Ye-Ha!

Our production of ‘Ye-Ha!’ went down a storm! Every single pupil performed their hearts out and raised the roof!

May procession

Art – exploring self through sculpture

Cricket workshop

Lent Walk

We took part in a Lent walk, structured around Stations of the Cross reflections.

Wheelchair basketball

We were lucky enough to welcome world champion wheelchair basketballer Nat to school, who was our coach for the afternoon!

Design & Technology – playground designers!

We have been designing playground structures and building prototypes using a frame which we reinforced then added cladding. Landscaping next!

Science with parachutes

This week, we have been investigating how the size of a parachute affects the amount of air resistance. We made and tested our parachutes, recording the results and our findings.

Careers Week

We held an amazing careers fair in school this week for careers week and have been looking at challenging stereotypes in careers.

Science week 2025

The theme for this year’s science week is ‘change and adapt’ so we have been investigating how we adapt forces using levers pulleys and gears. We made wind-powered pulleys and lever catapults…

World Book Day 2025

Healthy eating on a budget!

We have been busy designing and making a healthy lunch. We wrote recipes, shopping lists and were given a tight budget to stick to! We loved shopping for our ingredients and our finished dishes were delicious!

Our Real-life heroes

We have been finding out about the lives of inspirational people and have drawn portraits of them. Can you guess who they are?

Safety Week

We have welcomed police officers and paramedics into school this week to share valuable information about keeping ourselves safe.

Advent Art

We have been busy creating this artwork for an advent service with other local schools next week. Our theme was hope.

Children in Need

Remembrance Day

We have been busy writing poems inspired by the song ‘I Believe’ by Katherine Jenkins and Andrea Bocelli, focusing on our hopes and wishes for a peaceful world. We also created some beautiful fabric poppies and prayers.

Anti-bullying week

We raised awareness of the impact of bullying by holding an Odd Socks Day and doing some drama about choosing respect.

Black History

We celebrated Black History month with some inspirational artwork and have been learning about the Windrush generation.

Canal field trip

We had a fabulous trip on a canal barge to practise our mapping skills and observe features of canals that we have been learning about in our UK Geography and history topic.

UK Parliament Week

From human eyes to dragon eyes

European Languages Day

We celebrated with a French Day, with workshops including art (French artists), music (including the can-can!), French and DT (building French landmarks).

 

Pigeons!

Our Chair of Governors, Mr Blair, paid us a visit this morning with some racing pigeons! we watced him release them at playtime – what a treat!

Season of Creation

To celebrate the season of creation, we have been creating textile art depicting some of God’s amazing gifts.

Eye Spy

We have been inspired by artist Lucy Pass this week and had a go at drawing eyes…. watch this space for our work on dragon eyes next!

CAFOD Big Lent Walk

Liquorice Allsorts Classification Keys!

Our Science learning this week involved devising classification keys… and what better way to do this than to sort liquorice allsorts! It was trickier than we expected – but the reward of finishing off the pack of sweets was great motivation!

International Day of Happiness

Our Diana Award anti-bullying ambassadors planned and led a fantastic day packed full of games and activities with a focus on kindness and happiness to celebrate International Day of Happiness. Everyone was asked to wear their brightest, happiest coloured clothes! Our mbassadors started off by leading an assembly with the important message of being kind to oursleves as well as others. They led a whole school ‘Happy Breathing’ meditation then led some great activities at lunchtime including parachute games, kindness bingo and circle games.

Careers Week

We welcomed lots of visitors into school for careers week… vets nurses, police officers, a vet tech and farmer, electrician, beauty therapist, fabric designer and a street pastor! We asked lots of questions about career paths, what inspired them and what makes their job special.

World Book Day

Curling

Habitat Corners

As part of our Science learning about evolution and inheritance, we have created our own species with specific adaptations that allow it to survive in its habitat.We designed their characteristics then created them using Modroc… aren’t they fantastic?!

Camouflage Art

We have also been taking a closer look at camouflage in the natural world and used pastels to experiment with creating different textures/patterns

Safety Week 2024

We have immersed ourselves in learning about staying safe this week! We learned some vital first aid skills thanks to our paramedic visitors, presented dramas to the rest of the school about using our voice to say no in various risky situations and learned about water safety.

 

Oliver!

We’ve rounded off our English unit on playscripts and historical settings with a performance of Oliver!

Remembrance Day art and poetry

Extra-terrestrial visit?!

Well, what an exciting week we have had in Beacon Class! We received a memo from NASA asking us to investigate a possible UFO crash site in our school grounds! We were also given exclusive CCTV footage of a UFO hovering over the playground. We got to work collecting forensic evidence then with our journailstic skills, wrote newspaper reports about our findings.

Mosque visit

We had a fabulous visit to a mosque yesterday, finding out lots of interesting information about the Islamic faith. Imam Adil made us feel so welcome – we were treated to some food to help us understand fasting during Ramadan, presented with our names written in Arabic and we listened to a moving call to prayer sung in the prayer hall.

Creation textile art

Here are some of our finished creation pictures in response to our learning about the story of creation in the book of Genesis. We delved into some great discussion about how the belief in God as creator of all things can be compatible with our knowledge of the scientific evidence of evolution. We also learned more about Pope Francis’ plea in Laudato Si to care for our common home. We chose something we wanted to thank God for in his wonderful gift of creation and created these beautiful images for our RE display.

Space Week entrepreneurs!

In response to this Space Week year’s theme, ‘entrepreneurship’, we have been busy designing and creating spacecraft with a specific purpose. We had rockets designed to take tourists into space, rovers to find evidence of life on other planets and shuttles to send humans into orbit! We presented our ideas to the whole school in our celebration assembly.

Little Way Week fundraisers

We launched ‘Little Way Week’ with a whole school fundraiser to support the Red Cross in their mission to support families who have suffered due to earthquakes in Libya and Morocco. We look forward to our continued efforts this week and beyond, including our harvest food bank collection and our MacMillan coffee morning, when we will also be raising funds to support our friends in the Shalom Academy in Irovo, Kenya. We have sent letters to our penpals there and can’t wait to hear back from them! Our friend Olive collected the letters and she will be personally delivering them very soon! After a chat with Olive, we have decided to try and raise enough money to buy some swings and footballs for the school.

Autumn term 1 topic: Earthlings!

Weaving our seascapes

We have created weaved wall hangings of seascapes using a variety of threads including some recycled plastic bag strands! We were inspired by Isatou Ceesay – the queen of recycling from The Gambia, who led a recyling initiative to empower women in local communities to make sellable products from old plastic bags.

Fleetwood Museum Trip

We had a great morning at Fleetwood Museum this week, learning about Victorian seaside holidays. We dressed up in Victorian costumes, learned about how steam trains work, served tea in a Victorian guest house, made pebble art and finished with a Punch and Judy show!

 
Cornish Plastic Pollution Coalition

We had a meeting with marine biologist Delia this week from the CPPC, who shared lots of thought-provoking information with us about her work. We have been inspired to do our bit and are putting ideas together to try and reduce plastic waste both in school and at home. we are looking forward to carrying our our own beach clean-up after the half term break!

Coronation rosettes

We had lots of fun putting our sewing and design skills to the test on Friday, creating rosettes to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles.

Seascapes

We have been inspired by a selevtion of seascape art to create our own mixed media paintings with elements of collage. We used seaglass and other recycled items on cardboard canvases, painted to create gorgeous results!

Seaside topic launch

To launch our topic about the seaside (Victorian seaside holidays and looking at threats to our oceans today), we started to think about how plastic pollution is affecting sea animals. We created a turtle using plastic waste and discussed our role in protecting our oceans and their inhabitants.

Judo

Our first judo session took place this week!

Inventors & Inventions

We have come to the end of our latest topic ‘Inventors & Inventions’. It has been lovely to see the children inspired to create their own inventions at home and test out our learning on forces by creating a vast array of catapult, glider and parachute designs! We wrote letters to showcase our learning about the Islamic Golden Age and created PowerPoint presentations about some early inventions to come out of the amazing round city of Baghdad.

Cobble Hey farm visit

Year 5 visited a local farm this week to observe seasonal changes and were even fortunate enough to watch a lamb being born!

Science Museum Visit

Science Week

We have been investigating forces this week for Science week – how they work together and against each other. We investigated the effect of air restistance and gravity on parachutes we designed ourselves. We went on a frction hunt around school, made paper helicopters to find out which variable affected the speed of the fall and had some fun trying to pull books with interlocked pages apart!

Mother’s Day Art

Look at these gorgeous pieces of art we created for Mother’s Day cards! We used watercolour pencil and pen to create beautiful wild flowers. I hope our lovely recipients enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed creating them.

National Careers Week

We have been thinking about our future selves this week and gaining inspiration from some visitors who joined us to talk about their careers – a paediatrician and an artist!

World Book Day

We celebrated World book day dressing up as our favourite character, taking part in a book-tasting cafe and reading with our nursery friends!

Storyteller visit

A healthy meal on a budget

We designed a healthy, balanced meal using the Eatwell plate. We were allocated a budget and were given the task of shopping for ingredients. Evaluations of the finished dishes proved everyone had done a fantastic job!

Safety Week

We welcomed a paramedic team into school for Safety Week. We took part in a first aid workshop, had a look around the ambulance and asked them lots of questions about their amazing work.

We also devised some drama sketches to present our learning about health villains (drugs, alcohol and smoking) to the rest of the school in our Safety Week Showcase.

We learned about water safety from two RNLI representatives.

Music – composers hard at work!

Chinese New Year & multi-cultural stories

We have written our own version of the story of the Chinese zodiac ‘The Great Race’. Some of the children narrated their story whilst the rest of the class dramatised it for a mesmerised audience from Year 1&2!

Learning about Judaism – the Seder plate

 

Portraits of real-life heroes

We have been thinking about what qualities a real-life hero may have this week and then chose a special person to write an information text about. We then learnt about proportions of the human face and drew portraits of our chosen hero. Can you guess who they are?

Christmas jumper day

Watercolour penguins!

We have used watercolours to create our own unique Christmas card designs. Aren’t they gorgeous?!

Children in Need

The children in Beacon Class have written blogs to explain how we have been fundraising for Children in Need and how your money helps. Here is Penelope’s blog (more to be published on our blog page soon!)

Today at St. Francis it is a sea of onesies, oodies and fluffy pyjamas! We brought in £1 and pennies for a huge yellow felt cut-out of Pudsey.

Let me tell you more about Children In Need…

Children in Need is a charity that raises money for thousands of other charities in every corner in the UK. The money goes to different families with children that are either mentally unstable, disabled, or have a medical condition. You may just think that they only support children like that but they also support families who can’t feed their kids because of poverty.

There’s a very brave young man I would like to tell you about: his name is Riley and he has an interstitial lung disease. He was diagnosed with this disease when he was a little baby. His mum noticed he was struggling to breathe and the doctors diagnosed him with this lung problem. Children in need helped Riley’s family send him to a day care centre called Ty Hafan. Ty Hafan takes in children with disabilities or problems and gives them a place to feel safe and have fun. Riley has to take an oxygen tank everywhere he goes inside or outside. He would have never been able to do what he is accomplishing today without the support of a special play therapist (Anna) that children in need payed for. Before Riley had Anna he had trouble accepting his condition and was questioning why it is me with this disease? Why do I have to have it? His family had to adjust their home so Riley had access to oxygen at all times and if he didn’t for five minutes he would get really out of breath and his fingers and nose would go pale. Riley’s family have improved by Ty Hafan and Children In Need and most of all Anna for helping Riley with his confidence. It has made him feel like he is like the other children even though he understands he’s not. On the video his mum said they would be a completely different family without children in need and Ty Hafan.

 So on behalf of all the children of St. Francis I would like to say a big thank you to all the families who have now supported children like Riley. We have raised £120.92.

Thank you

By Penelope Spinks.

Remembrance poetry and poppies

We have had a week of reflection for Remembrance. We made textile poppies to sell at our family mass on Sunday. We learned a poem called ‘Poppies’, performing it for the rest of the school following a 2 minutes silence; it was very emotive. We also wrote our own remembrance poems using examples of figurative language.

Fencing

We have completed our first fencing class in PE!

Canal Field Trip

In Geography, we have been learning about human and physical geographical features in our local area. We put our mapping skills into practice with a field trip to Lancaster Canal in Bilsborrow. We drew maps of our journey, adding Ordnance Survey symbols. We spotted some amazing wildlife too: herons, swans and ducks to name a few!

Diwali

We have been learning about the Hindu festival of light, Diwali. We made Diwali sweets and have produced some fantastic double-page spreads to present our learning.

Black History Month

We have been celebrating the many amazing talents of some black athletes, musicians, politicians, scientists this week. we have also learned about the Windrush and some of obstacles and injustices the Windrush generation have faced. We learned a song by Lord Kitchener who was on the Windrush ship: ‘London is the Place for Me’ and perfomed this for our MacMillan Coffee Concert.

We produced mixed media artwork to showcase some of our learning and added some inspirational quotes:

Space Week:  Sustainable satellite solutions

We have been setting our sights high and coming up with design solutions to tackle the issue of orbital debris! We designed satellites with various design feature to collect debris whilst in orbit.

Who were the Anglo-Saxons and where did they come from?

We have been out and about playing the part of the Romans, The Britons, The Picts and the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, finding out who the Anglo-Saxons were and what was happening in Britain in the early AD400’s.

Birds nested in its branches…

We have sewn birds for a display representing the parable of the mustard seed. We talked about how Jesus used this story to describe the Kingdom of God and wrote our own responses on leaves. Our lovely tree will be on dispay in church this Saturday 11am-2pm as part of a harvest celebration.

Our finished dragon eyes

From human eyes to dragon eyes…

We have been practising our drawing skills this week, focusing on drawing human eyes. We were inspired by the work of artist Lucy Pass, a portrait artist who has a passion for drawing eyes. We then used pictures of reptile eyes to design our own dragon eyes. We have been reading legends from around the UK, writing about mythical creatures including dragons, so it has been great to see our artwork bring these to life! The next step in our project was to make clay sculptures of our dragon eyes – they are looking fantastic and ready for painting next week!

Sept 2022… Welcome back!

Here is our topic booklet for this half term. We are looking forward to learning about some weird and wonderful legends from around the UK and improving our Geography knowledge. We have a very exciting art project coming up too!

We have been saddened to hear of the death of our lovely monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. We have been reflecting on some special memories of the jubilee celebrations and have held a very emotive 2 minute silence on the playground.

Curling Tournament

Our year 6 curling team finished a very respectful 2nd place in the interschools curling tournament at the Flowerbowl – 1 point off the winners’ score!

Shakespeare Rocks

Our end of year production was amazing! Year 5 and 6 pulled off some fantastic performances in ‘Shakespeare Rocks’, whilst learning so much about the great bard!

Olympics Day!

To finish off our topic about Ancient Greece, we held our own Olympic Games, including an opening ceremony with inspirational speeches with a nod to the Greek Gods!

Cricket

We have a cricket coach working with us this half term, teaching us about batting and fielding techniques.

Science week

This week, we teamed up with our buddies in Reception to carry out a bug hunt in our Millennium forest area! We then made compostable seed starter pots and planted sunflower seeds ready for our big sunflower growing competition!

Author Visit

We welcomed author Dan Worsley into school today. He entertained us with a fantastic performance storytelling assembly, followed by a fantastic writing workshop, where he shared some of his secrets to great story writing.

Viking Visit!

Yes, you read correctly… we were paid a visit from a real Viking! He taught us all about Viking weapons, battle strategies and eating habits. He also showed us some amazing artefacts, for which we had fun guessing their uses.

Lego Coding Training!

Some of our technology experts from year 5 and 6 have been sharing their skills in Lego Coding with Reception class this week…

World Book Day 2022

We have had great fun today dressed as our favourite book characters! We shared stories with our buddies in Reception class and made our own books about the day our character came to school!

Sweet classification!

We have been learning about classification keys in Science. After using keys to classify some newly discovered amphibians, we created our own keys for Liquorice Allsorts!

Fairtrade Fortnight

Today we welcomed Fairtrade expert Michael into school to talk to us about the importance of Fairtrade. Beacon Class took part in a Fairtrade workshop, where we learned all about Fairtrade cooperatives and how farmers receive a fair deal for their crops.

Creepy Crawly Roadshow!

To launch our latest topic on animal classification, we welcomed John and his Creepy Crawly Roadshow into school. We learned so many fascinating facts about minibeasts and even got to hold some including a Madagascan hissing cockroach, Brian the giant land snail, Sammy the Royal python and a tiny stick insect!

VR experience

This week we took a virtual trip to the Amazon Rainforest, where we saw lots of amazing animals in the different layers of the rainforest, including capuchin monkeys, a tarantula and ants around our feet!

Mars Rovers

We have been designing, creating and programming Mars Rovers! The brief was to design a rover to collect scientific information and samples from the red planet.

Abstract Art Jackson Pollock style!

We loved getting messy with abstract art this week, applying paint with a variety of things including spray bottles and spoons! It was great to experience art on this scale – in true Jackson Pollock style!

Looking to the future

Our school council organised a ‘Future self day’ today, so we all came dressed as our future selves in our chosen career paths! From artists to architects, entomologists and sports champions, we are certainly reaching for the stars!

Aliens?!

Well, what an exciting week! On Monday, we were handed CCTV footage of a mysterious UFO hovering over our playground at the weekend! We investigated further and found metal debris scattered around a possible crash site in the Millennium. We put our expert forensic team to work, collecting evidence and interviewing staff to find out what had happened!

Martian Soil Investigation

We tested three soil samples found at our UFO crash site to find out which was the most likely to be from Mars. We used processes of dissolving, evaporating and filtering to check for properties that would give us clues about its origin.

Safety Week

We have had a very busy week, learning some basic first aid, a visit from paramedics in an ambulance, Online safety and water safety.

Alston Observatory

We visited Alston Observatory, where we took part in a Space workshop and were lucky enough to see two huge telescopes – one of which is among the biggest in Britain!

Solar System Maths!

We have been trying to get our heads around the scale of the planets in our Solar System this week! We measured the relative distance between each planet in relation to the sun, and using various sized spherical objects from chocolate sprouts to footballs we made a human solar system on the playground! We then made accurate scale drawings of the planets (200 000 000 times smaller than the real thing!).

Starry Night advent artwork

We have been working on a piece or art for a virtual advent service with other local schools. Our brief was ‘joy’ so we have depicted the joy of the birth of Jesus in the style of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. We created swirls in the Impressionist style of Van Gogh using a limited palette of blue, purple and yellow, then displayed these with some 3d elements and a light to represent Jesus. We’re really pleased with the result!

Oliver!

In English we have been studying Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist and this week we staged our very own performance!

Maths in the sunshine

We took advantage of some rare winter sunshine in maths with a division codecraker treasure hunt!

Van Gogh Alive!

We had such an amazing time at the Van Gogh Alive exhibition this week! It was so mesmerising and emotive to see Van Gogh’s life in paintings brought to life on huge screens all around us. We have been inspired to create some brilliant descriptive writing by imagining we had ‘dived into’ Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting.

Children in Need

We have been busy fundraising for Children in Need today. We wore our pyjamas and filled a huge Pudsey bear with pennies!

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Gymnastics

We have been practising different balances in gymnastics and creating our own sequences…

Gymnastics Champions!

Well done to our amazing gymnastics team who soared to victory in a competition this week… 4 gold medals, one silver and one bronze! They were also overall champions in the small schools league. Amazing performances!

Blackpool Zoo

We had a fantastic day at Blackpool Zoo – the perfect end to our Survival topic. We even got to feed nectar to the amazing rainbow lorikeets! It was great to see so many animal adaptations in real life.  Thanks to expert Bex for her guidance and patience in answering our many questions!

Survival Displays

We’re very proud of our class topic displays to showcase our learning about survival. We have crammed so much into this half term!

Our Habitat Corners

We have designed and created our very own species, giving them adaptations to help them survive in specific habitats. We wrote documentary scripts, sculpted our animals using modroc and made habitat corners for them to live in. Using the Puppetpals animation app, we filmed our own documentaries that I’m sure even Sir David Attenborough would be proud of!

Space Week

The focus for this year’s space week was women in space. We researched facts about many of the amazing influential women who have made their mark in the field of space travel and astronomy. We produced pop art style images inspired by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and presented our findings in a class video.

Finished artwork!

We are so proud of our finished pieces of art to round off our project on animals and camouflage!

Camouflage in Art

This week we have been working on some camouflage art using a variety of techniques. We looked at creating texture using different pencil grades, pastels, paint and collage. For our final piece we chose our favourite media and created some amazing animal and camouflage art. Watch this space next week for our finished pieces!

Autumn 2021

What a great start to the new school year! We have launched our new topic, Survival, with some fascinating learning about animal adaptations and evolution of species. Our new art topic about camouflage is well underway and we can’t wait to show you the finished results… watch this space!

Longridge Environmental Group Celebration

A group of children from Beacon Class were invited to Longridge Environmental Group’s Celebration of their ‘Plastic Free Town’ status yesterday. As part of our own Plastic Free School status award, Lucy had distributed newsletters to her neighbours, informing them of the plastic crisis. One of these was delivered to the ex mayor of Longridge, who consequently sent us the invitation to be part of this special event. Well done Lucy! We went along with some of our amazing work on display and presented to an audience of like-minded campaigners. What a fantastic privilege – the children did us proud with their heartfelt poems, speeches and confident presentation of our work.

Amazing Automata!

Today, we built some complex electrical circuits with LED lights and resistors to add a light element to our automata. We persevered in stripping wires, adding connector strips and using fiddly screwdrivers; it was so worth it… the results are fantastic!

Sports Day!

Automata designs

I have been blown away by some of our automata designs in our latest DT/ science project! The children have designed and created automata using cams mechanisms to bring moving parts to life. Then next plan is to add LEDs using our knowledge of electrical circuits to turn them into something worthy of Blackpool illuminations! Watch this space for the finished results…

Crochet Masterclass!

One of our year 5 pupils, Melody, has been sharing her love of crochet and teaching her classmates how to make chains, magic circles and even egg cosies! She has set up her own lunchtime club and has even taught Mrs Rossall (very patiently) some basic skills! 

Shakespeare Workshops

We have been lucky enough to have Lucy’s mum – our very own Shakespeare expert! – running some fantastic Shakespeare workshops with us. We have had a fascinating flavour of some of the bard’s plays, we got to grips with some tricky archaic language, acted some scenes and even hurled Shakespearean insults at one another!

Virtual Reality!

Wow, what an amazing day we have had! We took part in a Virtual Reality workshop and experienced life under the sea with a 360 degree view of some amazing ocean scenes! We saw dolphins, whale sharks, seals and even set foot in a shark cage! We also saw the impact of climate change, viewing changes in our polar regions, forests and views of the Earth from space.

History Day

We had a visit from Ruby Slippers this week, who took us on a tour of British history, from the Stone Age through to WW2! We became Stone Age hunters, wives of Henry VIII and World War 2 evacuees. We also took part in a Shakespeare Workshop, where we took on some key characters, posing in freeze frames to convey key characters and shapes to represent the seven ages of man speech from ‘As you like it’. What a great way to consolidate our History learning!

Photography – plastic in nature

We have been looking at some of Tracey Williams’ photography of Lego and other plastic washed up on beaches in Cornwall and were inspired to try our own!

Lytham Beach Clean-up

We had a very productive morning picking up litter along Lytham Beach. We found a surprising amount of plastic waste.

Weaving Seascapes

We have been creating some beautiful weaving art – transforming our seascapes into textile wall hangings. They are looking stunning!

Move over Greta Thunberg!

Beacon Class have been so inspired by young climate change activist Greta Thunberg and her speeches, they have written their own… and they are amazing! Some of them delivered their speeches in an assembly via Teams and advised the younger children what they could do to help the fight against plastic pollution. The children have also written letters to our local MP asking for his support with our Plastic Free Schools campaign.
On Monday we welcomed Delia Webb from the Cornish Plastic Pollution Coalition into our classroom via Zoom. What a fantastic insight into the world of a very passionate marine medic and biologist. She was very impressed with our knowledge and enthusiasm – we look forward to letting her know how we get on with our beach litter pick next week.

Rock Pool Experience

What a fantastic day we had learning about and holding some amazing creatures found in our rock pools! Starfish, anemones, crabs and mermaid purses to name a few. Many thanks to Lee from Aqualease for his expert knowledge and patience!

Plastic-free Schools Trash Mob!

We are on a mission to become a certified ‘plastic-free school’ and this week we carried out a ‘trash mob’ litter pick around the school grounds. Thinking we would come back with nothing, we were astounded to fill two sacks of plastic and non-decompostable waste! From plastic carrier bags buried in hedges to disposable face masks. We have also been writing persuasive speeches inspired by Greta Thunberg, which we are looking forward to delivering to our peers next week to persuade them to help us in our mission!

Sea poetry

I have been amazed by the thought-provoking and emotive poetry that has been created this week in Beacon class! We looked at figurative language and imagery in some sea poems then wrote our own. Some children decided to incorporate their feelings about plastic pollution – our ‘ethical thinking’ topic for this half-term.

Seascapes

We have been exploring and creating seascapes this week, using paint and collage techniques. In English, we have ‘dived into a painting’ and written some fantastic setting descriptions to depict our chosen seascape painting.

Parachute testing!

We tried out our parachute designs to see which was the most effective. We discovered that the bigger canopies slowed down the effects of gravity, but they only worked well if they were well-balanced!

Designing parachutes

Our latest DT project was to design a parachute that will safely carry an egg to the ground, making use of air resistance to reduce the force of gravity!
We chose suitable materials for the canopy, decided on the shape and size of the canopy and thought carefully about how to attach strings and a basket.
Next week we will be testing how effective they are… I wonder how many eggs will survive?!

Hockey Skills

In PE we have been developing our hockey skills. We have practised dribbling and jab tackling. We definitely have some budding hocking players in our class!

Science Week!

We have been investigating forces and friction for Science week. We designed gliders for a Beacon class ‘fly off’, looking at the effects of air resistance, gravity, thrust and lift. Well done to our champions Harry and Elsie!

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We also carried out a series of investigation into the effects of friction… we made CD hovercrafts, observed friction in action in a bicycle and tried picking jelly cubes up with chopsticks…with added oil!

The true meaning of advent

We have been reflecting on the true meaning of advent over the past couple of weeks. We have made Christingles, recorded our virtual advent service and written blogs about our thoughts and reflections about this special time of year. Some of our blogs will be uploaded into the ‘Kidszone’ area of our website shortly!

Christmas Jumper Day and Food bank delivery!

We have been raising money for Save the Children and collecting food for our local food bank as part of our pledge this advent to help others less fortunate than ourselves. Year 6 delivered the food so that we could see what a food bank looks like.

Order! Order!

We held our own parliamentary debate this week, complete with a government party, opposition and speaker! We debated the current issue of housing overdevelopment in our local community. I think we may have some future MPs among us!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

In true St Francis tradition, Year 6 were given the task of decorating our Christmas tree this week. We can’t believe it is going to be their last Christmas with us at St Francis! We have also been practising for our virtual advent service – it has been lovely to hear Christmas carols and festive cheer in school.

Children in Need

Remembrance Day reflections

We have enjoyed looking at the stations created by each class for Remembrance Day, reflecting on the thoughtful poems and artwork and remembering all those who sacrificed their lives in wartime.

How do we see?

We have been modelling how light helps us to see objects using a light source, string and random objects!

Beautiful Poppies

We have made fantastic progress with our sewing skills which we have been showcasing in our poppy project this week. We are preparing a poppy wreath and special display to mark Remembrance Day… watch this space for the final results next week!

Space Week 2020

The theme of this year’s space week was satellites, so we embarked on a mission to learn about how amazing artificial satellites are, and did an mini DesignTechnology project to design and create our own satellite with all the necessary components.

Finished dragon eyes!

We have finally finished painting our dragon eyes with some beautiful metallic paint…. what a result! They look amazing!

Legends and dragons!

We have finished writing our own legends this week, inspired by legends from around the UK and our class novel, Beowulf. They feature famous uk landmarks and some weird and wonderful mythical creatures! We have also been doing some amazing artwork featuring dragon eyes. We started with a study of the human eye, then adapted this to design dragon eyes based on reptiles and made these into clay sculptures. We can’t wait to paint these next week!

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Maypole!

As part of our UK topic, we have been learning some traditional dances around the maypole. The maypole has a long history in Goosnargh, being the focal point of our Whitsuntide festival for decades and since this years festival was cancelled we thought it would be great to continue this tradition here at St Francis!

Welcome back!

We’ve had a busy week already! We have launched our new topic ‘A Kingdom United’. We have been looking at how the Anglo-Saxons came to settle in Britain with an active session on the playground with a huge UK map! We had groups of Romans, Britons, Picts and Anglo-Saxons invading and protecting…

Creation Pictures

After reading the story of creation in the book of Genesis, we designed some artwork based on what we are thankful to God for. We are in the process of replicating our designs using embroidery. They are looking amazing!

New Topic Map

‘An Amazon Adventure’

This is our new topic map for this half term. We will try to mirror some of the learning through home learning activities sent out on Seesaw to enable as much curriculum coverage as possible.

Daffodils

We have been working on our observational skills in art, looking at detail in shape, angles and colour. Our daffodil art have made beautiful Mother’s Day cards!

Sweet classification

We have been learning about classification keys and how animals and plants are grouped. We made our own classification keys for a group of liquorice all sorts and named each ‘species’!

Sharing stories

Year 5 love spending time reading with their buddies in Reception class. Last week they enjoyed sharing stories they had written.

World Book Day

We had great fun dressing up as our favourite characters and also took part in a ‘book tasting’ session – cafe style! Everyone chose a book from five different genres and completed a taster menu to help them decide whether it was a book they would like to read.

Dancing through the decades

 

 

Safety Week 2020

We have had a very busy week learning about how to stay safe both online and in every day life and to take responsibility for our own safety and well-being…

Fireman Dave

Firefighter Dave spoke to us about how to avoid fires in the home and gave us some great tips about how to stay safe in the event of a fire. Thank you Dave!

Mini medics with ‘Heartbeat’

Key Stage 2 took part in ‘mini medics’ first aid training with Sian from Heartbeat. We learned how to administer CPR, what to do if someone is bleeding or choking and how to call for help in an emergency.

 

Dog Trust

Elissa from the Dog Trust spoke to us about being a responsible dog owner and approaching dogs safely.

 

Alston Observatory

What a fantastic morning we had at our local observatory! We learned so many fascinating facts about space, experienced a 3d spectacular show in the planetarium and looked at the super-sized telescopes and the amazing photos they have captured. A huge thank you to Mark from UCLAN for a brilliant presentation.

Creating Planets

We have made some amazing 3D planets using paper mache with tissue to add texture to the surface, and string to create craters. We then painted them using different paint effects inspired by the abstract art of Jason Pollock.

NSPCC Number Day

To raise money for the NSPCC, we dressed as our favourite Times Tables Rockstar or a number themed costume and took part in some number challenges including an alien number scavenger hunt! Thank you to all those who donated cakes for our cake sale. We will be counting the money raised at the end of the week so watch this space…!

Liverpool World Museum trip

We had a great day, learning about fossils, art from different cultures, the history of space exploration and Ancient Egypt!

NSPCC ‘Speak Out’

We had a visit from Jo and Marie (and mascot Buddy!) from the NSPCC, who talked to us about the importance of talking about any worries we may have. We are looking forward to holding a ‘Number Day’ next Friday, where we will wear number themed costumes and holding a cake sale. Children are busy collecting sponsors for taking part in lots of different number challanges on the day.

Martian soil investigation

We were provided with 3 soil samples and information about the properties of Martian soil. We devised tests and observations to investigate which sample was most likely to be soil from Mars, including testing for salt through dissolving and evaporating.

 

Solar Systems of every kind!

We have had some amazing space creations brought into school for home learning tasks this week! Papier mache planets, fabulous posters, painted 3d models of the solar system, a 3d fabric solar system mobile and even edible solar systems and a galaxy cake! How lovely to see the children so engaged in our topic… super effort Beacon class!

Planet art

We have been experimenting with creating texture using a variety of media in art – pastels, pencil and chalk/charcoal. We look forward to transferring these ideas to 3d planets next week.

Alien Invasion!

We started the week with some very alarming news… aliens had invaded St Francis’ millennium woods! There were various pieces of metal debris found at the site and some interesting CCTV footage of what appeared to be a UFO hovering over the playground! The children adopted the roles of journalists and forensic investigators and set about gathering evidence. They have compiled news reports which they are busy editing…

Football Tournament

Some of our fabulous footballers took part in a tournament in Fleetwood today. Despite some very tough opposition and extremely cold weather, spirits were high and as always, they played fairly and were super-polite throughout. Very proud of them all!

Learning about our Solar system

Space topic ‘launch’!

We have launched our new topic with a carousel of activities to test our previous knowledge about Space… and we tasted some real astronaut food! We are looking forward to learning lots of new information about our amazing solar system.

Congratulations Emily!

We are very proud of our amazing artist and book worm, Emily, for this achievement….

Sharing our ‘Excitable Edgar’ stories with our buddies

Gymnastics

Our PE unit this half term, alongside ‘Maths on the Move’ has been gymnastics. We have been practising counter balance and tension in groups and also matched and mirrored balances in pairs. We have composed our own routines and carried out appraisals of other groups’ routines.

Sharing Learning Logs

We have been sharing all the fantastic work that has been done at home this half term. What a great array of activities!

Oliver Twist

We have been studying playscripts in English, including some classics: Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol. At the childrens’ request, they performed their own version for the rest of the school. Their performance was fantastic! Videos have been sent out on Seesaw.

Fruit Still Life Art

We have been studying the detail of various fruits sliced in half, sketching and painting them. The results are great…

KS2 Advent Service

Our advent service was a really special event – the children shared the story of Christmas and some lovely reflections about the true message of Christmas. The readers, singers, musicians and soloists were all amazing. We finished with a lively performance of ‘Born in the Hay’!

Christmas Dinner!

History of St Francis’

We welcomed one of our governors – Mr Bryan – into school this week to share his wealth of knowledge about Blessed George Beesley and the history of our school and church. It was absolutely fascinating – what a privelege to hold some special artefacts that were used by George himself.

Watercolour penguins

We have been painting penguins using watercolours this week – to make into Christmas cards. They look fantastic! Packs of these will be for sale at the Christmas fair this Sunday after mass.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Year 6 decorated our Christmas Tree in the hall – a yearly tradition for our leavers… we can’t believe this will be their last Christmas at St Francis’!

Baking bread

Beacon Class has never smelled so wonderful this week! Scents if freshly-baked bread have been wafting through our corridors! We learned about what effect yeast has on the dough as it proves and looked at where flour comes from.

Bikeability

What an exhausting week! Bikeability was so much fun – everyone learned so much about staying safe on the roads and practised lots of cycling skills involving balance and coordination.

Anti-bullying Week

Children in Need

Food Glorious Food!

To launch our new topic, we had a ‘taster’ session to sample what we would be learning about in Science, Geography, DT and Art. We made sherbet and observed what happened when the ingredients were added to water.

Poppy Art for Remembrance Day

We painted poppies with watercolours (inspired by Georgia O’Keefe’s poppies) onto handwritten ‘In Flanders Fields’ poems. The finished collaborative art boards were displayed in church for Remembrance Day… they look stunning.

In Flanders Fields Performance Poetry

In groups, we devised a series of actions for each stanza of the poem, then put them together to create a very moving performance on Remembrance Day to introduce our minutes silence.

Seed planting

Every child in the school planted seeds this week as part of our Longridge cluster schools project to plant 1 million trees.

Blackpool Zoo

What a fantastic day to round off our learning about adaptation and evolution!

 

Harris Museum Art Day

We were lucky enough to receive a very special visit last week from staff at the Harris, who brought with them an amazing sculpture – Gloria Victis – and held art workshops.

Our adapted creature habitat corners

We thoroughly enjoyed designing and creating creatures that could survive in our chosen habitats. The sculptures were made using modroc and foil and we made habitat corners for them to live in. We carefully chose features for our creatures, giving them adaptations to enable them to survive and thrive in their habitats. We wrote descriptions on the back of the habitat corners, then in true David Attenborough style, made our own wildlife clip animations using the Puppet Pals app. These have been sent out on Seesaw – we hope you enjoy them!

 

International Space Day

We had an amazing time learning all about space rovers, making our own from lego, then coding them to move, change colour and make noises!

Football & Netball Tournament

Well done to our netballers and footballers – once again they made us proud with impeccable manners and behaviour… and they played well too!

French Day

We embraced all things French this week with a fantastic French Day to mark European languages day. Year 5&6 hosted a French cafe and guided younger children in some basic French conversation. We had a D&T workshop, creating models of French landmarks; an Art workshop where we responded to paintings by French artists and a music session where we learned a French song.

Net and Ball skills in PE

Life Education Caravan

We had a visit from our old friend Harold the giraffe this week with the Life Education Caravan. We learned about friendship, emotions, drugs and choices.

Science: Which beak is best?!

We carried out an investigation into the different beaks birds have to enable them to access different food sources. We learned about adaptation and what would happen to different species if their food source disappeared.

Music: Rocking out to Bon Jovi!

We started a new unit of work in music about rock music. We were ‘keeping the pulse’ and playing along to ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ with a simple Glockenspiel accompaniment, finishing with singing the song and a bit of air guitar!

Cobble Hey

Year 5 enjoyed their first of three visits to Cobble Hey Farm to see how things change over the seasons.

Welcome back!

Reflection Window

We have been busy designing stained glass artwork for our Reflection window to remind us that we are stewards of creation. Our designs represent elements of creation and reflect some of the amazing gifts God has given to us.

Blackpool Trip

What a fantastic way to end the term… our trip to Blackpool Tower and Circus.

Our new head boy and girl team for 2019/2020

Robin and the Sherwood Hoodies!

Our class production brought the house down! The children were amazing – each one brought their unique personalities to their roles and the singing was fantastic!

Theme Park Rides

Look at our amazing theme park ride creations! What a fantastic range of designs!

New Funky Furniture!

Our new library has arrived and has created a fabulous area for reading and group work!

Judo

Poetry Recitals

We chose our favourite poems and worked on some performance techniques, finally performing them for our classmates.

Multimedia Seascapes

We used different media to make some seascape collages incorporating our knowledge of perspective. We photographed the finished pieces and edited the photos to make Father’s Day cards.

Cobble Hey

Clip & Climb

Football Festival

Year 6 took part in a football festival at Myerscough College. They played brilliantly and supported each other so well.

Maths Graffiti

High 5 Netball

Ladyewell

Year 5 went on a pilgrimage to Ladyewell as part of our celebrations for May, the month of Mary. We crowned the statue of our lady in a lovely outdoor mass and explored the beautiful gardens.

Spaghetti Towers

We been using our design and technology skills to design and build towers from spaghetti and marshmallows!

Passover – RE & food technology

We have been learning about how Jews celebrate the feast of The Passover. We looked at the symbolism of each element of the Seder plate and made some charoset with Matzoh crackers.

SATs – mission accomplished!

Year 6 enjoyed ice lollies and a penalty shoot-out in the sunshine after completing their SATs. A well-deserved treat after working extremely hard yet taking the week in their stride… well done Year 6!

Pobble authors

Kitty & Dylan were our published Pobble authors last week for their information leaflets about their chosen seaside resorts. Well done!

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!

Year 5 have been busy putting their persuasive writing skills to the test creating some great information leaflets about their chosen seaside town. They have also been learning about early British holidays and how they have evolved over time.

 

Rounders

We have been practicing our striking and fielding skills with Mr Howarth this week within an energetic rounders session!

Passover Freeze Frames

We brought the story of Moses and The Passover to life using freeze frames, then discussed what beliefs each freeze frame linked to.

Paper Aeroplane Sports Reports

We tested our aerodynamic paper aeroplanes in a distance contest this week. Year 5 became sports journalists and wrote sports reports on the event. See Pobble for a couple of super examples!

Mother’s Day Cards

We practised a new watercolour technique (dropping colour onto a wet background) to make flowers for Mother’s Day cards. The results were lovely!

Arithmetic Hunt

To make the most of the sunshine, we had an outdoor maths lesson….a team arithmetic treasure hunt!

Angles in action

Year 5 have been learning about angles and investigating angle properties with a complex web of masking tape!!

 

Cobble Hey

Year 5 spent the day at Cobble Hey farm, learning about seasonal changes, feeding lambs and spotting lapwings.

Safety Town

Year 6 took part in a ‘Safety Town’ day at Longridge High School, where they took part in workshops and presentations with the police, fire brigade, OJ’s charity, NSPCC, Road Safety Specialists and ‘Doing it for Dylan’ among others.

Science Museum Trip

On Wednesday, Key Stage 2 visited the museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. We had a fantastic day learning about forces, electricity and enjoyed lots of hands-on Science fun!

Science Week

We have carried out lots of exciting experiments about forces. We investigated the effects of friction and ways to reduce it.

We also welcomed Mrs Gornall, who ran a fantastic Rollercoasters Workshop for us! Thank you Mrs Gornall.

Year 5 Taster Day at Longridge High

World Book Day

Shakespeare Workshop: Romeo & Juliet

Parachutes

We designed a parachute choosing materials, canopy shape/size and tools. We then tested them out to see which design was the most effective.

Heartbeat Visit for Valentine’s Day!

We welcomed Sian from ‘Heartbeat’ on Thursday. She ran a mini medics first aid course and also a workshop about our hearts and bodies with a focus on keeping fit and healthy. A perfect event for Valentine’s Day!

Shakespeare Workshop

Year 5 have been demonstrating some fantastic acting skills this half term in their weekly Shakespeare workshop.

Safety Week

We have had a very busy week packed full of safety workshops and lessons. On Monday we covered online safety and created our own avatars to protect our identity online….

On Tuesday we had a visit from Jack’s Mum who is a nurse. She talked to us about her job and went through some simple first aid techniques….

On Wednesday we had a visit from Fireman Dave who taught us lots of tips about fire safety….

On Thursday we joined the whole school in the hall and each class performed role plays themed around different aspects of keeping safe. Beacon Class took on water safety and performed a brilliant role play with lots of life-saving tips…

Also, thanks to parents who joined us for our information workshop. Please do ask if you have any concerns about any aspects of safety, including online safety. We hope you find the information provided useful.

We also welcomed Police Officers Jen and Julie into school. They answered lots of questions about their exciting role and talked to us about keeping safe.

Making healthy snacks

To support our topic on healthy hearts and bodies, we made some nutritious cereal bars. It was a great opportunity to practise what we have been learning in maths about measures.

National Storytelling Week

What a fantastic week! We created story boxes to bring our hero and villain stories to life and shared these with our friends in Fairsnape class and our buddies in Reception. Some of these boxes will be donated to Reception class as small world inspiration for their own story writing. Fynn organised a book swap on Thursday which was a great success.

Portrait Art

We have been practising drawing portraits this week using proportion guidelines and trying out a range of art pencils. The results are fantastic!

Measures, mean and leg raises!

We carried out some data collecting activities in groups including our height and how long we could hold a leg raise! We calculated the mean (average), converted some of the measures and practised our rounding skills. We were amazed at how much maths you need for one simple task!

Character Biographies

This week we researched information about our favourite heroes and villains from books and used features of non-fiction text to write biographies. Here are a few examples…

Gymnastics

The Circulation Game!

We have been learning about how the heart works and about the journey of our blood as it is pumped around our bodies. We became oxygenated and de-oxygenated blood and took on the journey through the heart and lungs and around the rest of the body.

Advent Service

KS2 did us proud with some beautiful singing, readings and as always lovely behaviour. What a great way to share the real story of Christmas.

Christmas Jumper Day

We looked at some of the amazing work that ‘Save the Children’ do with the money raised on Christmas Jumper Day. As stewards of creation, we are pleased to support children around the world who aren’t as fortunate as us.

Letters from the Man in the Moon

We wrote letters in response to the John Lewis Christmas advert ‘The Man in the Moon’, replying to the little girl who sent him a telescope. We designed a method of transport to deliver the letters back to Earth…

 

Holy Hour

As part of ‘The Year of the Eucharist’ we held a holy hour in church, during which each class took part in Eucharistic Adoration and quiet reflection in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The Blessed Sacrament (blessed host) was on display in the monstrance on the altar. We prepared music, prayers and readings. Beacon class led their contribution with respect and maturity.

Hogwarts Potions Class!

We welcomed Science teacher and Potions Master Miss Wood from St Cecilia’s for our last two Science lessons. We carried out lots of Harry Potter themed potions experiments with some weird and wonderful results! We investigated effects of mixing ingredients such as troll blood, werewolf fur, pixie dust, ground unicorn horn and many more!

Christmas is on its way…

We have a busy term ahead. Year 6 have been busy decorating the tree in the hall and we have begun our journey through advent, planning our advent service and thinking about how we can welcome Jesus into our hearts.

Chuck Close Art

We have completed a collaborative art project inspired by American artist Chuck Close. We made shades and tints of colours and investigated colour mixing. The result is amazing!!

Poetry Workshop

Year 5 have been taking part in weekly poetry workshops where they have been working on performing poetry and nonsense rhymes.

Children in Need

We had a non-uniform day and cake sale to raise money for Children in Need. We looked at some stories of children whose lives have been made a little easier with the help of this charity.

Read a couple of our reports below…

Children in Need 2018

Today, at St. Francis Catholic Primary School we wore brightly-coloured clothes or spotty clothes to raise money for Children in Need. We set up a cake sale and all of the money that people bought cakes with goes to children like Sam who is deaf and Byron who has cerebral palsy.

Sam was born deaf and every time he tried to sleep he got scared and the record of his mum putting him back to sleep was 27 times in 1 night. Also Children in Need helped him buy a hearing dog called Ember, since he got Ember he hasn’t been scared any more. Now he knows when there is a fire alarm because Ember will nudge him on the leg and she will lie down until she gets a response from Sam.

Byron who was born with cerebral palsy and it was hard for him to move most of his muscles but since Children in Need has helped Byron get a personal trainer to help him swim and be able to move his muscles a lot easier than before. His life is a lot better thanks to Children in Need because he now can spend more time with his family.

Children in Need has raised £800 million but thanks to you, your money will add onto that and help more people like Sam and Byron.

By Leo 

 

Children in need 2018

Today, at St Francis catholic primary school we are raising money for children in need. Everyone has brought money in for cakes and for non-uniform day. People are wearing brightly – coloured clothes or spotty clothes

The UK has 2283 children in need centres including Scotland and Wales. This is one example of where the money goes. There is a boy called Sam who is deaf and he has a hearing dog called Ember. Before Ember was in Sam’s life, Sam was always scared because hear anything he couldn’t hear a fire alarm either. Now ember is in Sam’s life he feels much more safe and confident because he knows that ember is always by his side

There are other children who have lost siblings or have problems. Harry is a boy who has lost his brother when he was walking home from school  and his brother ran ahead and got knocked over by a van outside the school gates and Harry wouldn’t go to school for a year. In the meantime Harry was provided with a play worker who builds up his confidence to go back to school. The play worker played games with Harry and after a few months he was back at school.

This money goes to people like Harry and Sam who need help from us so please donate as much money as you can because your money makes children’s life easier and their parents life easier.

By Fynn

Archery

We remember them

In RE this week, we went to church, where the stations of the cross are currently displayed alongside pictures from WW1. We talked about how Jesus’ suffering on his journey with the cross compared with the soldiers’ suffering during the war. We were joined by Mrs Moran, who showed us some photos and a beautiful bowler hat and coat that belonged to her uncle who sadly lost his life in WW1. It really brought home the impact the war had on individual families.

Poppy Poems

We have been writing poppy poems using figurative language – the results are fantastic! They were displayed in church for Remembrance day and Lizzy read hers out at mass. Read her poem below…

Will he know?      by Lizzy

I watched him walk away,

He is a sinner being sentenced to his death

His silhouette grew thinner and thinner

I drew a deep and worried breath

As their marching was muffled by the gruesome gun shots

 

He was gone for days

Those days turned into weeks 

The weeks turned into months

Those months turned into life-draining darkness

That drained my soul of laughter

 

My candle stood there solemnly

As my tears drown the ink on my letter

I wrote to him all day and night

I wrote through sorrow and mourn

 

I wonder whether it’s worth writing my letter

Will he see it?

Will he know?

Will he realise I’m mourning for him?

I wonder whether he’ll come

I wonder whether he’ll see me

Before I give birth to a son

 

When will it end?

When will it stop?

When will this spiral of sorrow end?

Will I hold a yellow envelope before my life expires?

 

Light experiments

We have begun a new science topic all about light: how light travels and looking at colour in light. We made human models to illustrate that light travels in a straight line and how we see objects in relation to a light source. We then investigated colour in a range of light sources and situations. We made rainbows and looked at colour wheels.

Fun Run

We all took part in a fun run this week, organised by our Animal Welfare group. It was great fun and a good opportunity to test our fitness levels! It was also lovely to see our older children helping the younger ones.

Poppies

We have been busy making clay poppy pots and sewing felt poppy badges to sell in aid of The British Legion Poppy Appeal this week. We sold some at the remembrance exhibition in church; they will also be on sale at Our next family mass on 11th November.

Remembrance exhibition and concert

Parishioners at St Francis set up an amazing exhibition in church to commemorate the lives of the 9 soldiers from our parish who lost their lives in WW1. The children found it extremely interesting and thought-provoking. In the afternoon, our school band, choir put on a remembrance concert – the performed brilliantly. Parishioners and families were brought to tears… it was a truly moving occasion.

Harry Potter Hot-seating!

As part of our planning session to write a diary extract in role as Harry Potter, we did some hot-seating and questioned ‘Harry’ about his feelings and thoughts on his day in Diagon Alley.

More Muggle Quidditch…

We have been practising being chasers, beaters, seekers and keepers this week with a full game of Muggle Quidditch! We even let the Golden Snitch loose on the sidelines to be sought by the seekers… we had to use clever tactics to find the right time to catch the Snitch and end the game! On our way back into school afterwards, one muggle was heard saying, ‘It feels weird not having my broomstick!’…maybe we are creating wizards after all!

Life Education Caravan

We had a visit from Harold the Giraffe and the Life Education Caravan. We learnt some important lessons about friendship, drugs and being safe online.

Jeans for Genes

Today, we all came to school in jeans to raise money for children with genetic disorders and their families. Beacon class learned what a genetic disorder is and looked at some of the children this charity supports. Here are a few of the blogs they wrote to share this information with you…

Emily’s blog:

St Francis are raising money for ‘Jeans for Genes day’ by giving a pound to people with genetic disorders and wearing an item of denim. Today is the 21^st of September and today we are trying to make a difference because everyone is different and we should be stewards of creation.

Our bodies are made up of 50 trillion cells and in each cell there are 23,000 genes. Genes are important information about our personalities and they come from our parents. If your parent has a genetic disorder you might get it. Or if you have a gene missing you could also have a genetic disorder.

Here is a boy called Tamilore, he has a genetic disorder called sickle cell anaemia. This is when his blood cells are shaped like crescent moons, which kind of look like a curved banana. This means his blood cells get clogged up and they can’t get round the body properly and the limb that does not get blood cells running through it starts to hurt. Tamilore has to take medicine every day and he has crutches. Tamilore can’t play football or rugby because of his hip. People at Tamilore’s school tease him because he came last in the cross country race. But even finishing the race made him happy. Also, people tease him because he has crutches for a year and everyone else has them for 2 weeks, a month or maybe 3 weeks so people think he is faking. This should never happen because everyone is equal no matter what has happened.

We can be like Jesus and be kind and raise money so people can live a happy and peaceful life. Jesus has done everything for us and God made this wonderful world for us too.

 

Vinny’s blog:

Today, everyone at St. Francis is wearing jeans for people with genetic disorders. If you have one gene missing it can cause a lot of problems.

What are genes? Genes are things in your body that give you blue eyes, blond hair etc. Our bodies are made of up to 50 trillion cells, inside each cell holds around 23 thousand genes. We inherit half of our genes from our Mum and half from our Dad.

Today, I watched a short clip, it was about a boy called Tamilore. He has a genetic disorder – his type is called sickle cell anaemia. It sometimes causes him a bit of pain or a lot of pain.

How it happens… Some of his blood cells aren’t shaped the same, they are supposed to be shaped like a circle but some of his are shaped like a banana. When they are going round his body, some get stuck (the banana shaped ones) and it would block the part where the cells are trying to go so that’s how it causes him pain.

The reason our school does this is because we are all Christians. Jesus said, ‘Love one another’ and it said in the book of Genesis that we should be stewards of creation. We are stewards of creation in our school.

 

Phoebe’s blog:

Today, its ‘Jeans for genes’ day. We all brought £1 for charity. Genes are little things in our body and there are trillions of them, but if even one is in the wrong place people get genetic disorders.

There is a boy called Tamilore. He has an illness called sickle cell anaemia. He is 10 years old and loves sport but most of it he cant do. Some people tease him and say he’s faking. He is really good at golf. When his mum was pregnant, she found out that she had sickle cell anaemia and knew he was going to have it too. He needs crutches as it affects his hip. When he has a crisis it causes pain. He can’t play football or rugby.

It is very important to be stewards of creation. If he was at our school we would not tease him so why do they tease him? No-one should tease anyone. Treat others how you want to be treated – this is Mathew’s golden rule.

 

Cobble Hey Visit

Year 5 had a great time at Cobble Hey – their first visit of the year to explore the effects of seasons on animal and plant life.

Exploring OS maps

As part of our topic ‘A Kingdom United’ we have been getting to grips with 6-figure grid references with great success!

Welcome back Muggles!!

Our sorting hat has successfully sorted everyone into their Hogwarts houses and we are ready for a new term at Hogwarts… er I mean St. Francis!

We have been playing Muggle Quidditch in PE (minus the flying broomsticks). This week we begun our ‘chaser’ training where we practised skills in passing and dodging.

   

Author Visit

We welcomed children’s author Dan Worsley into school this week. He wowed us with a hilarious storytelling workshop. We were inspired to write our own story plans based around ‘Bazza’ the bully. The children came up with some fantastic ideas…. thank you Dan!

  

Cobble Hey

     

Tower Wood

What an amazing week we had at Tower Wood! The children put 100% into every challenge and were so supportive of each other. They kayaked, ghyll scrambled, climbed trees and jumped off a sky pole! We will get a photo presentation together for parents soon… here are a few to be going on with!

            

CAFOD Refugee Awareness morning

  

3D models – plant reproduction

 

Coffee Morning Concert

This morning, the band, choir and Glee club performed in our music extravaganza! We had flute, recorder and drum soloists and some amazing collaborative pieces. We are always amazed to see how much our musicians, singers and actors are progressing term by term.

     

May Procession

We held our annual May Procession on Thursday to honour Our Lady. The children led the procession, attendants collected and displayed flowers and we crowned the statue of Mary.

  

Open Afternoon & Mayor Visit

What a fantastic afternoon! We welcomed the Mayor and Mayoress of Preston to the Grand Opening if our new outdoor area, The Land of Pure Imagination.’ The band entertained us in the sunshine – it was great to see so many visitors.

         

Recording Studio

Our head boy and girl and their deputies were invited to The Old Corn Mill Recording Studios in Longridge this week to record a voice-over for a special Remembrance event in November with our local cluster schools. They conducted themselves beautifully – voices of the future!

Eyes forward!

We took part in an army training session on Thursday led by ex-soldiers from Militarycation Fun & Fitness. We did army drills and teambuilding exercises…. it was exhausting but great fun!

Alien Orienteering

We made the most of the sunshine with an ‘alien orienteering’ task – a memory, problem-solving and teamwork activity. Teams worked so well together to remember some weird names and identification codes!

  

Smiles throughout SATs week…

Year 6 have made us proud this week with their amazing positive attitude and great work ethic. Mrs BM’s breakfasts were extremely appreciated each morning…. homemade waffles, pancakes, muffins and fruit salad went down a treat! After the last paper, there was a huge cheer all the way to the trim trail for a well-deserved break! Well done Year 6!

     

Flower Surgery!

We have dissected daffodils this week to look closely at the reproductive parts…..

  

Year 6 have been busy recapping on their knowledge about 2D and 3D shapes and enjoyed doing some shape graffiti!

 

CSI in Beacon Class – kidnapping of Boofle!

Year 5 and 6 became Crime Scene Investigators today, following the kidnapping of our class mascot, Boofle. They took evidence from four suspects, including fingerprints, hair samples, footprint details and handwriting samples. Through forensic science investigations and discussing possible motives, they found the culprit….Mrs Davies!! Boofle was returned unharmed.

  

  

  

  

World Book Day

Amazing costumes, a story pebble hunt with our buddies and story wheels….what a fantastic day!

  

  

  

Martian Soil Investigation!

We became Space Scientists for the after noon, testing soil samples to see which one was most likely from Mars… we tested for particle size, the presence of salt through evaporation, acidity using litmus papers and how well water travels through by filtering.

 

  

  

Storytelling week

Year 5 and 6 have been enjoying sharing stories with their buddies as part of our National Storytelling week. We have also been busy writing 500 word stories for a competition…good luck everyone!

      

 

 

Alston Observatory

We visited Alston Observatory this afternoon – we looked at the huge telescopes and experienced the great planetarium! We came away with so many amazing facts about space…!

  

We have been putting the finishing touches to our Science Fiction stories and have added our planets/UFO’s – they look amazing on display in class!

     

We have carried out investigations into how the moon moves in relation to the Earth and finding out about the phases of the moon…

  

Finally, this week we were lucky enough to be able to watch the rare lunar eclipse steamed live from Nasa’s website. The Super Blue Blood moon was an amazing sight… we only wish we could have seen it for ourselves (unfortunately we live on the wrong side of the planet!)

Happy New Year!

Welcome back. We have made a great start on our new topic, ‘Earthlings’ which looks at space – our solar system and all things extra-terrestrial! Click on the topic map for more information about what we will be learning this half term…

Curriculum Map earthlings

We made scale models of the planets in our solar system in maths. We have also simulated how the planets move around the sun using fruit!

  

  

We have also started fencing again this week in PE…

 

and have begun our ‘Astronaut Training’….working on strength, core, agility and balance:

  

Our Advent Blogs…

Year 5 and 6 have been busy writing their own blogs about advent. They have some inspiring and touching thoughts about this time of year – here are a few for you to read…

Firstly, Advent (for me) is all about rushing around, trying to get Christmas decorations up and preparing for my pantomimes at Christmas. But is it really about all of this? Some people may walk into shops at Halloween and see Christmas trees instead of pumpkins! Instead of Halloween costumes, you see Santa hats! Christmas comes so fast in shops and at home, but we forget how important Advent is as well as Christmas shopping and presents.

In my house, my little brother runs around screaming, “We need the Christmas tree up! We need to write our letters to Santa!” I look forward to Advent because it gives me an excuse to have chocolate in the morning. Usually, my mum tells me off for having chocolate in the morning, but she allows us to have it at Advent. She knows that we are counting down to someone special. Our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Opening the doors for chocolate is like opening my heart up more for Christmas day and for Jesus’ birth.

Every Advent, I say to myself, “Christmas is like saying ‘the mass of Christ.’” We prepare in different ways at Advent like going to church, praying, carol singing and being kind.

If you go to church, you may notice that in Advent, the priest wears purple. This is because this is the colour of sin and forgiving. Also, it is the colour of candles on the Christmas wreath. Some people might take Reconciliation and say sorry to God.

For Christians, Advent is for waiting. We wait for Jesus’ birth but this has been going on for years. People actually did have to wait for Jesus and they thought they knew how to live; we know how to live because God sent Jesus to show us. Before Jesus was born, people had to wait for years, yet we only have to wait for 4 weeks. In the Old Testament, the Prophet Isiah said, “ I will send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way – a voice of one calling in the wilderness ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” Isiah predicted that the coming of the Messiah would change the world.

In school, we show little acts of kindness when we:

• Sing carols at the local care home
• Shoebox – Operation Christmas Child (the Samaritan’s purse)
• Raise money for Save the Children on Christmas Jumper Day

We prepare for Jesus when we:

• Perform Advent services
• The Nativity
• The Christmas fair

The word ‘Advent’ comes from the Latin word ‘Adventous’ which means ‘coming’. For us, it is the coming of Jesus.

The candles on the wreath are:

Hope

Love

Joy

Peace

by Grace

 

 

Advent isn’t just about presents and Christmas shopping-it’s about something different. Something special. Something that happened about 2000 years ago…                                                                                                                          Christ was born!

I’m sure that most Christians know about the nativity where Jesus was born in the barn. If this didn’t happen, there would be more sin. There would be no Christmas either. That’s how Christmas started.

Advent is about waiting. It’s OK to like having chocolate from your Advent calendar every morning and opening Christmas presents on Christmas day. Advent is truly about slowing down, relaxing and prayer. Advent means Adventus in Latin which also means “coming”. Christmas shopping and decorating may get you in the Christmas spirit…but you have the Holy Spirit inside you.

I think time goes really slowly when you’re excited for something (Christmas) but in the Old Testament prophets predicted that a messiah (a saviour) would be born. They waited years for this to come. It was worth the wait.

We have been doing lots of events linked to Advent in school, such as:

• St Antony’s Advent Service
• St Francis’s (our school’s) Advent service(yr3,4,5&6)
• School nativity(Reception, yr1&2)
• Year 6 carol singing at local rest home-we did this because we wanted to put a smile on the elderly’s faces
• Christmas jumper day
• Christmas fair(CAFOD)
• “Operation Christmas Child” shoebox

School is very busy at the moment but like I said before-it is about slowing down, relaxing and prayer.

If you go to church, you may realise that the priest is wearing purple. You wear this colour during Advent because the colour means the forgiveness of sins. During Advent, if we sin we will say sorry to God.

So remember, when you’re rushing around: try to slow down, relax and pray.

By James

 

Advent , to me it’s about being ready for the Christmas tree to go up ,all the Christmas decor to go up with the little nativity sat by the fire and the wait to Christmas eve.

But advent shouldn’t be about buying presents for people .Over the years Christmas has changed so much this holiday has become about buying presents .We need to be thinking about coming of Jesus.

Advent comes from the Latin word “adventus” which means the coming .the first Christmas was when Jesus was born around 2017 years ago. Advent’s colour is purple, purple represents reconciliation. The wreath represents God’s never – ending love. There is five including the middle candle which we light on Christmas day the other four candle are 3 purple and one pink. The purple ones represent hope, love and peace. The pink candle represents Joy.

In school we have done the following acts of kindness: Christmas Jumper day, an advent service, operation shoebox and Christmas carols. This helps us to prepare for Jesus

People have been waiting for Jesus for 1000’s of 100’s of years. Imagine that! Not being able to know what Jesus did and not knowing that he sacrificed himself to forgive our sins!

 by Lizzy

 

Christmas seems to come faster every year. So I feel like I have less time to do my Christmas Shopping.  But we just have to stop for a minute and think about what the real meaning of advent is.

To me the real meaning of advent is counting down with my Christmas calendar and being patient. But when Christmas actually comes I realise that it isn’t about all the calendars, chocolates, sweets and presents. It is about the coming of Jesus.

I used to think when I was younger that Christmas was all about having fun. Only because I love opening presents and eating Christmas dinner, wearing party hats and bursting open Christmas crackers.

In advent you might see the colour purple it represents forgiveness. We get forgiven because without getting forgiven we would be worrying and feeling guilty about everything.

Before Jesus was born thousands and thousands of people had to wait for the coming of Jesus and now that is what advent is all about. John the Baptist was the one that prepared the coming of Jesus the most.

In school we have already had a Christmas fair on the 10^th of December. The CAFOD club had a stall and all the money that they raised went to charity.

by Katrina

 

Advent has been a busy time this year. I have been decorating, counting down until Christmas, opening calendars and unwrapping presents but advent is not really about that. Advent is really about spending time with your family, praying, preparing for Jesus, being kind and sharing. But I never thought it was about that, I just thought it was about having parties ,eating chocolate, unwrapping presents but it is not about that!

Advent  means coming and celebrating the birth of Jesus. Also in school we have been doing lots about advent , we have been doing  small acts of kindness, like giving food to people who don’t have any food and we have done the Christmas boxes and raised money for CAFOD.

People in the old testament have been waiting for over 1000 years to wait for Jesus but we only have to wait 4 weeks for Jesus. 2018 years ago people didn’t have Jesus’ love they had to wait for 1 more year but prophets predicted that Jesus would come and he did and people started to celebrate and that was Christmas day when Jesus was born.                                                            

By Vinny

 

 

Angle Dabbing!

We have had fun with angles this week – our desks were transformed into a web of angles to measure. We also used our knowledge of angle facts to work out missing angles and even measured the angle of our dabs!

Mosque Visit

On Tuesday, children from year 5 and 6 went to visit the new ‘Masjid e Salaam’ mosque in Fulwood. What a fascinating experience! We learned all about the important rituals Muslims follow when they are in a mosque, including the washing before prayer – ‘wudu’, the five pillars of Islam and scents that are used in the mosque and at home. Amjad, the gentleman who kindly showed us round, also wrote each of our names in Arabic – a beautiful piece of art for us to take home. As always, the children were highly commended on their behaviour, respectful nature and great inquisitiveness.

Lunchtime clubs and Bible Buddies

Our lunchtime clubs are going strong, expertly led by some of our year 5 and 6 children. We have a construction club, book club, CAFOD club, chess club and Bible Buddies.

We have completed an art project this week to complete our ‘Survival’ topic. We started with a pencil drawing of a creature that uses camouflage to protect itself from prey. We developed this further into a watercolour painting. We then copied and cut out our painting, hiding in in a collage background using similar colours. This was inspired by British artist Belinda Maria Longsden who specialises in camouflage art using mixed media.