By now all our parents have had the opportunity to discuss childrens’ progress with teachers, in Nursery this term this is done on an informal basis with more formal consultation during March. I hope you found the dialogue useful and are clear about your child’s progress to date and targets for future improvement. Please inform me if that’s not the case.

Teachers are available to discuss concerns or queries throughout the year. Please remember that such discussions would require an appointment to be made through the normal channels.

Of course we’re always available at the start and end of the school day for quick information sharing etc. but please be aware that the period before 8.55 am is an important preparation time for staff and that lessons must start promptly in the morning. After school many staff are involved in meetings and clubs.

So if it’s a few words, we can fit you in any time—a discussion will most likely need an appointment.

Download Newsletter (adobe acrobat 362KB)

Posted by V Hogarth at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By now all our parents have had the opportunity to discuss children’s progress with teachers. I hope you found the dialogue useful and are clear about your child’s progress to date and targets for future improvement. Please inform me if that’s not the case.

Teachers are available to discuss concerns or queries throughout the year. Please remember that such discussions would require an appointment to be made through the normal channels.

Of course we’re always available at the start and end of the school day for quick information sharing etc. but please be aware that the period before 8.55 am is an important preparation time for staff and that lessons must start promptly in the morning. After school many staff are involved in meetings and clubs.

So if it’s a few words, we can fit you in any time—a discussion will most likely need an appointment.

Download Newsletter (adobe acrobat 387KB)

Posted by V Hogarth at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Year Six have been looking for signs of the Victorians in Whickham. Take a look at some of the sites we stopped at. What do you think we found?

What evidence can you see on the church?

What do you think we found on the post box?

What did this house used to be?

Where can you find the well in the wall?

How did we know the nursery was Victorian?

Posted by M.Maitland at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Year Six have been studying personification in poetry and how poets use a variety of techniques to build strong images in our minds. We based our poems on the sea, they were all fantastic and here are just a couple of them.
Download file

Posted by M.Maitland at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Year six have had a fantastic day today! Anna Jewitt and Elinor Moran from Opera North Limited, visited school and carried out a series of workshops across the whole day that were linked to the story of the Pied Piper. A huge thanks to both of them.


The children sang, composed chants, danced and created movements to retell different parts of the story.

We will be visiting The Sage on Tuesday next week to see the opera company's performance of the story.

Each group began with a tableau of a word from the story, can you guess what they might have been?

Posted by M.Maitland at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Just to remind you about the Christmas Events in Nursery this year:-

Concert

Monday 18th December

Christmas Parties

Tuesday 19th December

Raffle

Tickets available from 4th December to be drawn on Thursday 21st December

Details of the above events can be found below and will be in the next 'Fellside Nursery Matters'

Concerts
The children are to come into nursery at the normal time. Parents to return for the performance to start at 10.45 am for morning session and 2.30 pm for afternoon. Parents can take children home directly from the performance, which is held in the nursery.

Parties
The nursery sessions are the usual time. Children are to provide party food – boys’ – savoury items and girls – sweet items.

Raffle
The nursery are collecting items for two Christmas Hampers to be raffled, all proceeds to go into the Nursery Fund. Tickets will be on sale in nursery for 50 pence a ticket from 4th December and the raffle will be drawn on Thursday 21st December (one draw in the morning and one in the afternoon).
Donations for the hampers will be gratefully received from 4th December onwards.

Posted by V Hogarth at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sam Llewellyn, the famous British author of both childrens' and adults' books, visited our Year 5 class in an hour of rock, rhythm and story-telling. Sam brought his character, Death Eric, to life enthusing the children with his guitar-playing and story-telling finesse. Many thanks go to Sam for a throughly enjoyable visit. See the pictures below or refer to the previous entry on this website to find out more about Sam's work.

Posted by K.Ellerbrook at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On behalf of 130 children a long way away may we thankyou for the 130 shoeboxes which have been so kindly donated by our school community. As I write Gillian Arbon is loading boxes into her car, the first stage of their journey to needy children in far away places. Thanks to Gillian for her work on this and huge thanks to all of you who have filled boxes to make this appeal so successful.

Posted by K Doran at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Year 5 used Roald Dahl's 'The BFG' as a basis for writing playscripts. The children also emulated a story illustration by Quentin Blake using watercolours.

In October, Year 5 have been busy reading, analysing and writing playscripts during the Literacy Hour. The children used a chapter of Roald Dahl's 'The BFG' as a starting point for writing playscripts of their own. The playscripts involve Sophie and the BFG as well as two or three giant characters of their own.

To read example of the children's work click below to open Word documents of their playscripts.

Download file 1
Download file 2
Download file 3
Download file 4

The class also emulated the cover illustration of the BFG by Quentin Blake using watercolours in a following art lesson. Click below to see an example digital image of the pupils' work.

Posted by K.Ellerbrook at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We already have a substantial wall of Christmas shoe boxes on the stage. Thankyou to those who've already brought them in. A reminder that the last day for bringing shoe boxes to school is this Friday 17th November. Parents and children please just bring your box to the hall and add it to the wall.

Posted by K Doran at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pam Coates, a dinner nanny at Fellside for seven years, left us today. Not only has she worked at Fellside, she has been one of the key members of Friends of Fellside.

As a dinner lady Pam has worked with about 500 children from the Fellside community, always with a positive outlook and cheerful manner. Indeed just today one child was heard to say "Mrs Coates...I really like her."
As a leading member of our parents' organisation, Friends of Fellside, Pam has helped to organise many events, all for the benefit of our children. She has literally played a major part in the raising of thousands of pounds, every penny of which has improved our school.
We marked her leaving with a special afternoon assembly and the presentation of some well deserved gifts.
I'm sure all connected with the school will join us in wishing Pam well in her future employment and thanking her for her huge contribution at Fellside

Posted by K Doran at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Many of you, I'm sure will have seen the Gordon family's cat Sammy in our school playgroud and on the field. Indeed he was around so often and such a sociable animal that we almost regarded him as our school cat.
Sadly Sammy was knocked down and killed by a car during the half term break. A loss to the Gordon family and to the school. There is of course an important road safety message for all our children from Sammy's death...Take great care.

Posted by K Doran at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

What a day! Year Six travelled back in time to the Victorian era. The children experienced a school day like no other! All of the children looked fantastic in their costumes and a huge thanks to everyone who helped them to dress as a Victorian child would have done.

"I thought our Victorian day was great, even though my back started to ache! I loved the clothes we wore and I wish I could do it all again," Leanne.
"When I had to stand up and answer a question, I was under a lot of pressure!" Paul.

"Today was a very good experience as we now know what school was like back then. I enjoyed playing with the top and whip as it was quite a fun game. I am glad that teachers are not as strict today!" Emily.

"I learned a lot and had lots of fun," Rebecca.

"Today has been great but the lessons were boring, maths, geography, reading, writing and the object lesson. How did those poor children live with it?!" Emma.

"It might have seemed fun at first but boy what a day! We worked with farthings and shillings in maths, heard about Oceania in geography and drew Great Britain in reading! You felt really insecure with Ma'am snapping all the time, silence all around you," Jacob

"Our Victorian day was fun...I think! Everyone looked fantastic in their outfits. I found the money difficult in maths and writing on the slates with the pencils screeching!" Kate.

Posted by M.Maitland at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

To support our Tudors history topic this term, we visited the Tudor Lives exhibition at the Shipley Art Gallery in Gateshead. Read on to find out more about our trip and view some more digital photographs of the afternoon's activities.

Year Five Children dressed as rich Tudors

We visited the exhibition at the Shipley Art Gallery to learn about life for the rich and poor in Tudor times.

Our afternoon started by meeting Tracy, our guide, who was dressed as a rich Tudor lady. Children from Year Five then dressed up in rich tudor attire as shown in these photographs. After learning about appropriate table manners for a Tudor banquet, we learnt to dance The Pavanne, a well-known dance in Tudor times.

A Collection of Classy Tudors

Rich Tudor Gentlemen

Affluent Tudor Ladies

After a while, we made our way through to the activities room where we learnt about poor Tudor life. Children made Orange Pomanders for freshening up those unwanted Tudor odours and tried their hand at wattling and daub. Daub and wattle are building materials used in constructing walls in Tudor houses. A latticework of wooden stakes (called wattles) were daubed with a mixture of clay, sand and straw (or sometimes animal dung) to create solid walls.

View the pictures below to see the class in action.

Anyone for an Orange Pomander?

Wattling and Daub

We also learnt how to kill or cure patients with various ailments, use a mortar and pestle to grind spices and discovered the differences between the diet of the rich and poor in Tudor times.

All in all, we had a super afternoon. Many thanks go to Tracy and Claire and the whole team at the Shipley for all their hard work. To find out more about this exhibition click the link below:

www.twmuseums.org.uk/shipley

Posted by K.Ellerbrook at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)