulations to each and every one of the boys who have participated this season and thank you to the fantastic support we have had from the side-line.
Fencing
On Sunday 5th Feb a number of Hymersfencers competed inthe Northern Youth ChallengeTournament which took place at Wetherby HighSchool. The final results of our fencerswere -
Under 10 Girls’Foil
Quinn– 3rd
Florence – 6th
Under 12 Girls’Foil
Gulmehr– 3rd
Everyone fenced reallywell in avery large and challenging tournament andhad a veryenjoyable day.
On Sunday 19th Marchthe YorkshireYouth Championships tookplace at Wetherby High School. Zach competed in the Under 10 Boys Foil finishing 3rd. This was Zach’s first competition so a good result and a great learning experience.
Year 5 Sports Tour
The Year 5 children enjoyed a great trip to RGS Newcastle on their day long sports tour. This was followed up with food and fun!
National Biathlon Finals
Congratulations to Scarlett, Oscar, Lily, Molly, Ismael, Alex, and Amelia who represented the Junior School at the School National Biathlon finals in Redditch. Each competitor had to compete in 2 events, a running and a swimming event. Scarlett narrowly missed out on a podium position finishing in 6th place. Well done to all those who took part!
Dates for your Diary
Monday 17th April Summer Term begins
Saturday 22nd April Year 6 Choir singing at Cottingham Methodist Church, Hull Recital Club 7.30pm
Thursday 27th April Year 3/4 Chamber Concert
Wednesday 3rd May Choral Celebration Concert, Hull Minster (All choirs)
Tuesday 9th – Friday 12th May Year 6 Residential, Windermere
Thursday 18th May Year 5/6 Chamber Concert
Friday 19th May House Swimming Gala
Monday 22nd May Junior School Theme Week
Friday 26th May Break up for half term
Editor T.J. Redhead
