Summer School August 2019

Tuesday 27th August 2019 - Rother Valley

We kicked off the day with a minibus ride to sunny Rother Valley. We met the Park Ranger who took us on a walk around the beautiful park. First we met some mini-beasts in water trays so we could investigate them in detail! We used magnifying pots to look at the water based creatures and learn about the wildlife that lives in the water. The children learnt about attracting moths with light and some of the moths flew in the children’s faces and made them jump! However by the end of the session children were bravely holding huge moths and setting them free with care. We then armed ourselves with nets to catch our own wildlife in an area of the park with lots of trees; bushes and long grass. The children loved this activity and it was wonderful to see the children having fun and learning outdoors.

Wednesday 28th August - Underbank

This is a trip all the children were excited for! Many children said they had never tried any water sports and this was a new experience for most children. Some children were apprehensive and a little nervous about the activities. However, with a little support and encouragement, every child (and staff members) got involved and took part in the activities. The children tried their hand at Canoeing/Kayaking and Paddle Boarding. Paddle boarding felt a little scary for some children as your board is very close to the water. We could not believe how confident and daring the children became throughout the day. It was wonderful to see the children participate and learn new skills out of their comfort zone. By the end of the day children were keen to jump off their Paddle boards into the reservoir! The children also enjoyed team building exercises when constructing their rafts. The rafts were eventually built using barrels; logs and ropes. The children took them out onto the water for a 2 team race. An action packed, fun-filled day enjoyed by all!

Thursday 29th August - Bowling/McDonalds

We had a brisk walk to catch the bus for our trip to Hollywood Bowl. The children enjoyed a game of bowling – girls against boys! The children showed great team working skills – cheering on each other and praising one another. The girls took the lead and won the game. We then finished off the trip with a delicious Happy Meal from McDonalds. Despite the rain coming on the walk back to the bus stop – the children didn’t complain once. A day thoroughly enjoyed by all.

Friday 30th August - Cooking

We spent the whole morning making lots of delicious delights! We gathered our ingredients and watched a demonstration before busy hands got chopping, crushing and mixing and to make mouth-watering Rocky Road crispy buns before tacking a dessert for after lunch. The children learned many different chopping techniques before carefully putting them into practice in chopping and dicing to make their own fruit salad bowl. We only needed 2 blue plasters and all fingers were thankfully intact at the end of the day. Next it was time to make and try various breads, wraps, muffins and filled rolls for lunch accompanied by the usual picnic snacks such as sausage rolls, crisps, and other savoury treats. The DIY picnic was a success. We all worked together as a team and washed up several times throughout the day! We had a break outside in the sunshine to keep active and stretch our legs before moving onto a creative afternoon with lots of arts & crafts activities.

Summer School July 2019

Monday 29th July

We boarded a minibus to take us to Glen Howe Park where we were met by Rohan from Foresteer’s who was at the ready to take us on whistle stop tour of the woodlands before setting up camp deep in the forest. Once at camp we split into teams, we used a few props and our imaginations to made dens, then we proudly sat inside whilst we ate our packed lunches. The children were shown how to make a campfire, a cheese toastie was grilled on the embers for everyone to enjoy and toasted marshmallows followed. A quick swing on the ropes before having a go at Felling (walking up streams) some of our children were lucky enough to enjoy an involuntary soak in the lovely cool water.

Tuesday 30th July

Todays the day we had the teddy bears picnic. After a short walk to the bus stop and a nice relaxing bus ride, we arrived at Graves Park. Firstly we all decided to find a dry spot on a bench in the play area to keep safe our belongings and picnic lunches. We voted for a play in the park before lunchtime and visiting the animals due to the huge thunderstorm that was brewing and rainclouds ready to explode.

Then we settled onto the picnic blanket on the grass to eat our lunch. Full bellies and full ducks too (who had eaten our leftovers) we strolled onto the farm area to see all the different rare breeds of animals. There were chickens, pigs, cows, sheep, goats and even a baby deer that was only a few weeks old to keep our enquiring minds busy. All that hard work made us really hungry and we hurried back to our picnic, fortunately the teddy bears had left us some nice goodies for us to eat after our packed lunch. Picnic all eaten, we packed up the blankets before a short stay in the play area before it was time to get on the bus back to school.

Wednesday 31st July

After a quick march to the bus stop - Ding Ding!! Grenoside stables please Mr Bus driver. A woodland pony trek and pony grooming management session was on the agenda. We donned on wellies and a riding hat and split into two teams. One team learned how to brush and look after the horses and the other mounted their horse for a woodland trek.  The children shrieked with excitement as the horse’s gentle trot sped into a cantor lead by the Grenoside Riding team. All of the children had a lot of fun trying to keep on the horse and maintain dignity.

Thursday 1st August

We spent the whole morning making lots of delicious delights! We gathered our ingredients and watched a demonstration before busy hands got chopping, crushing and mixing and to make mouth-watering Rocky Road crispy buns before tacking a dessert for after lunch. The children learned many different chopping techniques before carefully putting them into practice in chopping and dicing to make their own fruit salad bowl. We only needed 2 blue plasters and all fingers were thankfully intact at the end of the day. Next it was time to make and try various breads, wraps, muffins and filled rolls for lunch accompanied by the usual picnic snacks such as sausage rolls, crisps, and other savoury treats. The DIY picnic was a success. We all worked together as a team and washed up several times throughout the day! We had a break outside in the sunshine to keep active and stretch our legs before moving onto a creative afternoon with lots of arts & crafts activities.

May Holiday Activities 2019

Tuesday 28th May 2019

Greentop Circus Skills

Roll up Roll up for all the fun of the circus!

The children had great fun practising their circus skills at a fun day in school packed with challenges. The day was led by Trudi Patient from Green Top Circus and she certainly put us through our paces. Firstly easing us all in with scarf juggling then moving onto flower sticks, plate spinning, diablo, feather balancing and finally pushing all our efforts to unicycle and stilt walking. All the children enjoyed it when they grasped a skill quicker than Mr Clarke and Mrs Shepherd but gave both adults lots of encouragement and didn’t laugh at us (well only a little bit). The children all followed Trudi’s instruction and had a go at everything even when it took them out of their comfort zone.  

After lunch and before the second session in the afternoon began the children all showed off their funky dance skills in the Inclusion room. Great fun was had by all, we went home very tired but looking forward to the next day in Graves park   

Wednesday 29th May 2019

Graves Park Farm

The children enjoyed a fantastic trip to Graves Park during May half term activities (For once the sun was shining and it didn’t rain on us this year!).

We had a leisurely walk in the park and burnt off some energy at the playground. We even managed to have a picnic outside this year! The children were a credit to Southey Green – behaved brilliantly and enjoyed feeding the animals at the farm. One of the goats was a little too hungry and tried eating the bag the food came in!

An excellent fun-filled day had by all!

Easter Holiday Activities 2019

Let’s Get Cooking

We spent the whole day cooking lots of delicious delights! We gathered our ingredients and watched demonstrations before busy hands got chopping, grating, spreading, mixing and rolling to make mouth-watering treats. We began by making the mixture to create our Easter fairy cakes, we worked in pairs as we weighed and measured all our ingredients before baking them in the oven

Then onto the main dish of the day! PIZZA !! Yummy! Lovely cheesy dough filled with all our favourite toppings. Some of the children chopped potatoes to make wedges and some other children grated carrot and cabbage to make a deliciously creamy coleslaw.

The children worked really hard chopping all the different toppings and put them in bowls ready to add all their favourites to the base before popping them into the oven.

Finally it was dessert time; the children were licking their lips as we melted chocolate in preparation for coating the buns they made earlier before drizzling them with their favourite sparkly sprinkles cake decorations.

 We all worked together as a team and washed up several times throughout the day! We had a break outside in the sunshine to keep active and stretch our legs. Once again the older children acted as peer mentors for the younger children. We used lots of skills preparing the ingredients and sharing portions between us. Most children hadn’t baked these foods before so they had great fun learning new cooking skills and helping each other along the way.

Treasure Hunt

Today we had our Easter holiday treasure hunt! We used the whole of school, starting in the Library to lead us to clues and challenges to complete! We completed maths activities, word searches, mazes, word problems, colour by numbers, jigsaws, ICT Easter activity, dot to dot and lots lots more!

It was fantastic to see the children helping each other and using excellent team working skills. We evn completed a tricky obstacle course and all the children cheered and encouraged each other on! Passing the balloon to each other without using our hands was particularly challenging but funny.

Today got our brains ticking and put our problem solving skills to the test. The children got excited when they drew closer to the end prize! We had just about enough time for playtime outside and a well-deserved lunch. A busy, suspense building, fun day had by all!

The children won a few treats along the way, but to finish, we ended with a much awaited egg-citing prize!....! A bagful of mouth-watering sweetie treats.

Arts & Crafts Day

We had a fantastic Art and Craft day. We started by creating and personalising colourful Easter treasure hunt bags to use for the treasure hunt and then we made and coloured our Egg-cellent Easter cards! Everybody was ready for a well-earned biscuit and drink before some more fun burning off our energy outside on the yard.  Next, we all got to choose our own craft activity and worked magic on our own art creations whilst listening and singing along to our favourite pop songs.

After lunch, we focused on our Easter Bonnets to parade at the end of the day, tissue paper, coloured fake grass, beads and jewels all topped off with Easter chicks. They looked amazing. Ayatian won the crowning glory spot with her fantastic creation. The older children were super role models as they acted as peer mentors and helped the younger children with their fiddly crafts. A great, action packed day had by all!

Sport Day

The children all enjoyed accessing a variety of sports on offer throughout the day. We had a mixed age range and ability within the groups but it was fantastic to see the support offered by the older children to the younger children.

Firstly, the children took part in an obstacle course and they showed great enthusiasm throughout this. There was plenty of encouragement from their peers and the children grew in confidence throughout the morning.  We then moved onto basketball and had a competition to see which team could score the most baskets. There was a friendly competitiveness between the groups of children. Some of the older children were able to test themselves further by increasing the distance away from the basket. All the children showed great resilience throughout this session.  After a break for lunch, we returned and played football. Despite a few early reservations from the younger girls, they all participated and finished the activity with a smile on their face. The older boys were able to adapt well to the individual rules given to them in an aim to further develop the younger children.  For the remainder of the day, the children were able to use the time to access a number of activities at their leisure.  These included Lego, ICT, Films, Music and Ipads.

February Half Term Activities 2019

18th February – Art & Craft day

15 pupils were nominated by their class teacher to come in to school and take part in some fun activities during the school holidays. After a school breakfast together Mr Clarke, Miss Lomas and 15 children started the day by making their very own pom pom animals, patiently and carefully they wrapped coloured wool around the spools before cutting and tying the pom pom balls before adding eyes and coloured felt to finish their animals! The children had lots of fun ideas and designs. We then carefully coloured our fantastic superhero gliders and even had a race in the Toblerone to see who’s travelled the furthest! Miss Lomas has never given out as many bump notes all in one go as it was not only the gliders that suffered collisions!!

We then had our lunch and an outside run-around after all our hard work and even had some time in the ICT suite after lunch. We then created a colourful fancy necklace or bracelet using shiny beads, elastic and shells and finished off the day by designing and creating our own little bags to carry home all our crafty creations. The children developed their independence and imagination through their creative art skills and sharing of ideas.

19th February – Boxing

Today was non-stop active fun!  

After breakfast we were all pumped up and excited as we headed to the bus stop ready to be put through our paces at the boxing gym. We took 13 children to Sheffield Boxing Centre (Hillsborough). When we arrived we were met by Glyn Rhodes who owns the gym, professional boxers Tommy Frank, Keanen Wainwright and Sam Sheady. Glyn talked us through a safety briefing and had a chat to us to give us an outline of the session. We started with a warm up of exercises and jogging round the court changing direction on command – but oh dear!!  ‘20 press ups’ Glyn roared if you missed the call to change direction. After a quick training session on the bags, the children were readied for a sparring session in the ring with each other. All the children gained the experience of being in a boxing ring and used the skills they had learnt in the training session.  The children all left with an experience that they will never forget!

Summer Holiday Club (August) 2019

Tuesday 28th August

We boarded a minibus to take us to Glen Howe Park where we were met by Rohan and Hayley from Foresteer’s who were at the ready to take us on whistle stop tour of the woodlands before setting up camp deep in the forest.

 Once at camp we split into teams, used a few props and our imaginations to made dens, then we proudly sat inside whilst Hayley tested our shelter against rain. She threw water on the roof! Good job it was a very warm sunny day.

 The children were shown how to make their own little camp fires and after much determination were delighted to see the results. Hot cooked sausages and toasted marshmallows finished the day perfectly.

Wednesday 29th August

After a quick march to the bus stop - Ding Ding!! Grenoside stables please Mr Bus driver. A woodland pony trek and pony grooming management session was on the agenda. We donned on wellies and a riding hat and split into two teams. One team learned how to brush and look after the horses and the other mounted their horse for a woodland trek.

 The children shrieked with excitement as the horse’s gentle trot sped into a cantor lead by the Grenoside Riding team. All of the children had a lot of fun trying to keep on the horse and maintain dignity.

Thursday 30th August

Today's the day we had the teddy bears picnic

After a short walk to the bus stop and a nice relaxing ride we arrived at Graves Park. First we all decided on a shaded area under a big Oak tree to set up our picnic blankets. All the children had brought along their favourite teddy bears to join us and enjoy the fun. One by one the teddy’s sat in a circle and kept watch over our picnic whilst we visited the farm area to see all the different rare breeds of animals. There were chickens, pigs, cows, sheep, goats and even a baby deer that was only a few weeks old to keep our enquiring minds busy.

 All that hard work made us really hungry and we hurried back to our picnic, fortunately the teddy bears had left us some nice goodies for us to eat after our packed lunch. Picnic all eaten, we packed up the blankets before a short stay in the play area before it was time to get on the bus back to school.

Friday 31st August

We boarded a minibus to take us to Cannon Hall Farm where we visited the working Farm for the day. We saw the baby Piglets, dairy Cows and fluffy Lambs before visiting the mischievous Goats and sleepy Llamas. Onwards and upwards to the meet the nosey Meerkats and a creepy walk looking at the spiders, snakes and amphibians made us hungry and ready for lunch.

 After a well-earned rest we played hide and seek in the plastic maze and had just enough time for a fun slide on the play equipment before heading off back to the bus.

Summer Holiday Club (July) 2019

Tuesday 24th July 2018

Underbank Activity Centre, Stocksbridge

We so excited we almost jumped on the minibus to Underbank – an early start at 8am! An action packed day full of water sports – many the children have never experienced before.

 A few children were nervous, but with encouragement they engaged in the activity and loved the experience. Ready Aim Fire - The children split into teams with one group taking aim at the target with Archery, there were arrows everywhere but the children soon got the hang of it and were firing confidently and skilfully reaching the target with high score. Other children hoisted their canoes and kayaks into the water for some water fun in the reservoir. By the end of the session the children were confidently running across the row of canoes in a line and jumping into the water. After a well-deserved lunch the children swapped activities. We also tried paddle boarding – this was a balancing act! A fantastic day had by all.

Wednesday 25th July 2018

Weston Park Museum

Today was a busy day about town! We caught the bus to Hillsborough and travelled on the tram to University. We then strolled up to Weston Park and burnt off some energy playing in the Park. We later explored the museum, learning about our weather, artic creature, archaeological finds, interesting treasure and coming face to face with dinosaurs and bears!

After a picnic lunch we played tiggy and other team games on the grass before heading back to school. Another fantastic learning experience enjoyed by all!

Thursday 27th July 2018

Graves Park Animal Farm

Today we had a great day exploring Graves Park. We hopped on the bus and jumped off at Graves Park. First stop was the barn to see the animals. The children loved getting hands on stroking and feeding the animals. We saw deer’s, sheep, donkeys, ponies, lamas, hens, chicks, rabbits, ducks, guinea pigs and some friendly goats!

We sat our teddy bears around the picnic blanket and enjoyed a summer picnic. After lunch we had great fun in the adventure playground playing on the various equipment.

The children were brilliantly behaved and so were the teddies.

Friday 27th July 2018

Maypole Dancing

Today we had lots of fun dancing to folk music around the Maypole and creating lots of different rainbow patterns with the long ribbons – Penny Rae who was out tutor for the day was blurting ‘under then over, under then over, through the coloured ribbons, left then right, up and down, miss a turn, left, miss two right, reverse – it wasn’t long before we all got into a right pickle. But it was such a giggle ha ha!

May Holiday Club 2018

Maypole Dancing

During the May school holidays we had some children join us for Maypole Dancing with a mixture of ages and different abilities within the group. It was very pleasing for the staff to see the older pupils helping the younger ones out in what was a difficult skill to be learned.  Connor Stratford was particularly highlighted as an excellent role model to Lucas Gregory Hague.  Despite the group being quite shy and quiet initially, they all grew minute by minute in confidence!

 The children loved seeing the teachers (Mrs Thomson and Miss Peach) being as involved as they were and were happy to see the staff out of their own comfort zone!

The boys in the group, despite their initial thoughts that they were too cool for Maypole dancing were very enthusiastic. Malik Wood, Kai Whittaker, Damian Ashton and James Ward were bouncing around in their elements! The girls in the group were very good leaders and there was a lot of instructions being shouted out by Sophie Wright, Madison Turkhud and Grace Mather.

A special mention also goes out to one of our younger members of the group, Amarni  Downes-Botham who helped prepare the food for lunch with Mr Clarke! The hot dogs went down a treat!!

Cinema Trip

On day 2 we headed to Meadowhall Cinema to see Peter Rabbit! The day got off to a wet start as the weather was dismal! This didn’t dampen the spirits of the children or the staff as we marched off down to the bus stop to catch the bus. Poor old Mr Clarke was lagging behind as Miss Lomas had filled his bag with drinks and treats for everyone whilst in the cinema!

The children were all excited and took to their seats in the cinema. The smile on their faces was a brilliant sight for the staff to see. The behaviour whilst in the cinema was impeccable and they represented our school very well. There was lots of laughter and cheers – not just from Mrs Thomson and Miss Lomas!

After the film, the children had a Mcdonalds meal. Again, their conduct in a busy area was exemplary! After stuffing our faces, we had a quick dash to get the bus back to school! Miss Lomas led the children through Meadowhall (still eating her burger in one hand and a child in another) to arrive just as the bus was about to leave! She signalled the driver to wait (I don’t think he dare not to be honest). The children were still in high spirits with a chorus of ‘the wheels on the bus’ sounding out for the next 20 minutes! The bus journey was an eventful and fun one despite being a little over schedule. A big thanks to all the parents who waited patiently for us to arrive back.

Easter Club 2018

Tuesday 3rd April – Bowling & McDonalds

We had an amazing start to our holiday activities. After breakfast we donned on our school high visibility vests and headed to the bus stop. Ding Ding!! 1st stop Centertainment where we split up into two lanes for an all-out bowling game. The children selected their bowling ball and at first they cautiously began rolling their balls into the alley to drop the pins. Soon after they got the hang of it and the children were power throwing the balls with meaning and hitting a fantastic number of pins down scoring strikes and spares galore. The children cheered and roared as the computer acknowledgments came on above their heads.

The game had ended and it was time to head for a well-earned McDonalds for lunch. The McDonalds team were in a frenzy and worked their fingers to the bone to get our burgers, nuggets, wraps and a fish finger bun, chips and various drinks all out together. Yummy!

Wednesday 4th April – Boxing

After breakfast we were all pumped up and excited as we headed to the bus stop ready to be put through our paces at the boxing gym.  When we arrived we were met by Glyn Rhodes who owns the gym. He talked us through a safety briefing and had a chat to us to give us an outline of the session. We started with a warm up of exercises and jogging round the court changing direction on command – but oh dear!! 20 press ups Glyn roared if you missed the call to change direction.

Thursday 5th April – Let’s Get Cooking

We spent the whole day cooking lots of delicious delights! We gathered our ingredients and watched a demonstration before busy hands got chopping, grating, spreading and rolling to make our mouth-watering starter of a Mediterranean pesto & tomato tart.

Then onto the main dish of the day! PIZZA !! Yeayyyy! Were the shouts coming from the children.

They chopped all the different topping and put them in bowls ready to add  all their favourites to the base before popping them into the oven.

Finally it was dessert time; the children were licking their lips as they prepared fruit kebabs and drizzled them with warm melted chocolate before adding lots of sprinkles.

e all worked together as a team and washed up several times throughout the day! We had a break outside in the sunshine to keep active and stretch our legs. Once again the older children acted as peer mentors for the younger children. We used lots of skills preparing the ingredients and sharing portions between us. Most children hadn’t baked these foods before so they had great fun learning new cooking skills and helping each other along the way.

Friday 6th April  - Treasure Hunt

Today we had our Easter holiday treasure hunt! We used the whole of school, starting in the Library to lead us to clues and challenges to complete! We completed maths activities, word searches, mazes, word problems, colour by numbers, jigsaws, ICT Easter activity, dot to dot and lots lots more!

It was fantastic to see the children helping each other and using excellent team working skills. We even completed a tricky obstacle course and all the children cheered and encouraged each other on!

The children won a few treats along the way, but to finish, we ended with a much awaited egg-tastic prize!....OUR OWN EASTER EGG!

Today got our brains ticking and put our problem solving skills to the test. The children got excited when they drew closer to the end prize! We had just about enough time for playtime outside and a well-deserved hotdog lunch. A busy, suspense building, fun day had by all!

Holiday Club - October 2017

- Summer School 2016 -

Monday 22^nd August – Graves Park & Farm. We kicked off our Summer School with a Teddy Bear’s picnic and all the children arrived with their favourite Teddy Bear. The drizzly weather did not discourage the children as they visited the rare breed farm to feed lots of different animals like Pigs, Sheep, Goats, Cows, Rabbits, Hamsters and Chickens. Some of the children hesitated at first as the animals tickled as they nibbled away the food pellets that the children had in their hands but they soon got the hang of it. Hope roared with laughter. It was still damp in the park so we set up our picnic in the café; even the teddy’s joined us at the table. Including Jamie’s Minion teddy. Lunch over we peered outside, yeay, the sun was shining and had dried all the play equipment in the play area, the children were delighted and enjoyed sometime on various slides, swings and climbing frames before our bus journey back to school, much to the delight of Mr Clark and Mrs Shepherd who were roped in to pushing 4 of the children together in one rather large circular swing – Ouch!

Tuesday 23^rd August – Greentop Circus came into school armed with lots of different circus equipment for us to try. Juggling was first on the menu starting with scarves then using these skills moved onto juggling balls, Alhaji was a natural he even had a go at 3 at once. We had lots of fun as we played with Diablo, Flower Sticks, Plate Spinning, Unicycles, Stilts, Poi Spinning and Pedal Go’s. Aveen showed great support to Rhiannon as she held onto her whilst she mastered the Pedal Go’s and Kelsey and Amber made a terrific effort with the Unicycle and even managed to gain ‘lift off’ at one point. If that wasn’t impressive enough Katie managed to spin a plate in each hand and Thomas and Kane were on a roll with the Flower Sticks back and forth to each other without dropping them once. Pure skill.  All the children had a showcase at the end of the day and presented their new skills to each other whilst everyone cheered on. Another great day had by all.

Wednesday 24^th August – Horse Riding at Grenoside Equestrian. No time for a breath, the moment we arrived 23 children and 3 staff had safety helmets and boots thrust our way from a bellowing Zoe who looked after us for the morning. We split into two groups. The first group nervously stood below the stairs to mount the horses, one by one the horses came out and the children were matched perfectly in size and introduced to their horse. All the children beamed when they were safely mounted and ready to go. It was then time for Mr Clark’s horse to appear, his face was a picture when his horse adequately called Shadow made a WWF grand entrance and emerged from his stable to approach the stairs. This horse was gigantic, it almost came out roaring, proudly showing muscles on top of its muscles and eventually Mr Clark’s jelly legs hardened, he found his courage and managed to get on. Finally, all lined up like a cavalry they all set off for their woodland walk even though Mrs Shepherd was still trying not to fall off and holding onto her horse with both arms around its neck - whilst the other group learned stable management and how to groom a horse. The children really enjoyed using the special brushes and getting to know all about the horses. When they first group arrived back they could not stop talking about how wonderful it was and how much they had enjoyed the experience, some of the children asked if they could have another go! Time for the swap around and the next group to mount the horses – what a great day had by all J

Thursday 25^th August – Rother Valley Country Park. We were met at the park by Gareth who was to be our Ranger for the day. He led us to the Education Bungalow to down our bags and heavy belongings before heading off to our first activity. Pond Dipping – the children were all given nets as he explained about all the different pond life creatures that inhabited the water. He provided a picture list of creatures and trays for the children to put in their ‘catch of the day’ The children eagerly dipped their nets into the water and one by one little fishes, water snails, leeches and other pond life started to appear in the trays. Summer, Ewan, Lucas and Tyler discovered the best place to fish – Just under the water lily’s was a great hiding place for pond life and they’re trays ended up alive and wriggling with lots of different creatures. After a picnic lunch we swapped the water and fishing nets and set off for a wildlife walk with large flowing butterfly nets. We swished away at the bushes and trees to try to catch flying insects and bugs. Carefully we placed our catch in little clear pots with microscopic lids to examine our beasties up close, unfortunately the wet weather had sent all the beautiful butterflies and colourful damsel flies into hiding but all the children managed to catch something, however small. Another lovely day had by all.

Friday 26^th August – Sport Day & BBQ. Dodge Ball first and the teams were selected equally dependant on size and age. This didn’t seem to bother our younger /smaller children as they became an integral part of each team due to their flexibility and agility. The difficulty level was increased as we began using rubber rugby balls and the unpredictability of the bounce made the competition more fun.  Aveen was exceptional for her team; she managed to be the last player present on her team for 2 out of the 4 games played. Thomas was excellent at dodging around the sports hall. Overall, all the children showed great enthusiasm throughout the session. Next was a fun run course assembled on the field and the children were split up into two teams, they were very competitive and didn’t want to let their side down, so much so that we had Hope slip over into the splits position, Shanay felt sick after exerting herself too much and Lucas falling flat on his face.  The effort was commendable. The children were very encouraging to each other and created a fantastic fun atmosphere and finally after an energetic morning the children decided that they would like to have a basketball competition. Despite the difference in height all the children were successful in scoring a basket. We had 3 shoot-out competitions. The first was won by Harvey after a final that was contested between himself, Mason and Tyler. The second competition was won by Tyler; he was successful after a final involving himself, Rhiannon and Aimee. The Final competition was won by Rhiannon. After losing in the previous final, there was a clear determination on her face to succeed this time! Lunch time and the smells coming from the BBQ were amazing, mouth-watering sizzling sausages and juicy burgers were on the menu with lots of other treats for us all to share, a second helping was had by all and a third helping had by some too, not mentioning any names Mr Clark. After a long lazy rest and chat in the warm sun with their friends, it was time to burn off all those calories so a short play outside on the play equipment was needed before heading back to classroom to get ready to go home. The children ended their summer school by sharing their experience, thoughts and feelings about all the activities during the whole week providing an evaluation so Mrs Wild and the Inclusion team can plan for Summer School 2017.