Stockport Grammar Junior School

NEWSLETTER 12th February 2016

Welcome to the latest BUMPER edition of our newsletter. We have clearly been busy in the two weeks leading up to half

term and the children have approached everything with their customary enthusiasm. There have been trips, experiments,

author visits, speaking French, Chinese New Year tales and much more. ‘Safer Internet Day’ on Tuesday provided an

opportunity to talk with children about how to use the internet in a positive way. The end of the week brought the visit of

a large number of grandparents for our biennial Grandparents’ Days. These were much anticipated by everyone and it was

lovely to see so many grandparents able to come and visit us and to join in an activity with the children. The children also

performed some songs and entertained us all. Congratulations to three of our Y6 girls, Amy Jack, Libby Porter and Talia

Zelhof, who have won the Stockport Harriers Schools Cross Country series. There have been plenty of other fine

performances on the sports field, by both boys and girls, and it has been good to see so many of the children in action.

Looking at the diary for the weeks ahead, there is plenty more planned for the second half of term, including a new ‘Music

Day’ which will see children from Y4 spend a morning in the Senior School listening to and then trying out a variety of

instruments. All of which means that we must be due a rest and it only remains for me to wish you all an enjoyable half-

term break.

The Weeks Ahead Wednesday 24th February Netball v CHS (H) U10 3.30-5.00pm

Thursday 25th February Music Day

Quarry Bank Mill Trip

‘Goodnight Mister Tom’ Theatre Trip

Year 4

Year 1

Year 5

9.00-11.55am

9.00am-3.00pm

12noon-6.00pm

Friday 26th February SPA Class Reps Meeting

Netball v KSM (A)

U11

8.30-10.00am

2.20-5.00pm

Monday 29th February Swimming Gala v MHSG (A) By invitation 3.15-6.15pm

Wednesday 2nd March Hockey v Wilmslow Prep (A)

Class Pieces (Music)

Netball v Lady Barn (A)

U11

Year 4

Year 5 A+B

2.30-5.30pm

2.45-3.30pm

3.30-5.15pm

Thursday 3rd March World Book Day

MEN Arena ‘Young Voices’

10.00-9.30pm

Friday 4th March Netball v Withington (A)

Class Pieces (Music)

Year 6 A+B

Year 3

2.45-4.30pm

2.45-3.30pm

Saturday 5th March Netball IAPS @ Terra Nova U11 9.30am-12noon

Year 1 Build ‘Rubbish’ Castles

Y1 have thoroughly enjoyed studying

‘castles’ in their topic work this half

term. They particularly enjoyed making

their own castles out of recyclable

materials and then painting them. Thank

you to everybody who sent in boxes for

the children to use.

Y4S Blow Hot and Cold

Y4S enjoyed a science experiment

on changes for their topic on

‘states of matter’. The task was to

turn a solid into a liquid, which

they did by heating a block of

chocolate. The children then

dipped some marshmallows into

the liquid chocolate but they were

only allowed to eat them after

solidifying the chocolate, which

they achieved by blowing on the

chocolate to cool it. They had lots

of fun learning that you can make

changes to solids and liquids by

heating and cooling.

Infants Celebrate Chinese New Year

Our Early Years children had a visit from Mrs

Forbes this week, who came to tell them all

about Chinese New Year and about their

customs and traditions. She read the

children a story about the animal race and

explained why Chinese people have animals

to represent each year. They also learnt

about the importance of the colour red

which brings good luck.

The children also had the opportunity to

look at lots of resources and, as it’s the Year

of the Monkey, made their own paper

monkeys before finishing their celebrations

with a Dragon Dance.

Holiday Care

Our half term holiday care next week

will be held in the Junior School Art

Room. Places still available.

To book your place, call Miss Jones on

07947 140685

We all took part in this year’s ‘Safer Internet Day’, joining

hundreds of other organisations across the UK to promote the

safe and responsible use of technology. There is no doubt that

the internet provides us with amazing opportunities and this

year’s theme, ‘Play your part for a better internet’, focused

primarily on the creative and positive things that children are

doing online. Our children were encouraged to consider practical

solutions and appropriate responses to negative content so that

we can help to ‘create a better internet’. There is a guide to social

media for parents on our Parent Portal and further useful links on

the website (School Life/Support).

Children in 3H learnt a new

playtime game for Safer

Internet Day. It was called

positive arches. The children

stood in two parallel lines and

joined hands with the person

opposite to form an arch. The

child who is receiving the

honours walks through the

arch while pupils call out good

wishes and positive comments.

The Icing on the Cake

Y4S had a lesson on evaporation using icing sugar and

cakes last Friday

“The water from the mixture evaporated, leaving the

icing sugar behind” Thomas Mo.

“I found out that the water you put into the pot

evaporates and leaves the icing sugar to harden”.

Philippa Othen

“It was really fun and I liked eating the icing on the

cake!” Anna Porter.

“When learning about the states of matter in

Science, we did an experiment about evaporation, to

turn a liquid into a solid by evaporating the water

from the icing sugar mixture.” Jack Rafter.

Safer Internet Day

Children in Year 5 designed their own hearts as part

of the ‘Play your Part, #Share your Heart’ campaign

for Safer Internet Day. Here are just a handful of

the fabulous designs.

Alice Finnie

James

Carr Lilah

Vidler Claudia

Fell

Aimee

Reynolds

Hogwarts Comes to SGS

25 pupils from Years 5& 6 were chosen to attend this year’s

Harry Potter event in the Senior School Library. The children

had to go through the wall at Platform 9¾ to enter the library.

The Sorting Hat then put them into Houses and they had to

read a magic spell and collect ingredients to make the potion.

After working up an appetite, the children were treated to

some butter beer and chocolate frogs. The last activity was a

‘fastest finger first’ buzzer quiz and, after a few more activities,

Slytherin were crowned the winners and the children returned

with a goody bag and huge smiles on their faces!

Y3 Grab a Pizza the Action

As part of the Y3 Nutrition topic, the children had to design

and make a meal to incorporate foods from the main food

groups. We decide on pizzas! Whilst the Infants used ready-

made pizza bases, the Juniors mixed their own (using the flour

from their trip to Tesco) and really enjoyed getting their

hands sticky! After throwing it into the air a few times, they

decorated it with passata, cheese and a choice from ham,

pineapple, mushrooms, sweetcorn and peppers. It was great

to see the children trying different ingredients. The pizza was

then taken home to cook and enjoy whilst fresh! Everybody

really enjoyed the lesson and we would like to say a big thank

you to the SPA for supplying us with all the baking equipment.

Shrove Tuesday

Reception children talked about the significance of

Pancake Day on Tuesday and how it signals the

beginning of lent.

News from the Pool

The Junior School girls and boys enjoyed the gala

away at Westholme last week. The final score was:

Westholme 273 - SGJS 278.

“The children were amazing and perfectly behaved.’

Well done to all our fabulous swimmers.”

Miss Pepper and Ms Franklin

Y4 and 6 ‘Love’ Art

Children in Y4 were told that the Senior School were doing a project in Classics and were asked if they

would like to take part and to provide some Junior School work. The project is about love and the children

discussed symbols of love, with the heart being most popular and 4S were asked to use watercolours to

create an abstract heart. They then used ink to go over the original lines. They were given small brushes and

challenged to work carefully within the shapes they had created. Often they had to wait for their work to

dry then reapply to make the colours more vibrant. When they completed their designs, they went through

the coloured photocopier so that flat copies were available to display as a collage of hearts. The originals

are on display in the classroom. Meanwhile, Y6 were given cardboard hearts and string. They created their

designs on the heart then sprayed them in various shades of gold. When that dried, they used gold acrylic

to pick out the original string work. 4S and 6B went over to the Senior School this morning to see the

finished display and to listen to a senior pupil sing a song from one of the Classics play.

Puzzle Challenge Day

The Happy Puzzle Company visited the Junior School this week to

run their exciting Puzzle Challenge Day. Each year group took turns

to spend an hour in the school hall where they were divided into

teams and put to the test with a series of fun challenges.

The children were given various 3D puzzles to solve. None of them

was impossible, although some of them were tricky and required

team work in order to solve them.

‘It was interesting to try different puzzles that needed a variety of

skills to complete. I would like to have another chance to try more

puzzles in the future’. James Carr

The children particularly enjoyed ‘Perilous Penguins’ where the task

was to get all of the penguins to balance at the same time on an

iceberg without them falling off, and the Trapezium puzzle where all

the different coloured trapeziums had to slot together with no two

colours the same next to each other.

‘Puzzle Day was amazing. It taught us how to work together as a team

to solve the challenges. I really enjoyed it.’ Blake Weedon

Surprise Story Tellers

Our Reception classes continue to enjoy surprise

visits from lots of secret story tellers. Last week

they had their first daddies reading stories in both

classes, much to the children’s delight!

Infants Enjoy an Author Visit

The Infants were visited by author Emily

MacKenzie. Emily is an author/illustrator who

has written a book called ‘Ralphy Rabbit’ and

has just released a new book out about a cat

that knits called Stanley. She told the children

about herself and her books and then read to

them.

No Language Barrier in Y6

6B and 6T visited the language laboratory in

the Senior School during their weekly French

lesson. They thoroughly enjoyed practising

recording their spoken French and improving

their accent independently and were able to

ask and answer questions in pairs. They hope

to revisit the language lab next half term.

Stockport Harriers Schools Cross Country

Enormous congratulations to the Y6 girls

who ran in all 6 of the races at Woodbank

Park. Only 4 runs need to be completed for

scores to count but the girls, Amy Jack,

Libby Porter and Talia Zelhof, made it their

joint mission to complete the entire series.

So that they could run the last race, they

even made an A6 dash from their hockey

match against King’s Chester to get to the

start line, making it in the nick of time. Some

fantastic individual results meant that the

girls have won the series as a team.

Other children who have completed the

series and should be recognised for their

commitment and efforts are: Alice Finnie,

who finished a creditable 26th overall in the

Y5 & 6 girls’ event, Anna Porter, whose

results placed her in 25th position, and Isaac

Finnie, who finished 29th in the Y3 & 4

series.

Invitation Hockey Festival – Ryleys School

Well done to the Y5 team who played in the Festival

at the Ryley’s on Wednesday. They were competing

against pupils a year older than them in order to give

them some early experience of tournament

competition. The games were tough but the

Stockport Grammar girls remembered to pass and

attack the ‘D’. They were unlucky in two of the games

to repeatedly hit the post but the power of their

shots was excellent. The defence started tentatively,

often tracking backwards instead of moving forward

into tackles, but this improved as time went on. Anna

Howard had a fantastic tournament in goal showing

her increased confidence, clearing some great shots

off her line and moving out to steal the ball from her

opponents’ stick.

Results were as follows:

Wilmslow Prep A 2-2

Terra Nova 0-2

Pownall Hall 2-0

Wilmslow Prep B 3-0

Ryleys 0-0

Pop Lacrosse Proves Popular

The Junior School children are thoroughly enjoying their

new lacrosse club, which has added another sport to the

many activities already on offer.

The clubs gives children in Y3 and 4 the opportunity to learn

more about the game of Pop Lacrosse, the official English

Lacrosse game for primary schools.

Over the last few weeks, children have had fun practising

the skills needed to achieve the English Lacrosse Bronze

Stick Award. They have been learning to scoop (pick up),

carry, throw and catch the lacrosse ball, which is a lot harder

than it looks!

‘I’ve loved learning a new sport with my friends.’ Alex Canty

Y4 Visit World of Glass

Y4 visited World of Glass as part of their Science topic on

‘Solids and Liquids’.

First they looked at glass artefacts in the museum. Lucas

Henry told us: “It was interesting to learn that years ago bottles

used to have marbles inside them to act as a lid. Children would

break the neck off the bottle to get the marble out to play with.”

The most popular part of the morning was the visit to the

cone building. Eleanor Harper-Jones said: “We saw how they

used to make glass. We went down some tunnels to see what it

would have been like to work there in Victorian times, collecting

broken glass and recycling it.”

The children also got to paint their own glass and bring it

home.

After lunch the children got to play in the mirror maze. Ben

Lavender commented: “It was basically a maze made of mirrors

and you had to find your way around it. It was very likely that

every few minutes you would bash into a mirror. A wizard

appeared a few times to give us things to do in the maze.”

We then watched a glass-blowing demonstration, which was

very warm. Alfie Smith was chosen to blow a glass bubble

and told us: “The pipe was heavy and I had to blow very hard to

get the glass to go bigger. Mine was enormous until it popped,

glass went everywhere!”

Finally we went to watch a film show about how glass was

made. Grace Warburton explained: “It was unreal, the sounds

were amazing. The actual film was fascinating telling us how big

panes of glass were and are now made.”

Grandparents’ Day

After much excitement and a countdown all week, the Grandparents’ afternoons had finally arrived! The children had

been warming up their voices all morning in the classrooms ready to sing to their grandparents. As our school is

celebrating 100 years on this site, we chose to sing some traditional hymns to the grandparents and a modern hymn

that we sing in assemblies today. Grandparents who had travelled from far and wide warmed to the traditional All

Things Bright and Beautiful and the Early Years rendition of Who Built the Ark rounded off with the delightful modern

hymn I am Special. It was a lovely start to the afternoons. Following this, refreshments were served. The delicious

scones went down a treat and then the grandparents joined their grandchildren in the classrooms to enjoy an activity

together. They had the opportunity to paint and decorate a canvas with their grandchild. The remit varied in each

class from handprints in Nursery through to family paintings in Year 2. Grandparents commented that it was wonderful

to come and see their grandchild’s school, to meet their grandchild’s friends and to see what school is like today. One

grandparent said: ‘It is the best afternoon out we have had in ages!’ and another commented: ‘It was a lovely opportunity to

come and see what my grandchild does and to meet her teachers.’