Whitehouse Common Primary -

eTwinning - The Odyssey of Words

The Magic Mascots eTwinning project has already featured on the wesbite, but it's not the only project in which Whitehouse Common is particpating.

The Odyssey of Words is a project created by Linda Alexopoulou in Greece. In this project students are going to have an adventure. It is about the adventure of the words that were born in Greece, adopted into the Latin language and afterwards, travelling through time, introduced in plenty of European languages either unchanged or slightly changed. Therefore, students are going to take an interesting wander into European languages, seeking the common Greek and Latin roots of lots of words that Europeans use in their everyday lives.

6HJ enjoyed the presentation that Linda prepared about animals and their names in Greek, Italian, French, Spanish and English. We looked at the definitions and the origins of their names - did you know that chameleon is a compound word in Greek that means 'lion of the ground' and that dolphin comes from the Greek word delphis meaning 'newborn animal' and is very similar to delfis which means 'small pig of the sea'? Having discussed the etymology of some animals, they made animal masks and researched how to name them in a variety of languages as you can see below.

The next part of the project is based around mathematical language and involves a competition!

Lo que aprendimos en español - (Primavera 5 y 6 2017)

We've reached half term so it's time for another update on Spanish at Whitehouse Common!

	Let's start in Y3 who have been working on colours this term. In their last two lessons, they studied a poem called Los Colores. It was a very cross curricular lesson with clear links to Literacy - phonics and similes - and Maths - sequencing and Venn diagrams to sort phonics - as well as Art - colour mixing. And they also showed some mental agility as they took the stroop test, made popular by Dr Kawashima's Braintraining on the NintendoDS! Bobby in 3MW is the current record holder; he was so fast that he nearly beat Sra Stevens! Having completed all these activities, thinking about the sounds and structures of the poem, they used dictionaries, glossaries and word lists to rewrite the poem in pairs. Lots of BLP skills were demonstrated as they collaborated, made links and got thoroughly absorbed in the task. Some of the poems are below; can you work out what they mean?

	Secondly, Y4 have been working hard on their speaking skills, writing and performing dialogues in Spanish. They had to think back to Y3 to recycle questions they learned then as well as using their recent learning to find out about their partner's name, age, birthday and health. Once more, lots of enthusiasm was demonstrated with plenty of volunteers to perform for the class. ¡Muy bien hecho Año 4!
Finally Y6 wrapped up their unit on  Los deportes  with some extended writing. They completed a comprehension on a model text then used their exercise books and other reference materials such as dictionaries, word mats and vocabulary keyrings to draft a paragraph or two which we then discussed, corrected, added to and then polished before writing a final version. Sra Stevens is very pleased with the resilience and focus shown by many of Y6 in producing work that would be impressive at KS3.

Once more, Y6 demonstrated how their English literacy skills are very applicable to their Spanish (and other language!) learning. In the next article on the website, you'll find out about some work 6HJ did for one of our eTwinning projects based on etymology!

Nursery Newsletter Spring 2 2017

Excellent Work (Week Beginning 6/2/17)

Swimming Gala 2017

Once again we took a team of swimming superstars to the WSAS Swimming Gala, who really did us proud! The team showed fantastic dedication in the weeks leading up to the gala during extra sessions with our swimming instructor and many practising outside of school. On the day, they showed great sportsmanship and competed excellently - with a few 1st, 2nd and 3rd places being achieved! Well done to the other competing schools who also had some very strong teams!

Congratulations to our Boys' Team and Relay Team, who both finished in 3rd place against some tough competition!

We look forward to next year's!

Gymnastics Tournament

A huge well done to our fantastic Year 3/4 and Year 5/6 Gymnastics team last week! We attended the Tournament at the GMAC in Birmingham, achieveing some excellent scores. All of the children worked incredibly hard in the lead up to the compeition and represented our school excellently. The children showed dedication and great sportsmanship - we're all very proud of them! We were very lucky to have some expert coaching from our after-school club teacher, which the children definitely enjoyed and made a big difference to their competitive preparation.

We would like to say a big thank you also to our reserves who trained along with the final competition team and were ready on stand by to step in at the last minute if we needed them!

Our finishing places were:

Year 3/4 Team (out of 14 schools) - Vault 6th, Floor 8th, Overall 6th (it was so close that we were less than 1 point away from 4th place!)

Year 5/6 Team (out of 15 schools) - Vault 2nd, Floor 3rd, Overall 2nd (only half a point off 1st!)

We are looking forward to preparing for the Year 1/2 Competition in April!

Golf Sessions with The Belfry

KS2 were very lucky this year to have some Golf sessions delivered by a professional Golf Player from The Belfry. We had a great day where children took part in House Team competitions on a range of golf-related activities. Children who showed exceptional talent were also invited to some free sessions at The Belfry Golf Club!

It was a fantastic opoprtunity for us to try something different, as we don't normally do Golf in school, and we saw some budding talent coming through! 

Autumn Term Sporting Superstars

We had a very busy Autumn Term at Whitehouse Common, taking part in lots of compeitions with other schools in the area. All of the children who have taken part in training and representing our school have done us proud and impressed us with their dedication, teamwork and sportsmanship. 

We were lucky enough to have some expert coaching for the Tag Rugby and Hockey competitions from Bishop Vesey, and are going to be working with Aston Villa Footall Club School Sports Coaches to help with our football team training! 

The competitions and Tournaments we have participated in are:

October – Y5/6 Football Team (against Coppice)

October – Y5/6 Tag Rugby

November – Y5/6 Hockey - achieved 2nd place

November – KS2 Cross Country – Girls' team achieved 5^th out of 17 teams

November - Y5/6 Indoor Athletics

We are looking forward to many more sports opportunities and competitions after the New Year!