EGGStravagansa!

 As ever, there were some amazing eggs on display in the hall today. Well done to all the children for their wonderful efforts. Class teachers will now choose their three favourite from their class and then every adult in school will vote to find the 14 winners. Come back soon to see the final decision!

Mr Turner and the rockets!

Mr Turner has returned to Year 2 to test our rockets! We have had a fantastic afternoon watching all of our rockets launched to see how far they would travel. All of the rockets were very successful with the winner being Murtaza Mohammed’s rocket travelling a huge 42m! A massive thank you to Mr Turner for giving up his time to come and teach us more about space and helping us to create such wonderful rockets.

Year 5 polar visit

As part of our polar topic, year 5 have had two fantastic opportunities to really develop our understanding of the polar regions. In February, starting off our topic, the Year 5 talked by Skype with electrical engineer Jonny Gaelens who manages the renewable energy which powers the Princess station in Antarctica.

We were very impressed by the size of the station, not to mention all the clever ways it has been built to survive in such extreme conditions! Jonny was very interesting and fun to listen to, providing us with a fabulous understanding for the building and design of the station. He even managed to squeeze a virtual tour to see the different rooms in action. (And the fresh supply of fruit that had landed there that day!)

Then in March we had a very special visitor. Helen Turton, who has visited both poles on many occasions came in to talk to us about her experiences as a polar explorer. This included how to prepare for/what it's like to be on a polar expedition and to work in the Polar Regions. She also gave us an assembly teaching us all about the differences between the Arctic and the Antarctic. The children had some great questions such as who Helen's favourite polar explorer was, what work she did while she was in the poles and which was her favourite to visit! During the trip Helen even let the children get dressed up in all the equipment needed to survive (a lot!) during her expeditions which was a definite treat. 

Following on from both of these amazing experiences, we have been busy putting into place all the fabulous things we have learned. Working in groups, we have taken on board the advice from Jonny to design and build our own polar research. We also had a go at creating a tourist brochure for expeditions to our station by considering the experiences Helen shared with us. 

A big thank you to both Helen and Jonny for their visit and talks!! It was very 'cool'!

Miss Downs

Solar eclipse

Not ones to miss out on a special opportunity, on March 20th children took to the playground to learn all about the solar eclipse as it was actually taking place! Children brought in home made pin hole cameras and Mr Hunter brought in his binoculars so that the children could watch the effect of the eclipse without damaging their eyes. What an amazing opportunity!

Hockey Competition

On Tuesday 17^th March a group of talented Year 6 pupils took part in the Derby City School Sports partnership inter-schools hockey festival.  

   In their first game they drew 3-3 to Oakwood School A. On their second game unfortunately they lost to Oakwood School B. Starting at an unsteady pace, this definitely didn’t dampen their spirits, so they finally found their feet and got ready to win this competition! On all their other games they won being a great team for our school!

     Thank you to Tyrell, Awais, George, Mitchell, William and Jake who took part in the competition and we hope you all enjoyed it. A special thank you to Mrs Brundish and Mrs Lowe for taking their time to coach the team!

Supporting Comic Relief

Red Nose Day this year was filled with many a funny face around Silverhill. From full face paintings, to wobbly moustaches and funky eyebrows it was certainly difficult not to laugh as you walked around school! A huge amount of money was raised thanks to everyone's kind donations. A special thankyou goes out to Katie in Year 5 for her biscuit sale, which raised £27.50 pence in just ten minutes! A budding fundraiser indeed!

Year 6 at the Festival of Dance

Well done to all our Year 6 pupils who performed so brilliantly with 20 other schools at Derby Riverside Centre in the Derby City SSP Festival of Dance. Wearing some fantastic costumes and dancing to a medley of songs from Back to the Future, the children have great fun and did an amazing forformance! DVD available soon!

Year 2 at the Space Centre

On Thursday 12th March Year 2 had a fantastic day at the ‘National Space Centre’! We watched a film all about astronauts, were able to launch a rocket using water and have enjoyed finding out lots of fascinating and new information about space! What a brilliant day! Mrs Winfield

Cyclo Cross part 2!

Congratulations to our second group of pupils who, on the 10th March, took part in the Derby City SSP Cyclo Cross race at Markeaton Park. Mrs Brundish was so proud of our Cyclo Cross team with a win for Luke and superb team effort from Jamie, William, Ciara, Grace and Freya.

Year 6 visit

On Monday 9th March our Year 6 went on a trip to The Holocaust Center to see 'The Journey', in support of their current topic - World War 2. The interactive museum took the children into the life of a Jewish child living in Berlin at the start of the war and proved to be a very thought provoking and enjoyable day. After lunch the children met 91 year old Bernard who told his survivor story. Throughout the day the children behaved impeccably, showed incredible empathy and learnt a great deal of historical facts balanced with exploring sensitive feelings. A fantastic day!

Book fair thanks

A huge thank you for all the support at our book fair this year. As always it has proved to be a great success and Scholastic provided us with many new and exciting books to buy. We have raised a whopping £862.35 in total, giving us £518 to spend on books for school!

A special mention to our winners of the book fair competition, who each submitted a fantastic poem they had written. Solomon (ks1) and Scarlett (ks2) took away a ten pound prize each, whilst a £5 runner up prize was awarded to Abigail in Year 4! Well done to everyone who entered; let's see who wins next time.

World Book Day

 School was a mixture of 'Where's Wally at Hogwarts' in celebration of World Book Day on Thursday 5th March. Thank you to all the parents, staff and pupils who made such an effort with the costumes to remind us to celebrate a love of books and reading.

World Book Day Enrichment

 In celebration of World Book Day 2015, all our pupils have spent two days covering a wide range of enrichment activities based on the book 'The Tin Forest'. Click here to see a video of the story. Displays now put up across the school illustrate the wide range of wonderful activities and work produced from pupils in Foundation Stage up to Year 6 based around the book.

Big Pedal 2015

It's that time of year again when we embrace lighter mornings and evenings, encourage you to get fit, help the environment and ease traffic congestion outside of school by getting involved in the Big Pedal - the UK's largest inter-school cycling and scooting challenge. Please support us by choosing two wheels! Find out more (and see how we're getting on!) by visiting Big Pedal 2015.

PTFA Thanks

If you've ever wondered how many objects can squeeze into a raisin box just ask our winners of the PTFA raisin box challenge! Our winners received their goody bags in assembly after helping to raise just over £1700. Thank you to all those who supported the event and to those who bought and sold books at the book sale which has raised a further £127.65! If you would like to know more about the PTFA then you can visit the PTFA tab on the school website or follow them on Facebook.

Mr Turner is back!

Year 2 have been learning all about ‘Space’ as part of their topic. On Tuesday 24^th February we were very lucky to have a visit from Mr Turner who helped us to learn even more about space. He has set us a challenge to design our own rockets and he will be back soon to launch them to see which rocket will travel the furthest! Watch this space for the winners!

Well done Megan!

Many congratulations to Megan in Year 5 who has achieved her brown belt in Akido. 

Remember, if you have achieved something special out of school and you would like to share it on the school blog, email a photograph with all the details to Mrs Mitchell at kim.mitchell@silverhill.derby.sch.uk.

School pond

We would like to say a big thank you to all the volunteers from Severn Trent Water who came to the school over half term to build a new walkway around our wildlife pond. They have also placed some new seating for children around the pond area and as part of this community project they will be giving us a grant towards the purchase of new pond dipping equipment so the children will have a lovely area to explore. The PTFA have also contributed £500 towards the project which will be used to buy some additional wildlife signage for the pond. Well done to all those who helped with this project, the pond is now a much improved learning environment for the children and we look forward to watching it flourish over the coming months.

Year 5 Skype the North Pole

As part of their Perishing Poles topic, on the 6th February our Year 5 pupils spent the afternoon in discussion with a scientist in the Princess Elizabeth Station in Antarctica. They have been finding out lots of information about the station and the work of the scientists as well as the weather and living conditions in Antarctica. The children were in contact via Skype and enjoyed being able to speak directly with the scientist. A huge thank you to the @PolarFoundation for setting up a Skype call!