Author Archives: Mrs Cooke

Garden Leaders Eco trip to RHS Bridgewater

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Today, we took a group of keen gardeners (our new Garden Leaders) and our Year 6 Eco Leaders to the RHS Bridgewater to take part in a workshop about plants and how they grow and reproduce.
We learnt about different parts of the plant and what they do and how plants have evolved over millions of years. Then the children looked through a microscope at different plants and slides of seeds.
We learnt how some plants can clone themselves by reproducing their own ‘offspring’ and others use diversity and share pollen to reproduce which creates adaptability for survival in the long term.

We were then able to make a cutting from a Basil plant that we can grow so we can make new plants.

After that, we were taken to the Mediterranean greenhouse to investigate different types of cactus and other desert and warm climate plants to see how they have adapted to their environment by using diversity in their reproduction over time.

We also managed a bit of time for an explore of the adventure playground!

Year 6 Forest school

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We had several weeks of Forest school over the autumn term and into the spring term.

The children began with an Autumn scavenger hunt where they collected lots of ‘treasure’ from the forest.

They also enjoyed playing a team game of Capture the Flag and some of them began re-building the old bridge which was washed away. This took weeks but if you can see from the before and after pictures- it was a great feat of engineering! Well done Year 6 Team!

The Bridge before….

The Bridge after a LOT of hard work!

Remembrance Day with Blackley community.

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Both Year 6 classes did their annual poetry performance on the 11th of November in the area in Blackley forest by the remembrance bench and display.
We held a two minutes silence to remember people who had sacrificed so much during many wars, past and present and our classes performed their poems in groups. We had a really good turnout of parents and the local community who really enjoyed watching the children perform their amazing poems. Some even used percussion and movement in their performances, which was great. Recently, we updated the display cabinet with the children’s poems and creative work about Remembrance Day. Please feel free to go and visit the area and see the children’s work on display.

Eco Schools Heaton Park Celebration!

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Our Eco Leaders were invited by Eco Schools to attend a celebration to thank the Eco Leaders in Manchester for their work over the year. It was a fantastic day where they took part in several workshops related to Eco topics.

The first workshop was with the National Education Nature Parks, which was to investigate the species around the immediate area and create a bar graph with coloured paper which was brilliant at showing us which were the most common or rarest species in that area:

They were also lucky enough to meet Sarah Roberts – an eco journalist and wildlife explorer who has raised awareness about the importance of sharks by recording many shows where she swam with different sharks. She is starring in a new series on her own series netflix called #Allthesharks which begins on Friday 4th July.

We had a picnic at lunchtime which was nice in the warm weather…

We then created some poems about nature which were amazing:

And read them out….

The last workshop we took part in was from the Lancashire wildlife Trust where we were able to create two canvases inspired by what nature we see around Manchester… hopefully we will put them up around school!

The Eco leaders also were given a pack of Eco books and a free ice cream each by Eco schools and finished off with some time to play in the playground area too! All in all a great day out!

‘Planting for the Planet’ Eco afternoon.

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Thank you so much to all the kind families who supported our Eco day last Tuesday afternoon. It was really lovely to see so many families around school helping to reduce our carbon footprint.
We are really grateful for the donations of books or good quality clothing that we were given for the swap stall and the beautiful plants that were donated either in person or by sending one in to school.

We had a lovely afternoon outside planting in the garden, in the planters outside the hall or adding something to our new living wall. Families also looked at the amazing creative work made by classes in the hall, and tried some Fair Trade tea and biscuits while having a go testing their knowledge of recycling everyday items into the correct bins and our soil matching activity.
We will take regular pictures to keep you updated on how the plants are growing and how our living wall develops over the next few weeks and into the next school year!