Read below to find out more about some of the different activities we have been getting up to; from sporting and musical activities, to visitors and 'wow' days. We are looking forward to helping our children 'explore and grow' further in 2025-26.

• Science Week and the Curly Wurly Challenge!

  Fri 13 Mar 2020 M Davis

  From 9th to 13th March we spent the week celebrating science in school. The week started with asking the children to look at what they thought a 'scientist' looks like, followed by various 'wow' science activities in classrooms throughout the week. These included activities such as looking at the effect of cornflour in water, creating bubble pictures and looking at what happens when you add vinegar to bicarbonate soda. Cobalt class made volcanic eruptions!

   

  The highlight of the week was the whole school Curly Wurly challenge. The children were put into teams and challenged to see how long they could make a Curly Wurly stretch! This involved a lot of planning, and thinking about how to make an initially quite brittle chocolate bar become more pliable and stretchy. It was a very sticky experiment - but the  children used lots of ingenious ways to stretch out their Curly Wurly. The winning team managed to exceed 5 metres long!!

   

  A huge thank you to Miss Barker for organising the week and for leading our whole school experiment. We hope the children enjoyed their week of being scientists, and have perhaps changed their view of what a scientist 'looks like' - we discovered that we are all scientists!

   

  Pictures of Science Week will follow asap. 

• Passover Assembly

  Wed 11 Mar 2020 M Davis

  A huge thank you to our governor, Linda Edward, for coming in to talk to the children about the Jewish Festival of Passover on Wednesday morning. 

   

  Linda came and shared the Jewish traditions of Passover that her family follow during this Jewish festival. The children enjoyed listening to the story of Moses, the 10 plagues and the escape from Egypt, as well as learning more about the sedar plate and the significance of the foods on this. The children were able to taste the matza and delicious cinnamon balls, created without flour.

   

  Pictures to follow.

• World Book Day 2020

  Sat 07 Mar 2020 M Davis

  The school was transformed into 'Wonderland' for World Book Day this year, as we joined together with a theme based on Alice in Wonderland. 

   

  The children arrived in school to find a transformed entrance hall through which they walked to get to our reading breakfast. A huge thank you to all parents who joined us to read books, eat toast and have a quick drink. 

   

  Once parents had left, we joined together to share an abridged version of Alice in Wonderland before returning to our classrooms for activities. 

   

  Aqua class spent the day creating the food for a very special tea party at the end of the day, as well as exploring character descriptions. Meanwhile, Teal and Cobalt classes spent the morning exploring how to play croquet (but focussing on the correct rules, rather than the peculiar ones that the Queen of Hearts uses!) and learning about Alice in Wonderland in French - bringing characters to life through ICT to speak in French!

   

  During the afternoon there were more opportunities to read and write related to ALice in Wonderland, before we all joined together for shared stories and our Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

   

  A huge thank you to Mrs Gould for organising the day, and to all the staff who helped create the entrance hall and designed different activities. Thank you also to Mrs Edward, one of our governors, and to various houses at Oakham School, who lent us their croquet sets!

  

• Big Dig Finds

  Tue 18 Feb 2020 M Davis

  On Friday we were very pleased to welcome Sheila Kohring back to school to look at our 'Big Dig' finds from the Autumn. Sheila had sorted through our bags of finds to search out the artefacts that would tell us more about what was happening in Exton in the past.

   

  Sheila talked to us about how we work out what things are. She looked at the importance of asking questions. We started by looking at whether things are natural or made by humans, and sorted rocks, soil, plants and bone from plastic, glass metal and pottery. There was also a debate about whether things can be both natural and made by humans, which allowed us to talk about the flints that were found. Many things are natural, then shaped by humans so that we can use them.

   

  We found quite a lot of porcelains, pottery and terracotta, which tells us that there were people on the land that the school is built on. This may well have been farm workers, or other local people. There were also some shaped pieces of flint. There was much debate about a marble, which was found well under the surface, so could not belong to a child currently in the school, and must have been there for some time.

   

  Sheila tells us that there was evidence of Roman settlements found under what is now Campden Close, so it is not entirely impossible that some of our terracotta is from Roman times!

   

  A huge thank you to Sheila for sifting through the many 'treasures' that we found (alas, the 'dinosaur egg' found by one of our EYFS children turned out to be a stone!) and for returning to talk to us again. Our 'Big Dig' has certainly bought history to life and shown what archaeology can teach us about the past.

   

   

  

• Virtual Reality Morning

  Wed 12 Feb 2020 M Davis

  The children had been excitedly guessing what the VR morning on our calendar might be - today the secret was revealed!

   

  Our ICT support, Ark, came to visit the school with 30 virtual reality headsets, enabling us to really bring our curriculum learning to life. 

   

  Aqua class were first to have a go, and were able to explore the Arctic getting close to polar bears and other wildlife. It was great to see them able to look around and experience what it would be like if they were really in the Arctic (if a little warmer!)

   

  Cobalt class then had a 'wow' start for their topic after the holiday looking at the Rainforest. They were able to explore what it is like in the Rainforest, and look at some conservation work linked to orang-utans.

   

  Finally, it was the turn of Teal class, who, having spent the term learning about dinosaurs, were able to walk amongst them and experience their size! There were lots of gasps and sounds of amazement!

   

  Thank you to the team at Ark for bringing in their equipment. It was a fantastic way to bring our learning to life.

  

• RSSP Swimming Gala

  Mon 03 Feb 2020 M Davis
  A huge congratulations to Hannah for representing the school at the RSSP Swimming Gala. Mrs Ranson reports that Hannah swam brilliantly in her first gala, gaining good times in her backstroke and front crawl heats! 

• Year 3 Key Steps 2 Gymnastics

  Wed 22 Jan 2020 M Davis

  We were very proud of our year 3 children at the gymnastics competition. We may be a small school, and this may be one of our smallest year groups, but we are mighty!

   

  There are not many schools that can claim that they take their entire year group to a competition like this - but we can! Our team of four did a fantastic job after practising over the past few weeks with Mrs Ranson. Everybody did their best, and there were some great personal achievements, including children who completed new movements for the first time in the competition itself - just the right time to master a new skill!

   

  The children took part in three disciplines: body management, floor and vault. The children had to remember routines linking different movements, with no support, and then complete two vaults. Despite some nerves, all of the children should be proud of how they got on.

   

  During the awards ceremony at the end we discovered that Chloe had come 2nd in the vault, then the team placings were announced. We were so proud to discover that we had come 2nd overall - a real team achievement.

   

  Thank you to year 3 for all their hard work, and to Mrs Ranson for teaching them the routines. Mrs Davis had a fantastic morning accompanying them, and was very proud of them all. 

  

• African Drumming

  Fri 17 Jan 2020 M Davis

  On Friday morning, Cobalt Class spent the morning developing their musical skills through an African Drumming workshop, led by Keba from Rutland Music. It is always a pleasure to welcome Keba into school! His boundless enthusiasm for African drumming and skill in sharing this with the children is amazing.

   

  The children had the opportunity to play a variety of different African drums, developing different rhythmic patterns and building these together to create some fantastic music. 

   

  We look forward to welcoming Keba back again another year to share his knowledge with some more children.

  

• RE Day - What is belief?

  Tue 14 Jan 2020 M Davis

  On Tuesday the whole school spent the day exploring the idea of belief in a series of different activities. The big questions was: 'What does it mean to have a belief?'

   

  The day started with a whole school assembly where we talked about different world faith's and began to explore what belief is. We were also reminded that belief is personal, and that throughout the day we would need to respect the differing beliefs of others.

   

  The children then spent an hour in each classroom exploring differing ideas around the theme.

   

  In Aqua Classroom there were a variety of activities linked to exploring what belief or faith meant to the children. The children heard some of the words of Greta Thunberg, who believes that everyone can make a difference in the world. This led to activities including: an exploration of what we could change in the world;  a 'tree of hope' where the children could write their thoughts, hopes or prayers; using resources to create a beautiful world, reflecting on travelling through life; and thinking about people who might need our thoughts.

   

  In Teal Classroom the children explored belief through art work, reviewing other people's ideas about belief through art and then using these as a stimulus to create their own artwork entitled 'What is belief?'

   

  In Cobalt Classroom the children were exploring what we can learn from different faiths. They heard three stories from different faiths with a shared theme(the importance of sharing and not being greedy). The children worked together to identify the shared theme and then discuss what it meant to each faith and to them. It led to discussions about different faiths, or people with differing beliefs having shared values, and that we can share a value without having the same belief. 

   

  At the end of the day the children came together to talk about what they had found out and to reflect on how belief is important to so many people, but that these beliefs may differ. 

  

• Rutland Radio Hero of the Week!

  Fri 20 Dec 2019 M Davis

  This morning it was announced on Rutland Radio that one of our Year 6 pupils had been chosen as 'Rutland Radio Hero of the Week'. Nicholas does a lot of work in the local community helping out those who need help in any way. Last year he shovelled snow and helped people who were struggling in the snow, and this year he has been collecting items to support the Rutland Foodbank to ensure that people have everything they need over the Christmas period. This is all his own idea.

   

  It was lovely to listen to him chatting with Rob Persani and saying how he felt that the most important part of Christmas is giving and seeing the happy faces of others.

   

  Well done Nicholas!