At Firside, the other events and activities that we offer enhance children’s learning experiences and are vitally important to their wider personal development. Here are just a few things that what we got up to in the autumn term.

Last term, fundraising has been a big part of school life. Children have shown immense kindness and empathy with others by fundraising in different ways. In November, the children had a non-uniform and optional crazy hair day along with a cake sale to raise money for Children in Need with £347 being raised.

 The children also helped to raise £186 for the Royal British Legion with sales of poppies and learned about the importance of Remembrance. The School Council sold these on behalf of the school and at 11am on Friday 1 November, the whole school fell silent for two minutes while we remembered those who gave their lives for their country.

In the spirit of giving, in the last few days of the term, we had our first visit to Broadlands Care home in Norwich as part of our links with the charity Friend in Deed. Six of our School Councillors attended the session in the last few days of term where they sang some of their Christmas songs to the residents. This is our first face-to-face visit in over three years so it was wonderful to return to these visits. We look forward to more regular visits with Friend in Deed and being able to take more children to visit soon.

Children have also been applying and extending their learning from the classroom with trips out of school and visitors into school. In Year 5, the children visited Banham Zoo for the day to develop their learning on their science topic on life cycles. They had a wonderful day seeing the animals and enjoyed an animal encounters session with some unique and interesting animals.

 

 

In Year 6, the children welcomed two visitors as part of their RE work on Humanism. They welcomed two Humanist speakers who talked to the children about the beliefs of Humanists. John Turner, an Emeritus professor of biology at the UEA and Madeline Goodall, the school speaker coordinator from Humanists UK visited the Year 6 children and lead sessions with them. In Year 4, the children welcome one of our parents to come and talk to the children about Christmas in France, listen to a story in French and try some delicious French treats!

 

  

 

We also welcomed the Minidonks (miniature donkeys) to support well-being of children in our school. They were very popular and some of the children were able to get up close with them.

  

Sport has been a big part of this term too and we have been pleased to offer a variety of different extra sporting activities for the children both competitive and non-competitive. Our boys and girls football teams in the Upper School have performed really well and Mr Keer and Mr O’Malley have been impressed with their progress playing as teams. Our girls team performed brilliantly at the Norwich Schools Dracup Trophy, winning 5 matches in a row and bringing home the trophy. Some of the non-competitive events for children across the school have included tag-rugby, tennis, football and Active Kids through our partnership with the West Norfolk and Dereham School Sports Partnership (WNDSSP). This term, we have also paid for a CSF (Community Sports Foundation) coach at lunchtimes to provide structured sporting activities for some of our Year 5 and Year 6 pupils at lunchtimes. This has been a very popular with the children.

     

In October, we opened our doors again this year for our participation in the Norfolk Open Studios event where we exhibited the children’s artwork under the theme of “What a wonderful world”. It was great for the children to see that their work had a purpose and an audience.

  

 

We also hosted two ‘Mad Science’ after school clubs this term. These have been particularly popular with the children and we were told that we broke the record for how quickly the spaces in the clubs were filled. We will be continuing to offer Mad Science club after the Christmas break to children who missed out this term.

This term, we also introduced a new award for the children. As well as weekly Star of the week certificates, staff can now nominate children for a Head teacher’s award. These are awarded for doing something exceptional either in school or outside of school. This term we awarded 10 of these prestigious awards this term.

  

   

At the end of term we were excited to welcome parents to watch our Christmas performances. Children in Year 3 and 4 performed their play, Jesus' Christmas Party and the older children in Year 5 and 6 shared a programme of Christmas carols and readings.  

What a fantastic term! We can't wait to share more of the extra opportunities that we offer in the spring term.