Year 3
To launch our Tate Town project we visited Tate St Ives, Porthmeor Studios and The Barbara Hepworth Museum all in one day! Highlights included printing with real fish, losing ourselves in the Hepworth garden and exploring the different ways of showing movement in Art.
For the last 2 weeks we have had an animal invasion in year 3 with hatching chicks and metamorphosing caterpillars all linked to our habitats learning! We’ve even managed to link maths to habitats and scoured Steeple Woods for a whole range of organisms in different habitats, recording our findings in pictograms. We’d never seen so many Woodlice!
Back in school, coaches from Plymouth Argyle FC have been in to help improve our footballing skills. Our competitiveness coupled with great team spirit shone through.
On Monday 22nd June, Year 3 visited the Philharmonia’s iOrchestra Truck, which was based at Heartlands. In the iOrchestra Truck was MusicLab, a mobile pop-up play and create experience which allowed the children to become conductors, composers, cellists, percussionists and more! We all had the chance to learn about the orchestra and loved making music with the players themselves! The chorus booth was very popular, and ‘Dancing Queen’ became our ear-worm for the day (the tune that was stuck in our heads)! The children also had the chance to visit the mining museum and park.
Year 4
To kick start our dinosaur topic we were transported back to Ancient Cornwall with the help of Craig, from Squashbox Theatre. Using his puppets, Craig helped us learn lots of new facts about dinosaurs and fossils as year 4 laughed, clapped and squealed with excitement. Additional dino adventures were in the form of Lesley and her life-size Deinonychus and pupils had the chance to explore real fossils from the dinosaur period and study the kind of plants that existed then.
The start of our Tate Town project saw us visit The Tate St Ives, Porthmeor Art Studios and The Barbara Hepworth Museum on a fantastic day of learning, which included printing with real fish, observing Hepworth’s distinctive sculptures and studying the art of Cornwall-based artist Bryan Wynter.
Learning about the importance of combining ki (energy), kata (body movement), attitude and musical technique, year 4 pupils showed great collaboration skills when learning to perform Taiko drumming with expert Hannah-Jasmine.
Year 4 have also enjoyed sporting enrichment and have worked with Chance to Shine cricket coach Roger Hall over several weeks, culminating in an exciting tournament featuring all the Year 4 pupils. Not only that, pupils were delighted to work with Plymouth Argyle Youth Development coaches to develop their skills and compete against each other in a mini tournament.
Year 5
From a mini football tournament with coaches from the Plymouth Argyle development squad, to celebrating Sikh traditions with Daya via some top class surfing instruction with the St Ives Surf School, enrichment activities have well and truly arrived in year 5. We hope the photos give you an insight into our week. Watch this space for more updates.
Year 6
Our enrichment programme started with a coaching session from Plymouth Argyle where we practiced and refined our football skills. The coaches were greeted with both enthusiasm and much excitement and it proved a challenge for them to choose a man or woman of the match.
WOW! Surf was definitely up for year 6 this week. Armed with resilience and PMA, we plunged into the sea (literally!) determined to catch as many waves as possible. We stood, we fell, we wiped out all in good humour!
The unique experience of Taiko drumming gave year 6 a taste of Japanese culture creating rhythmic patterns and we even learnt some key Japanese words to help us understand the principles of Taiko. Year 6 gave an enjoyable and dramatic performance to the whole school, showing the power and volume of this traditional music from the far East.
The Apprentice meets Dragon’s Den is in full swing after the launch of the first ever SIJS Young Enterprise Programme. Beginning with business ideas, pupils have conducted market research to eventually decide on a collaborative business venture. As entrepreneurs, we pitched our ideas in true Dragon’s Den style and each group have now received their initial investment.
Our creativity and artistic flair were celebrated in Year 6 when we visited the Barbara Hepworth museum and gardens, the Tate Gallery and Porthmeor studios as part of the Tate Town project. At the Barbara Hepworth Museum we explored and studied Hepworth’s works of art and discussed the impact of positive and negative space. The galleries of Tate St.Ives gave us an insight in to a variety of art style from sculptures to optical illusions. The Brazilian artist Rivane Neuenschwander’s ‘I Wish Your Wish’ exhibition consisted of thousands of multicoloured ribbons each stamped with one of 60 wishes that have been gathered from local residents over the last few months. We found this thought provoking and after choosing a ribbon, we wrote our own to be added to the exhibition. The Gyotaku fish printing technique amazed us! We broadened our knowledge of the variety of fish we have in our local waters and then got up close and personal to amongst others, mackerel, John Dory, squid and plaice. Take a look at our art work in the school corridors.