St John the Baptist CE VA Primary School Worship and Values

Some of us stayed at school and took part in many exciting activities.

S -  S is for Sport

On Friday we played basketball with our coach PJ.  We all learnt some skills including: shooting, how to position our legs and we worked on developing our teamwork.

C – C is for Cooking

On Thursday we had a campfire.  Mrs Farrington lit a fire with steels, cotton wool and sticks.  We cooked marshmallows on kebab sticks.  We also had hot chocolate.  They were delicious.

On Friday we made crispy cakes with Mrs Bonner and Mrs Richardson.  They were scrumptious.

H – H is for Hunt

We went on a scavenger hunt as part of Forest School.  We collected Rosehips, Blackberries and Hawthorn Berries.  We squashed the berries to make berry paint which we used to paint bunting. 

We also collected leaves and stuck them down on A4 paper and created a leaf ID sheet to identify different types of leaves. The types of leaves we found were oak, holly, beech, birch, hazel, blackthorn and ash.

O – O is for Ornithology

On Thursday we went on a nature walk to the Amwell nature reserve to study birds.  We went into a bird hide armed with our binoculars and we saw a Cormorant, Moorhen, Mallard, Coot, Heron and a Common Tern.

We identified the Moorhen in the river because of its dark red beak, bright yellow legs and jet black feathers.  We had a lot of fun but we were exhausted after the long walk.

We also made bird feeders out of apples which we have hung up on the field.

O – O is for Organisation

Whilst Miss Hunt was away we took responsibility for school jobs which included benches, tables and chairs, choppy, scrapey, salady, corridor, registers, bands and carers.  We also looked after the hens. At the end of the week we collected 10 eggs.

L – L is for Leaflets

We designed leaflets to entice parents to send their children to St Johns School. 

 

Even though we were still at school we had so much fun.

               

G – G is for Gourmet Cake!

At Gaveston we ate lots of cake.  We had chocolate chip, lemon drizzle, Victoria sponge, brownies and lots of other different types of cake.  We had cake for lunch, dinner and even during the activities.  On Thursday it was Freddie’s birthday and guess what, we celebrated his birthday by having his birthday cake for breakfast!  We wish we could have cake every morning.

 

A – A Is for Activities

While we were at Gaveston we had the opportunity to take part In lots of activities such as kite weaving, sketching, plaster casting and sculpting.

We found kite weaving fairly hard so we persevered and we eventually got it right, with a bit of help from Mr Nicolson and Mrs Sharif.

We made the kites by putting two sticks together to make a cross and then we wrapped the wool around the two twigs making sure there was a space in the middle.

Another activity was plaster casting, this activity was with Miss Hunt, we really enjoyed it.  We had to find objects such as; acorns, stones, leaves and pinecones.  We pressed them into the plastercine to make a mould, then they were left to dry.

Our last activity was sculpting with Mrs Volschenk.  We had to make a sculpture outside using natural objects such as wood, pinecones, leaves and feathers.  It was challenging but great fun.

 

V – V Is for Visit

The first place we visited was Lewes Castle which was really interesting and is nearly 1000 years old.  First we split up groups. One group was looking at artefacts and they even got to wear armour.  The other group guessed what the artefacts were used for.  Another group went round the whole castle pretending to be knights protecting the castle of Lewes.  We climbed up to the highest tower to look for the enemy.  The final group took part in a drama activity, we got into groups of three and four and chose a character from the past. Then we dressed up and acted out different scenarios.

On our last morning before we had to leave Gaveston we went on a walk that a servant living at Gaveston would have taken every Sunday to the local church – St Andrews.  On the journey to church we went on a scavenger hunt and we had to find rabbit poo, a flower, a berry and a 4-leaf clover.  Surprisingly Harmony found a 4-leaf clover and was first in school history to find one!

 

E – E is for Evening

Everyone participating in lots of different evening activities.

During our time in Gaveston we participated in lots of different activities such as campfire, disco, drinking hot chocolate, singing, diary writing and toasting marshmallows and eating lots and lots of cake.  One evening after dinner Mrs Sharif and Mr Nicolson used their time to gather dry wood to create a splendid campfire for all of us to sit round and enjoy the beautiful site of fire.  While we were sitting around the campfire we chanted a lot of songs.  One of the main features of our evening activities was eating cake and drinking hot chocolate every night.  They were delicious we had such a sugar rush!  One of the many evening activities was the disco.  Everybody thoroughly enjoyed it and we were partying all night.  

Throughout the week we wrote a Gaveston Hall diary about what we had been doing during the day.  On Tuesday we wrote postcards to our family to let them know that we got there safely and to say what we had been doing.   We thoroughly enjoyed the day and night adventures.

 

S - S is for Shelter Building

On Thursday we all took part in shelter building in the woods.  Each group were given specific criteria for their shelter, these included: a place to put our drinks and cake, some needed to be large enough for Mr Nicolson to sit in, others had to be waterproof and include a bonus feature. 

Firstly, we split into groups and we had to find an area for our shelter.  After that we had to work well to find branches, sticks, logs and tree stumps.  Once we had found our logs and branches we had to work together to put up a structure.  Even though it was challenging we all managed to put one together.  We used the tree stumps to make a place to use as tables and chairs so we can eat our cake and drink our juice. Some of the special features included; a coat stand, fire pit, see-saw and even a catapult.

 

T - T is for Trek in the river

On the second afternoon at Gaveston, we went for a walk in the river.  We wore wellies, waterproof trousers, an old T-Shirt and a waterproof coat.  We were ready to take on the unknown water challenge.

When we first got into the river we thought it would be easy as the water only went up to our ankles.  However, after a few minutes of walking our wellies overflowed with ice cold river water, we were all drenched from the waist down and the teachers were not looking happy.  At one point the water came up really high, even as high as Mr Nicolson’s waist. So imagine what it might have been like for us!  Fortunately, we were allowed to skip that part of the course.  We came back to a part that was not as deep because we left with 51 children and wanted to return with 51 children.

We kept on walking through the long, twisting river until it came to an end.  Some people shouted with joy as Miss Hunt mentioned a mud slide, but others, not as much.  We all walked back to the start of the river and got the mud slide started.  Everyone enjoyed sliding down the muddy bank and we all got even more muddy.  Finally, we all went back to our chalets and had a warm but quick shower.

 

O – O is for Orienteering

On Thursday we all enjoyed taking part in orienteering.  At first Roger (an orienteering expert) talked to us about maps, space and magnetic North, which we found very interesting.   Roger talked us through interesting facts about the universe and showed us how it moves even as we speak!  We then had different challenges to complete to prepare us for the orienteering.   Once we had finished our task we sat down had a drink and guess what, a slice of cake!  We then had to get into pairs and set off to do orienteering.  We all ran off in different directions holding the map to magnetic North.  Eloise, Ashleigh, Ben and Joshua finished a course in under 10 minutes which was very impressive.  We all had such a fun afternoon running around and learning more about space and how to read maps.

 

N – N is for Night Hike

Walking in the dark was a bit scary, especially when the teachers told us to turn off our torches.  It then suddenly turned pitch black …  We didn’t want to scare the wildlife so we had to turn off our torches and it was like we were closing our eyes.  As the walk went on it got later and later, even though it was that late we still were lucky enough to see animals including a rabbit, a bat and even a deer!!  Even though we couldn’t see all the animals we could still hear them.  The animal we heard was the tawny owl with its high pitched cry, which impressed us all.  Later on in the night it felt like it was getting darker by the minute.  The trees were soon out of sight in the darkness.  The leaves were sounding like millions and millions of sweet wrapper being stepped on and the sound was so relaxing.  After the night hike we wrote postcards to our families and as you can guess, we had more and more cake.