Parkhead Community Primary School

Cedar have made some super waistcoats for their teddies in DT lessons this half term. They have designed, cut, stitched and evaluated their product. The children have even added buttons, pockets and emblems. What lucky teddies!

We hope all of our Reception Snowmen got home safely! It was lovely to see how happy the children were to take their extra special decorations home this afternoon ⛄️

This week in PSHCE, Oak Class have been learning how to manage conflict and celebrate differences through freeze framing in small groups.

Year 5 and 6 had a fantastic time at their Christmas party! There was lots of dancing, singing and smiley faces! 🎅🏻🎄

Year 3 have had a fabulous afternoon at their Christmas Party. We have had lots of fun dancing with our friends and playing some party games. 🎄🎅🏽

The children in Spruce class have had a great time at their Christmas party this afternoon. They have played pass the parcel, danced to Christmas music and had plenty of treats to eat. What a wonderful way to spend a Monday afternoon!

Today’s Tales Toolkit in nursery involved a zebra called Freddie on his way to Morrisons in town when he encountered a snake. See if your children can tell you how he got out of this pickle! It is lovely seeing how excited our children get when it is Tales Toolkit time 😃

Our ‘Community Corner’ is open from 3.00pm – 4.00pm on a Monday after school and on a Friday morning from 8.30am – 9.15am. We have a fantastic selection of school uniform, including footwear and coats, all of which are free to a good home. Food is also available free of charge and provides key ingredients to make simple meals, as well as toilet rolls and a few stocking fillers for anyone that may need them.
Miss Cummings will be delighted to see you should you need anything at all.

Elm class have been super busy in our classroom provision today. Recently, one of the children has been fascinated by the Titanic and created the most incredible model (and iceberg!). Also inspired by our visit to the church yesterday, children made a church model complete with stained glass windows and nativity scene. I think we have some future engineers and architects in our class!

A festive Tales Toolkit ...
Reception created a story they described as the best story they had ever heard today!

Santa Claus had a special elf called Buddy. Buddy liked to make toys, eat candy canes, drink water and fall in the snow. One day Buddy went to the North Pole. He went ice skating and had snow ball fights with boys and girls. Buddy found a Christmas pudding, steaming hot and he ate the lot! The Christmas pudding made Buddy feel sick. A donkey patted Buddy on the back and took him to the elf doctor to make him better. Buddy lived happily ever after in the North Pole.

In art, Birch class have been learning about the installation work of artist Cai Guo-Qiang. The children then created a scaled down version of an installation similar to one of his gunpowder drawings. After, we explored everyday objects to create an installation, considering how ordinary spaces can be transformed.

Our seedlings have had a sensory snow sort of day today.

Maple class have enjoyed going to St. Paul’s Church this morning. They found out more about the Christmas story with Reverend Alison.

Year 6 have enjoyed a visit to St. Paul’s Church to learn more about the Christmas story.

Key Stage One had such a wonderful visit to the church today and learned all about the Christmas Story.

In Design and Technology, Oak Class have enjoyed sewing their waistcoats using a running stitch.

Cedar Class had a great time making a template for their waistcoat. They then cut out the fabric and pinned it together ready to sew next lesson. I think their teddies are going to love their new clothes! 🧸🪡

KS2 children have really enjoyed the snow at break and lunch times.
They have had lots of fun on the sledges and even had a go at making their own!

The Seedlings have had a lovely festive day. We did some singing and dancing this morning to Christmas tunes to get us in the Christmas spirit 🎅🏻🎄❄️☃️

Our lovely Seedlings in nursery enjoyed another Tales Toolkit session. Today there was a reindeer called Rosie, some snow, a naughty monster and a dragon! See if your child can tell you the story at home. We always put the props out in our provision afterwards so the children can retell the story/adapt it/add to it! 

Maple class enjoyed looking at some artefacts from the Discovery Museum to support their learning on Prehistory.

Maple class enjoyed their Commando Joe’s session this week! They were working on their fitness so they were ready to start trekking across the Amazon rainforest like Ed Stafford.

Year 6 have began their ‘Commando Joe’s‘ unit based on the life of Nancy Wake, thinking about the importance of teamwork, friendship and perseverance.

Thank you to everyone who came to our Christmas Crafts event this week. It was lovely to see so many adults in school again getting into the festive spirit! 🎅 🎄

Willow class enjoyed finding out about the Great Fire of Newcastle and compared the events to the Great Fire of Gateshead. The children thoroughly enjoyed exploring the box of delights to support their understanding of life during that time.

The children in Beech class loved looking at the artefacts from our box of delight today. They loved learning about the Great Fire of Gateshead and Newcastle.

Reception have had a great day playing and exploring in the snow. ⛄️❄️

Mrs Leach and the KS2 school choir, made a special visit to Winton Court this week. The children hit all the right notes as they sung a selection of Christmas songs for the delighted residents within the community. The children very much enjoy performing for Winton Court and also designed and made lovely Christmas cards for each of the resident’s, spreading some Christmas joy. We wish all at Winton Court a very Merry Christmas.

Community Corner
A reminder that our ‘Community Corner’ is open from 3.00pm – 4.00pm on a Monday after school and on a Friday morning from 8.30am – 9.15am. We have a fantastic selection of school uniform, including footwear and coats, all of which are free to a good home. Our food bank is also available free of charge and provides key ingredients to make simple meals, as well as toilet rolls and a few stocking fillers for anyone that may need them.
Thinking ahead with the colder weather now here and events leading up to Christmas, we would be really grateful to receive any donations of warm coats, hats, wellies and Christmas jumpers. Any donations can be given to Miss Cummings in the Community Corner or brought along to the school office.
Miss Cummings will be delighted to see you should you need anything at all.

Nursery Children – School Lunches
As you may be aware, children in school years Reception – Year 2 receive free school meals as part of the Governments Universal Free School Meal Initiative. Unfortunately, this does not currently apply to Nursery aged children, but we recognise the financial strains placed on families at the present time and the need to offer a hot meal to our younger children during the colder weather. For this reason, as from Monday next week, Nursery meals will be charged at the subsidised rate of £1.40. You can book school meals for your child on Lunchshop as and when required. Any lunches prebooked for the next two weeks have been cancelled and refunded. These can now be rebooked at the new rate of £1.40.

Strep A
As you may have seen in recent news, cases of Step A and Scarlet fever are on the rise. With this in mind please see the attached link, which contains information on signs and symptoms, what you should do and how to stop the spread. We hope to avoid this terrible infection by being as carful as possible. Please continue to send your child to school if they are well and as always we will send home any child who we are concerned about.
https://what0-18.nhs.uk/parentscarers/worried-your-child-unwell/scarlet-fever

If you have any queries and would like to get in touch with our SENDCo, please email:
[email protected]

Today in Science Club, the children made their own balloon rocket and then had a race. 🚀🚀🚀

A balloon provides a simple example of how a rocket engine works. The air trapped inside the balloon pushes out the open end, causing the balloon to move forward.

Elm Class loved exploring the contents of our Discovery Museum Box of Delight today. By looking at different artefacts, we learned all about our local history and the events of the Great Fire of Gateshead and Newcastle.

The children in Birch class loved their Boxercise session today!

Cherry class thoroughly enjoyed their first Commando Joe’s session of the year today. We were set a mission by famous explorer Ed Stafford. For our first mission we had to undertake fitness training to prepare us for trekking across the Amazon. It was great to see such determination when completing our circuit.

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In PSHE today, Pine class have been discussing how rumour spreading and name-calling can be bullying behaviour. We came up with different bullying scenarios and thought carefully about how they could make someone feel. We then played a game of snakes and ladder. If a person landed on a ladder they had to explain how the scenario could be made better. If they landed on a snake they had to say how the scenario could be made worse. We had lots of discussion going on.

This is what team work and independence looks like in nursery. Here, some of our Seedlings decided they wanted to build London Bridge. They naturally delegated roles within the team- one person collected the blocks, another put them in place, one fixed them together etc. Once they were happy with their creation they then rode toy vehicles across it whilst singing ‘London Bridge is Falling Down!’