News from Stawley School
I can’t believe that it’s the summer term already! The children are on the field at break times and cricket has taken over from football as the main sport being played on the playground.
With all the doom and gloom in the news about education recently, how the curriculum is uninspiring and children being bored with no interest in school, I thought I’d let you in on some of the things happening at Stawley School.
It was quite a short Spring term this year, yet we managed to fit loads in. In KS2 children carried on with their work on Space, it has been an amazing topic to study at this time with Tim Peake based on the International Space Station. We were lucky enough to take part in a nationwide live feed to the ISS where Tim Peake spoke about and demonstrated what life is like in space.
During the early mornings and evenings, regular sightings were made of the ISS and we even tried to run the distance from Earth to the ISS over several weeks (we nearly made it!).
This term we are carrying on our space experiments. Seeds have been delivered to the school, some of which came from the ISS. We are now taking part in a nationwide experiment to explore how space effects seed/plant growth. Guess what type of seeds they are? Rocket seeds!
Once again there were several sporting highs. Alongside winning the small schools football tournament in the Autumn term, we are now the small school champions in Tag Rugby. In one of the tensest matches I have ever had to watch, the Rugby team narrowly beat Kingston St Mary in the final 8-7. The lead was exchanged at least 7 or 8 times throughout the match. It was particularly pleasing to win this cup as we had been so close the last few years.
Winning the small schools tournament automatically put us through to the next stage of the competition where we were up against the top schools in Somerset.
On the 12th April the team headed to Tor Rugby Club, Glastonbury to pit their skills against the larger schools. After several skilful and gritty performances we came 8th out of 16 schools. A fantastic achievement. Well done to everyone!
There was an early start for year 5 and 6 on 15th March. At 7am they found themselves waiting on the platform at Taunton Station to catch the train to London. After several delays we all made it to Paddington where we took in the sights of Buckingham Palace, St James Park and Westminster Abbey before heading to the Palace of Westminster for a tour of the House of Lords and House of Commons.
It was an amazing experience walking around the corridors of power. We saw a few of the Lords and MP’s but no one we recognised.
After lunch we headed for the London Eye for an amazing view of the city, followed by a river cruise that took us down towards Tower Bridge.
Next was a walk up Whitehall, stopping off at Downing Street on the way, before climbing on to the Lions at Trafalgar Square for a photo opportunity. Finally we walked through China Town to Piccadilly Circus where we had tea before catching the tube back to Paddington Station. We finally arrived back at Taunton at 10pm. There were some rather tired children (and teachers) the following day!
Coming up fairly soon is our annual Year 5 and 6 residential trip to Kilve, another action packed week with activities including: climbing, abseiling, grass sledging, archery and the notorious stream walk!
Who said the school curriculum is boring!
David Stirzaker
