St Mary's Catholic Primary School
Working Together for the Good of Each Other
Ernest Shackleton Class
Class of 2022 - Leaver's Meal
Shackleton Spa Day
This morning, we found our inner zen at the Shackleton Spa! We cooled our feet in cold water, put cucumbers on our eyes and listened to spa music! We are feeling nice and relaxed now ahead of our year 6 leavers party tonight!
Water Fight 2022!
What a way to end year 6!
Prize Day 2022
Congratulations to all of our winners! We are proud of you!
Year 6 Leavers Mass 2022
Sports Day 2022
Beach & Fun Swim
A successful last trip to the beach, beach park and fun swim! What a way to end our year 6 journey!
Blackpool Pleasure Beach
What a fabulous day we have had at the Pleasure Beach! Lots of laughs, rides, pizza and fun! Thank you for such a wonderful day Shackleton Class - even a member of the public commented on how well mannered and respectful you all were on the tram - you make us proud!
Manchester Science Museum 2022
What a wonderful trip to the Science Museum we had in KS2 - fun, shows, experiments and lots of exploring.
Combining Art and PSHE
Our PSHE session, hosted by Fleetwood Town, took an artistic turn this morning. The focus for this session was having a growth mindset and we used straws to paint a picture of the brain. We thought about the challenges we face and how we might overcome them.
High Ropes, Stanley Park, a lovey picnic & The Model Village
It's safe to say we've had a busy day! So lovely to see the children having so much fun and offering words of encouragement to each other. What a fabulous day we've had!
STRIKE!
A successful day bowling, playing rounders and football in the sunshine and having a picnic together! To finish the day, we took part in our swimming lesson! We definitely will be tired tonight! A Tuesday well spent!
All aboard!
Shackleton class enjoyed a fabulous time at the boating lake today. The children tried kayaking, canoeing and enjoyed lots of fun water challenges. The highlight of our day came at the end when the children were able to slide into the water and jump in if they wished. It was a perfect day, one we're sure they will remember for a very long time!
Happy Campers!
A group of our year 6 children have found their inner Bear Grylls and gone camping for a few days! Look at their happy faces!
Thinking about high school...
Our PSHE focus for this next couple of weeks is all about our transition to high school. Fleetwood Town have very kindly put together a program called 'Mental Health Transformation' to help the children work through their feelings about high school. Today was an introductory session, during which we had a general discussion about high school and what it may bring.
The Gazette
Please take a look at our proud moment - we made it to The Gazette with our wonderful 'Bake Off' Creations!
https://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/people/look-what-the-pupils-of-st-marys-primary-school-in-fleetwood-baked-up-for-jubilee-3711802
On your marks, Get set, BAKE!!
What spectacular morning we have had celebrating the Queens platinum Jubilee! Everyone in Shackleton class have created their own 'Bake Off' and it was unbelievable! What fabulous effort from everyone! We were blown away by the thought, care and effort put into every single bake! It was lovely to see the children's faces - so happy and proud! Even better that we were able to share this with our parent visitors! We thank every single child and family member for their support!
WWII Historical Enquiry
Today we had so much fun looking at different WWII artefacts - we asked questions, found out different facts and used the primary sources to support our learning of WWII.
It's all in the preparation! Jubilee Style!
We are excited to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee in Shackleton class - we have started created our decorations and we are also starting to create our own information leaflet about the Queen's life and the upcoming Jubilee celebrations!
During the next few art sessions, we are going to cover the following objectives…
- Develop a painting from a drawing.
- Research, discuss and compare a range of work by different artists – discuss their style and how they differ from each other.
- Carry out preliminary studies, trying out different media and materials and mixing appropriate colours.
- Explore the roles and purposes of artists, craftspeople and designers working in different times and cultures
Celebration Dominos
As a thank you for doing well in their SATs tests, and a huge well done to the children, we celebrated with a game of football and a Dominos pizza on The Mount! What a lovely afternoon we have had!
It's that time again...
It's Leavers Hoodie time again. The children have been eagerly awaiting their arrival and I'm sure you'll agree, they look fantastic!
Earth Day
Today, April 22nd, we took part in Earth Day. We talked together about what this means, who joins in and what we can do to help our planet. We learnt some shocking facts for example every 60 seconds the equivalent to 48 football pitches worth of trees are destroyed! We concluded our discussions by making posters to talk about how we can make an effort to save our planet from being destroyed! Watch our for some of our posters around school.
Young Writers
Congratulations to our children who have won the Young Writers 'Bonkers Monsters' writing competition. We took part in this as part of our English lesson and most of our children have won! Their work will be published in a book! Well done!
Stations of the Cross
What a beautiful afternoon we've had in the hall, visiting the stations of the cross. We reflected on each station, thought carefully about what Jesus had to endure and how the people around him must have felt. A very emotional experience indeed.
Our final stations of the cross afternoon
Today marked our final afternoon delivering Stations of the Cross to the community. We invited the Church parishioners into school to look at our beautiful stations, we read beautifully and then sat together and broke bread. What a wonderful afternoon we had!
A wonderful celebration
Our key stage 2 children took part in a lovely celebration ceremony this morning. Over the last few months each class has worked closely on various art projects, lead by spectacular local artist Henry Iddon, focusing on a fantastic Fleetwood landmark - The Mount. The ceremony showcased all the work the children have produced and culminated with flags depicting their artwork being hoisted up for all to enjoy. It was a wonderful occasion.
A beautiful Lenten Lunch!
What lovely pictures! Some of our children were lucky enough to attend a Lenten Lunch this afternoon. It was lovely to interact with our community and enjoy each others company!
A quick trip
It's surprising how, even at the ripe old age of year 6, a quick trip to the postbox can be such a privilege. This afternoon Maxi and Linda popped to the postbox to post our latest writing competition entries. Fingers crossed we'll be successful.
Stations of the Cross
Today, seven of our Shackleton children had the opportunity to attend Church for Stations of the Cross. Beautiful reading and behaviour from all children. Thank you so much children!
Our Worship - Justice
What a beautiful worship session delivered by Kaydee and Ana-Maria. They will now deliver this worship session to other classes in KS2. Thank you girls.
Worship Planning
Today, we have continued our worship planning. Our worship sessions range from hunger, to justice, love, music and peace. We are so excited to deliver these sessions in our class and across the rest of the school.
Shackleton Science - Planning our own experiments.
We have enjoyed planning and carrying out our own experiments today in science. We worked as a group to come up with a question, we planned our prediction, we discussed the variables and the method and then we carried out our experiment. We selected our own equipment and then came up with our own way of recording our results! What fun we had!
Fairtrade Assembly
Pupils from Cardinal Allen High school visited school today to perform a Fairtrade assembly. The assembly told the children about Fairtrade and how beneficial it is. A huge thank-you to
Mr Harding and his wonderful team for putting on such an engaging and informative assembly.
Our Lent Journey
Staying healthy and well
This afternoon we continued our PSHE by looking at ways to stay healthy and well. We brainstormed this as a class and discussed ways to stay safe on-line. We also looked at other ways to stay healthy, including having our emotional needs met. This linked with an exploration of the issues surrounding addiction.
Maths - Weight & Converting measure
We started our work on volume, mass and problem solving using conversions today - a tricky topic but one we are going to work so hard on!
Planning our diary entry - There's a Boy in the Girls Bathroom
Today, we worked as a team and used out word wheels to gather information about Bradley Chalkers and how he feels at different intervals in the story. We will use this information to form a diary entry later in the week.
World Book Day 2022
How Fabulous do we all look! We've had a great day for World Book Day 2022. We have celebrated this day by taking part in a parade in the hall, talking about our book characters and also taking part in a quiz! An amazing effort made by all!
How is Jesus truly God and truly Human?
Today we deepened our understanding of Jesus and we reflected on Jesus and our faith. We worked as a group to find different Bible references in the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We read these and discussed how Jesus was truly God and truly human. We then taught our peers in front of the class about what we had learnt.
Measuring angles
Our Maths focus for this week is all about finding, measuring and drawing angles. This is tricky, precise work and the children are doing an amazing job.
Ash Wednesday
Yesterday we took part in a whole school mass to mark Ash Wednesday. Shackleton class lead Mass with readings and bidding prayers. Well done to the children for reading so beautifully.
A Bulgarian Tradition
We were lucky enough to receive bracelets from the Bulgarian children in our class today; these symbolise love, peace, strength and new life. A huge thank you to Karolyn, Ralica and Ana Maria for sharing their tradition.
Shrove Tuesday
Shackleton class enjoyed a tasty snack, pancakes with a choice of toppings. As you can see from the pictures, they went down a treat.
Fire Service visit
We were visited by the Fire service on Friday afternoon. The purpose of the visit was to discuss how to stay safe when at home and when out and about. It was an enjoyable and informative visit.
Analysing a text
Today we looked at a character description of Bradley Chalkers, the protagonist in our class read - 'There's a Boy In The Girl's Bathroom'. The aim was to examine the writing features used in the description with a view to using them in our our own description this week.
Calculating volume
Our Maths focus for this week is volume. Our session today was practical, making cube models and calculating the volume.
Raising money for Isabelle
Today, we wore blue and yellow to raise money for Isabelle. In Shackleton class, we send her all of our love and prayers.
Electro City LEGO Builders Workshop
This morning, Shackleton Class were lucky enough to take part in Electro City LEGO Builders workshop - what fun we had! We built our own LEGO city, complete with parks, beaches, cars, trees etc and it even included lights! We linked this workshop to our electricity topic as a WOW starter! Take a look at all the fun we had!
Safer Internet Day 2022
We had a discussion about staying safe online, we linked our revision to a reading comprehension about staying safe online. This prompted lots of discussions about the amount of time we spend online and how we can ensure we are safe!
STEM RIOT Challenge
Today we were lucky enough to take part in the STEM Riot Challenge. We made our own rocket launchers, planned for them, tested them out and learnt how STEM is involved in the process.
We also talked about the following: What the RAF does in society and jobs associated with it, different aircrafts, space and gravity, rockets and gravitational forces, satellites, payload and testing, how to launch a rocket the furthest it can go, scientific method, what needs to stay the same to make it a fair test, variables, what are you changing each time, predictions,
Explosive Food
To mark British Science Week, the children were treated to an assembly with a difference today. The theme was ‘Explosive Food’ and it really did help the children to see food in a new light. The children learnt about the incredible amount of energy contained in the food that goes in their mouth and the show was packed with exciting chemistry and physics demonstrations to illustrate this. It was a thrilling and informative watch. There’ll be plenty more Science based activities happening throughout the week across school so watch this space for more details.
Volume
In Maths, we have now moved on to finding the volume! It has been a challenge but we have used our problem solving skills to help us!
Growth Mindset - Children's Mental Health Week
This week, week commencing 7th February, we marked Children's Mental Health week by listening to some calming music when completing our work, we talked about the importance of looking after our own mental health and what we could do to support this and we also created our own mind map of ways in which we can support mental health. We also worked in teams to complete a 'Growth Mindset' activity which gave us some ideas as to how we can change our own perception of things. We finished off by doing a positivity word search, which included plenty of key words, at the same time as having a chat to our friends!
The Queen's Jubilee
As part of our revision time today, we linked our reading comprehension to The Queen's Jubilee - we had an interesting discussion about it, asked questions which were difficult to answer and we also talked about what kind of celebrations we are going to take part in in class during the month of June! Watch this space!
Chinese New Year - The Year of the Tiger
Today we talked about Chinese New Year and we found out that most of us were born in the year of the tiger. We looked at the Chinese alphabet and wrote our own names on a book mark that we created.
Tower Wood Recounts
We had so much fun at Tower Wood that we wrote a recount in our English lesson - it was lovely to re-live our favourite memories and activities! Take a look at some of our beautiful (and very descriptive!) writing. Enjoy!
Area & Perimeter
In our maths this week, we have focused on area and perimeter - what a challenge its been!
Church
This morning, we visited Church. The children represented our school beautifully by reading. Thank you so much children.
More fabulous writing ...
Shackleton class have been successful in another writing competition. This time the children were tasked with writing a poem titled 'All about me'. This was a fun writing challenge and, unsurprisingly owing to the high standard of writing, many entries have been selected for publication in a young writers anthology.
Welcome to our winter wonderland...
Shackleton class enjoyed a magical start to the day this morning. The classroom had been prepared with a delicious breakfast buffet banquet. The children enjoyed sharing a vast selection of tasty food whilst talking to their friends, all with a sprinkle of festive cheer. After the banquet, the children then opened their secret Santa gifts. It was a truly lovely time!
Rainbow Laces
Shackleton class took part in a Rainbow Laces session this morning. The session was designed to show the children that clubs and communities are stronger when everyone feels welcome, and it's down to all of us to make that happen. The program is supported by the Premier League and aims to ensure that all those connected to sports clubs, including supporters, feel safe and welcome, irrespective of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Celebrating our wonderful writing
Our class have gained yet another award in recognition for their writing. The challenge was to write a poem entitled 'All about me'. The entries were fantastic and the lucky winners will have the chance to have their work published in a book.
Festive cheer
It was our KS2 Christmas lunch today. The food was delicious and the ambience was merry and bright. Many thanks to the kitchen team, it was a fantastic occasion.
Artistic afternoons
Out final art in the community session involved a trip to The Mount, this time with a specific focus on plants. Each group chose a variety of plant to study which we later imprinted onto felt.
Art in the community
Our art in the community sessions continued this week. Our focus is photography and we are working on The Mount; representing this beautiful, local landmark in a variety of photographic ways.
PE - Gymnastics
We are loving our gymnastics sessions this half term - partner work, balancing and even some equipment!
Wonder - A diary extract planning morning!
This morning, we analysed a diary entry, picked out the key features and then planned our own ideas for a diary entry!
Odd sock day
To kickstart anti-bullying week the children came in odd socks. We also launched our secret angel challenge, this involves the children choosing to secretly do a kind deed or offer a kind word to somebody in class. Also, to fit in with out class read Wonder, the children made a chatterbox to spread kindness in the playground at breaktimes.
Anti-Bullying Week Assembly
Today, the year 6 children delivered an anti-bullying week assembly to KS1 and KS2 to introduce the coming week. They spoke about what bullying is and how we can combat it. One Kind Word is this years theme and this is something we will definitely be trying to spread next week!
L'est we forget
In addition to observing the two minute silence today, Shackleton class also acknowledged Remembrance Day by discussing different coloured poppies and what they mean. After completing our reading comprehension, we also did a Remembrance Day crossword. We will also be attending the parade this weekend.
Gold medal inspiration
Both Shackleton and Polo class were lucky enough to join in a live stream interview with an Olympic medalist today. Michael Johnson, a three times gold medal winner, spoke about his career as a sprinter. The main focus of his speech was to highlight the importance of having a positive mental attitude and how this can help a person achieve great things. The children listened intently and will hopefully use his inspiration to pursue their own dreams.
Computer coding
Our IT focus for today was coding. The aim was to direct characters to move in a certain direction, perform an action or to talk. This was accomplished by creating a code. It was a challenging task and the children did very well.
Adaptation
We continued our learning about the Galapagos Islands today. Our focus was how the beak of the Galapagos Finch has adapted over time.
Super Maths!
We have been working so hard this week on our fractions!
Poppy Appeal
Our year 6 leaders have been selling our Poppies this week - we are excited to be raising money for the Royal British Legion.
How have humans evolved over time?
This is the question that we are thinking about this half term in our Understanding The World sessions. Today we brainstormed what we knew about The Galapagos Islands as we will be looking at how animals have adapted to live there as part of our topic.
Our professional bird pictures!
Coram Life Bus
During our life education session today, we spoke about different decisions we may have to make as we grow up. We talked about how it was fine to make different decisions to our friends and how we don’t always have to do the same as our friends.
Big decisions that we may face in the not so distant future included:
High school
Relationships
Getting a house, having a family, having a life without living in parents houses
Going to college/university
Driving
Getting a house, having a family, having a life without living in parents houses
Going to see the world
We also spoke about alcohol and the decisions that people make regarding this. We talked about the affects it has on our body and how to cope with peer pressure. We also spoke about different types of drugs including legal and illegal, medical and non-medical.
What qualities can you bring to God's Kingdom?
Our RE topic this half term has focused on God's Kingdom. We have spoken about how God welcomes everyone to His Kingdom and what qualities we can add to this Kingdom in order to make it extra special.
We love problem solving!
In Maths, we have been faced with a lot of division word problems this week! But luckily, working as a team has helped us solve the problems! Some of us even reached the end of the challenges and managed to crack the code to win a prize!
CONGRATULATIONS to Our New Sports Captains!
We want to extend our congratulations to our new sports captains. Another round of speeches and democratic votes saw us award our new captains! We are sure they will do a fabulous job in leading their teams!
Black History Month
During the month of October, we have celebrated Black History Month. Our weekly comprehension in class and our weekly homework have all linked to famous, black, significant individuals. Today, we worked as a team and researched a mixture of black people and discussed what they were famous/remembered for. It sparked some very interesting conversations. We finished off our project research by playing a loop card game -we had to match the famous fact to the famous individual.
Would you accept the heart of a pig?
This week, we have completed our balanced arguments. Our title was 'Would you accept the heart of a pig?' We all came up with some valid points, we backed them up with evidence and we even heard a real life story from our NHS worker about her husband having the valve of a pi in his heart! A very interesting listen and some great facts to add to our balanced argument.
A church visit
Shackleton class accompanied our lovely year one children to church yesterday. We went to make ourselves more familiar with church and explore the different areas.
Democracy in action
This morning the children voted for who they wanted to elect as Sports Captain. All Year 6 children were able to apply for the role and if they chose to apply they gave a speech to the other children in their house. Well done to all the children who gave a speech, you did amazingly well. The speeches were well prepared and heart felt. The results will be announced next week, watch this space.
Our wonderful NHS
We were lucky enough to have a very special visitor in school today. Lyn Robinson, an emergency nurse practitioner from Blackpool Victoria Hospital, came to talk to the children about her career and the changes she has witnessed since she started her career. This fits in perfectly with our topic for this half term, which includes medicine through the ages, the circulatory system, the birth of the NHS and Xenotransplantation (our class read is Pig Heart Boy). It was both lovely and interesting in equal measure to hear Lyn talk about her experiences. The children were very interested to hear what Lyn had to say and we are truly grateful that she found the time to visit us.
Graffiti Art in the style of Banksy
Over the last few weeks, we have studied Banksy's art work. Today, we have created our own Graffiti piece. We started off using collage then layered this using our own picture. We then used our ICT skills to create our own Graffiti logo - this was either our name or our nickname. Take a look at our wonderful work!
Head Boy and Head Girl announcements
This morning saw the arrival of the long awaited Head Boy and Head Girl announcements. The children voted in last weeks assembly and, after what feels like an age to the children, the winners were announced today. The vote was very close, the votes were re-counted and counted again - just to be sure. We are very proud to announce the following:
Head Boy - Caleb Rifai
Head Girl - Gracie Ward
Deputy Head Boy - Zander Mowbray
Deputy Head Girl - Anna-Maria Rangelova
Head Prefect - Lucas Walker
The Blood
In Science today, we looked at the different components of the blood and made these from different foods! We talked about the red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma!
Are you for or against organ donation?
We are making great progress with our class read, Pig Heart Boy. Today we discussed for and against opinions for organ donation. As you can imagine, this was an interesting discussion and raised lots of questions. We will write a balanced argument later in the week.
Our Head Girl & Head Boy Speeches 2021
This morning, Friday 1st October 2021, we took part in our annual 'Head Girl & Head Boy Speeches' and what a success it was! We as a St Mary's family are so proud that every year 6 child wanted to take part. Over the last two weeks, the children have worked hard on preparing their speeches and gained the confidence to speak in front of KS2 and the rest of their peer group - proud is an understatement! Our year 5 children also took part but they were on our democratic voting station - they also worked very hard to organise the rest of the key stage and ensure things ran smoothly.
Healthy eating
Shackleton class enjoyed a very special lesson today. The children prepared their own healthy pizzas. The children selected their own ingredients and were encouraged to make their pizza as colourful as possible by choosing healthy toppings. A delicious aroma filled the school and I'm sure they will taste as divine as they smell.
Showing respect
Our Healthy Heads lesson this week focused on how we can show respect. We discussed showing respect at home, school and in public.
Artistic creations
We continued our focus on Banksy this afternoon. We attempted to re-create some of his masterpieces. As you can see from the pictures, the results are spectacular.
Sign Language
Today, we started our sign language course and it was a great success! We learnt the alphabet - we can't wait to complete the next part of the course.
A closer look at the heart
We had a science lesson with a difference today. Mr Harding, a teacher from Cardinal Allen, kindly arranged for the children to dissect a heart. It was unlike anything the children had done before and they were enthralled. They learnt so much and, even if dissection wasn't their thing (for some it was too much), it was a truly memorable lesson.
Healthy Heads
This morning we began our Healthy Heads sessions for the half term. Our focus was the qualities that make a good character. We discussed various attributes as a class before playing a game to highlight the points we had discussed.
The Bird Man!
Today, we were lucky enough to have an assembly from ‘The Bird Man.’ He spoke to us about his birds, his role in looking after them and what a big responsibility they are. We got to see them flying around the hall and some of us even had our picture taken with them! We also talked about adaptation, what they eat and how dangerous they can be! The birds even left us with a bit of a smelly present…eww! We learnt lots of facts and had plenty of fun!
Number and place value
Our Maths lesson today focused on place value. We concentrated on identifying the value of a given digit and wrote numbers in words.
Banksy
Shackleton class have been looking at the work of the famous artist Banksy. We completed a fact file and then had a go at sketching some of his most famous pieces. As you can see, the children did an amazing job.
Settling in
The children are settling in well to our year 5/6 class, named after the famous explorer Ernest Shackleton. This week we are catching up with one anther and exploring our beautiful working environment. We have also researched our explorer and completed some art work based on his adventures.
Ball madness
Our PE lesson today focused on ball skills. As a fun, introductory lesson we decided to try and replicate a Chinese kindergarten class who performed a bouncing, shuffle exercise. The children watched the video so they knew what we were aiming for. We quickly realised that it was far harder than it looked though we had amazing fun trying. We'll re-visit it over the course of the year, with the hope of performing it to perfection.
