Gladiator Micro:bit Competition

Lots of our children have been taking part in the BBC Micro:bit Gladiators Competition this term.

The ultimate guide to the BBC Gladiators micro:bit competition – BBC Teach

They have had to design a device which would help a Gladiator improve their skills, which uses a piece of technology called a Micro:bit. We use Micro:bits throughout school, from D&T in Year 3, as part of our Code Club and as part of our Year 6 Computing curriculum, so this was a great chance for us to explore our knowledge!

We have submitted 3 entries into the competition, and will wait to see if we have any winners!

National Space Centre

Year 5 had a wonderful opportunity to travel to Leicester on Tuesday to look around the National Space Centre, to enhance our learning about Earth and Space. We explored the various galleries and even got to climb the rocket tower! We finished the day by going into the planetarium. It was an amazing experience and the ‘oooh’ and ‘aaaahs’ of the children spoke volumes!

Bebras Challenge Results

In our assembly today, we celebrated our successes in the National Bebras Challenge which all KS2 children took part in last month. The challenge tests children’s problem solving skills through a variety of questions, and all children should be proud of how they showed resilience and understanding to complete it.

All children will receive a ‘Participation’ certificate, whereas some will receive a ‘Merit’ in they finished in the top 50% in the school, or a ‘Distinction’ if they finished in the top 25%. The top performer in each age category will also receive a ‘Best in School’ certificate.

A special ‘Gold’ certificate is also awarded if they children finish in the top 10% of the country, and we were so pleased to be told that 5 of our children achieved this. They will be invited to the National Finals competition in March which we are very excited about!

Great job everybody!

Tech for Space Webinar

Some of our children from across Year 5 and 6 took part in a Tech for Space webinar last week, to celebrate our Science topics and National Space Week which was a couple of weeks ago. There was lots of really interesting information about how technology supports space missions, and some of the other inventions we have made due to space research.

Lunchtime Art Club

Some of our Year 5 children have worked with Mr Farlow this half term, to develop their drawing skills using oil pastels. They have developed their knowledge about colour choice, perspective and blending, and it has linked to their learning about Vikings. They have shown great resilience and pride in their work.

Code Club: Let’s get Creative!

Today in Code Club we were let loose on the micro:bits to apply some of the skills we have learnt. Some of the girls tried to programme their names to flash up, and some were experimenting with the music functions. It was great to see the creativity in motion!

Making micro:bit timers in Code Club

Our girls in Code Club were very successful today at creating a stopwatch. When they pressed the A button, the timer started. The B button stopped it and the A+B together reset it to 0. We had to use concepts such as variables to complete the task and we are looking forward to more coding next week!