Year 4 D.T. week was a great success. The children have used all their electrical systems knowledge to create a Themed Steady hand game. We researched a variety of games that use an electrical component, created a detailed, accurate design explaining choices and what we need to do to be successful. Making the game encouraged lots of team work, collaboration, problem solving and perseverance.

Since January, our pupils have been offered the chance to attend a boxfit after school club on a Monday with an excellent coach called Carmen from BeGreat Fitness. This has benefited the children massively because they have improved their confidence and fitness. BeGreat Fitness have enjoyed working with our pupils and will be back again in the Summer Term to do a multisport club. They are amazing at what they do and primarily focus on the mental wellbeing of the pupils as well as the sporting aspect. We hope your child decides to take this up in the Summer Term as it is always great to welcome quality external providers into our school to work with our children doing sport. Thank you to everyone who attended the club, Carmen has enjoyed working with every single one of you!

This week, William Barcroft hosted our very own Talent Showcase and what a show it was!  The performers taking part were extremely brave and the talents displayed were amazing: pianists, drumming, dancers, readings and even live art! There was laughter with our comedians, gasps with our magicians and the audience singing along with fantastic singers. The show has inspired other children to take part in our next Talent Showcase! There was truly an air of excitement and joy after the showcase, the performers made all of the adults in school proud.

We love showing off our learning here at William Barcroft! During the week beginning 27^th March we hosted a special Learning Showcase event for each year group. This involved a special assembly to showcase what has been learnt in a wide range of subjects over the term, and then an opportunity for parents to enjoy some refreshments whilst the children showed off their books. Our amazing parents responded fantastically to this new event and all 4 year groups had a packed audience! These showcases will now happen at the end of every term.

On Monday, 30 children from our school attended a netball festival at Havelock Academy. This festival aimed to improve students’ skills in netball and improve their knowledge of the game. The session was carried out by Havelock staff. The effort by the pupils were second to none and every single person improved their netball skills by the end of the session. It was a fantastic opportunity to enable more pupils to go out and represent William Barcroft. Massive well done to everyone who attended, you were amazing!

Last Friday, Year 4 learnt how to be a Fine Chocolate taster – experiencing a  workshop delivered by Cocoa Encounters. The children learnt many new skills and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. They learnt about how cocoa plants are grown, they ground, then tasted coca beans and found out which countries grow cocoa beans. They used all their senses to smell and taste flavours within chocolate and watched a video explaining the chocolate process undertaken by a local chocolatier (Duffy) based in Humberston. The children had the opportunity to ask questions which were answered by Kathryn (World chocolate tasting judge). Positive comments were received about the children’s impeccable behaviour and enthusiasm throughout the sessions.

In the final 2 weeks of Spring term we had some special visitors here at William Barcroft. They arrived in eggs and left as beautiful fluffy chicks! The children loved watching them hatch and even got a chance to hold them once they were big enough. We learnt all about how to look after them and how to change their environment as they moved through each stage.

This week, the whole school enjoyed a Saint Patrick’s day celebration which culminated in an exciting parade put on by the children after spending the afternoon making accessories to walk with. They also learnt about the origins of the day and why it is celebrated by many Irish people all over the world. As well as this, the children learnt about different Irish traditions and what makes their culture unique.

Please check our Twitter page for pictures of the day…

@WBJJuniorSchool

Awe and wonder filled our school, during science week; in all year groups the children became scientists and followed a variety of enquiries.

The children in year 3 investigated the effects of light and shadows: they followed enquiries to discover what happens when light is reflected; they investigated the effects of the light from a light source being blocked and looked for patterns in shadows.

Year 4 built circuits, which they controlled with switches- they were able to trouble shoot and fix any circuits which stopped working. They had a fabulous afternoon investigating insulators and conductors by testing real life objects.

In year 5, the children investigated forces: they learnt about the force of gravity and who discovered it. Lots of links were made to real life and careers. They researched the best materials and shapes for a parachute to have maximum air resistance. They absolutely loved following an enquiry to test how the surface area of a parachute affects the air resistance, which was a question they came up with themselves.

The children thoroughly enjoyed sharing their love of science with their parents/carers, during our science week. A buzz filled the air, in all sessions: the year 5 children were engineers designing bridges; year 4 became electricians and built a buzz wire game; year 3 were physicists exploring light refraction by building periscopes.

On Friday 3rd March, William Barcroft celebrated World Book Day! The children were invited to wear clothing that represented an adjective! We had some amazing outfits in school including colourful, festive, sparkly, purple and trendy.  We even had an author visit in school, Stuart Rowson, who shared his fantastic new book, Izzy and the Tumble Thunder, with us. He shared the story of his childhood growing up in Grimsby and how he became an author. We all enjoyed a tasty hot chocolate and read as much as we could – it was a fantastic day!

Year 3

Today we celebrated World Book Day! We listened to the story of Mr and Mrs Twit and all of their silly tricks! We made our own dirty beards and acted out as Mr and Mrs Twit. We also met a local author called Stu Rowson who has had an incredible career working for the BBC. We loved hearing about his experiences and he has inspired us to pick up a book or begin writing! Please enjoy reading with your child this weekend and talk about your favourite books. Take a look at our wonderful outfits and try to guess our adjectives that we have dressed as!

Year 4

4V read The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse. We really enjoyed reading this book! We loved the storyline throughout, but also the fact that each page is a valuable quote that can stand alone. We enjoyed focusing on a few key pictures and ‘reading them’. Looking at the characters emotions and how they might be feeling about it! We also tried to recreate some of the pictures in the book ourselves. 4S read The Witches. We enjoyed starting this book! Whilst reading, we learnt how to spot a witch and then drew our own scary witches! We did lots of reading of this book as we were enjoying it so much! 4BL read The book that eats people. The children created their own page for the book( inspired by the style) for our own class version of the book. some versions include Mr Blake being eaten!

Year 5

In 5S, the children enjoyed reading extracts from Tom’s Midnight Garden, which is a book they chose themselves following reading an extract during Whole Class Reading. They discussed the key themes within the story: time, friendship, love and loss; using these themes they created a piece of artwork, which also celebrated their love of reading. In 5A, the children read ‘Here We Are’ by Oliver Jeffers. We read the beautiful book that encourages togetherness and created fantastic art based on the book as our inspiration. In 5HS, we read The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore! This is an amazing book sharing the love of reading throughout the life of Mr Morris Lessmore.

Year 6

In 6S, the children were so excited to learn that we were able to read the third instalment to the Aveline Jones series: The Vanishing! We read throughout the day as much as we could, created art based on the spooky descriptions In 6F, we carried out our activities around Gangsta Granny by David Walliams. We produced a diary entry from Ben’s point of view staying over for a night with his Granny. We also recreated some of the images of the key characters including Ben, Granny and Mr Parker. In 6B, we read the sequel Catching Fire to our English text The Hunger Games. We enjoyed designing a costume for Katniss in the second Hunger Games and reading as much of the book as we could! We even want to read the third instalment!