CoMPasS Registered Charity No: 1141329
Mother Teresa was once quoted: “I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use.” Thomas Edison stated, “waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.” Pope John Paul II famously quoted, “The earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations.” David Attenborough in his recent ‘Witness Statement’ warns, “The real threat is not to the survival of the planet but to the survival of humanity. And if we want to survive, we need to learn to work with nature, not against it. If we don't act now to protect and preserve our planet, the beauty we're lucky enough to witness will have disappeared” My Witness Statement - David Attenborough. The messages that have been spoken have largely been ignored by generation after generation and we must educate and empower our children to be Planet Protectors to ensure that this amazing natural world we live in can still be enjoyed in generations to come. This motivated the school to host a STEM week this week with so many science activities and experiments taking place. In our celebration assembly the children in each class described what they had been
You can follow us doing throughout the week and it is remarkable what they have achieved in just one week. The children have made Egyptian Papyrus paper from scratch, then used the paper to make their own books and name plates, they have conducted experiments to investigate what was the best ointment/chemical to mummify a body and learned how this process was carried out in graphic detail. The Year 2 children learned to use even more technology this week and investigated how to use a new app, ‘Poplett’, to create food chains and food webs, they also cooked flatbreads on camp fires at forest school and created stunning pictures of the ‘Baobab’ tree, otherwise know as the tree of life in Africa. The Reception children were engineers this week, designing and building the most amazing dens in our outside area and at forest school, they also made straw rockets and programming Cubetto robots. Year 1 have been investigating the ring of fire and looked at volcanoes and earthquakes. The children performed live experiments in assembly showing how volcanoes are formed. When investigating earthquakes they designed buildings that would withstand an earthquake tremor. They tested these designs and redesigned them until they created a model that worked. Whilst looking at traditional clothes in Asia they have designed and created their own clothes using different sewing techniques showing the importance of repurposing materials and not being wasteful. They also created
Newsletter No: 28 Friday, 21st May 2021
their very own tie dye Tshirts using natural dyes. The Year 1 children designed and made models of elephant sanctuaries and raised awareness of the importance of humans treating the animals on our planet in a positive way and recorded a passionate appeal to protect elephants.
where plastic is currently being used. Once used seaweed packaging breakdown completely in a very short time.
The strong message was loud and clear; if we all do our bit we can reverse the damage we are all doing to our planet. David Attenborough says at the start of his witness On Thursday Mrs Mckie, a statement, “It's happened in Biology teacher from St my lifetime. I've seen it with Peter’s 13-18, was our guest my own eyes. This film is speaker and the assembly was my witness statement and my brilliant. It started with this vision for the future, the story of how we came to short film ‘Wasteminister’. make this our greatest Then Mrs Mckie explained mistake, and how, if we act how humans can use the plastic problem in the world now, we can yet put it right” to solve another world problem, or a shortage of Dr Seuss tried to tell us years housing in poor areas of the ago, “Unless someone like world. The amazing scientists you cares a whole awful lot, at Othalo (The future of nothing is going to get better. Housing) have created Its not”. something extremely exciting. Let us be a voice for change. We were all told of the problem of flip flop waste and My thanks to all of the how ‘Ocean Sole’, who are a teachers, teaching assistants social enterprise, upcycles and in particular to Mrs washed up flip-flops found Johnson and Miss Murray for along the beaches and an inspirational STEM WEEK. waterways in Kenya into Have a wonderful weekend. colourful products to sell at local Kenyan Markets as another means of income for their families. The children were also shown how seaweed can be a replacement for many items