Squash and Toast week

Very well done to all our Year 6 pupils who have demonstrated a wonderful attitude to their SATs this week. They have shown true Silverhill SPIRIT during quash and toast week and we are very proud of them all. With squash and Toast to start each day and afternoons of sport, art, boards games and a trip to the park to look after our mental wellbeing.  Finally the delivery of our Leavers Hoodies certainly helped put a smile on our faces!

Well done Year 6 2019 - we’re proud of you all!

Spellathon Spending

Thank you so much to all the parents, friends and families who supported our Year 5 and 6 pupils doing their Spellathon earlier in the year. Thanks to your generosity and the pupil's hard work we have been able to replace our very tatty few dictionaries and thesauruses with a lovely new set of 15 school dictionaries and 15 primary thesauruses for each of our Year 5 and 6 classes. We love using high quality vocabulary in our work so these will really help!   

Year 5 science week

This week year 5 have been enjoying their Science Week.  The topic has been Living Things and their Habitats – specifically the life-cycles of animals and plants.  We’ve had lots of fun and in this photo you can see the children testing their seed spinners in the sunshine.

Year 4 Mountain Rescue

As part of our Extreme Survival Theme, Year 4 were extremely privileged to receive a visit from Paul from the Derby Mountain Rescue Team. Paul talked to us about the role and importance of the Mountain Rescue team and brought his extremely oversized rucksack, sharing the equipment and expertise required to fulfil their roles in rescues! 

Thank you to the families and parents of our Year 4 children who made donations towards the Mountain Rescue team. We raised just over £70 which Paul was extremely grateful to receive! 

Year 3 meet Animal Magic

On Friday 3rd May, Year 3 enjoyed meeting a variety of amazing Rainforest animals.

‘Animal Magic’ came to visit and brought along snakes, sugar gliders, scorpions and Boo the owl, amongst others. We were very brave and had the opportunity to touch or hold the animals. We also learnt a lot about their habitats and how we can help protect them. 

Definitely a sensational start to remember!

Easter winners

Just before Easter, many children yet again took part in our annual Easter egg competition. As ever, there was an eggs-tremely high standard - with some eggs-cellent themes including our very own Rock Steady and a lot of BrEGGsit ideas from many of the entries! Congratulations to all our winners...

Robins - Tyler
Wrens - 
Sparrows - Seth's L'egg' o
Swallows - Duru's traditional Easter basket
Kestrels - Dylan's Titanic
Peregrines - Tom's beaver egg
Goldfinches - Alice's Silverhill Singers
Chaffinches - Harry
Kingfishes - 
Nightingales - Ryan's spiders
Barn Owls - 
Snowy Owls - Catlin
Hawks - VIc's WW2 planes
Eagles - Isaak

Surviving in Year 4

On Tuesday 30th April, Year 4 set off on the mile and a half walk over Hackwood fields to Rural Pride Outdoor Activity Centre. The pupils really enjoyed the sensational start to our Extreme Survivors topic where they learned how to be 'Silverhill Survivors' by making our own fires and shelters. We even created cups out of clay dug up from the ground. We think we are now well equipped to survive in even the most extreme conditions. 

RSPB visit Year 1

On Monday 29th April, Year 1 had a sensational start to their theme 'Dead or Alive?' as they went on a bug hunt around the school grounds with 2 outreach members of the RSPB. We found lots of interesting creatures that were very much alive!

Easter

On Thursday 11th April, a lovely sunny morning, the whole school walked the now familiar route to All Saints Church in Mickleover village for a lovely Easter service. Well done to all the children for their lovely singing and especially to you Year 6 readers.

Happy Easter to all our friends and families. Have a lovely break.

FS2 Farm visit

On the last day of term, FS2 went to Ash End House Children's Farm near Tamworth as a Fantastic Finish to our topic 'Does Everything Grow?'
On arrival (after much excitement about travelling on a great big coach!) we played in the playground before an early lunch in the barn. Then we met the farmers who would show us around the farm. We saw lots of the animals we had been learning about: we fed the ducks and gave oats to the goats (even Simon the goat who tried to headbutt Mrs Allen!). Then we saw and held some baby chicks and collected eggs which we could take home to our families. We met cows, sheep and lambs, and even saw a new baby shire horse (who looked quite big for a baby!) 
We had a wonderful day - all of the children were real ambassadors for Silverhill and were extremely polite and well behaved. We were all exhausted and some children sensibly had a snooze on the coach on the way home.

 

 

Year 2 Fantastic Finish

What a fantastic day Year 2 had on Wednesday 3rd April at Cromford Canal! We went for a ride on a narrow boat, had a habitat walk along the canal and learned all about the different types of water birds we saw. It was the perfect finish to our topic on ‘Transport’.
Mrs Brundish

Fundraising thanks

This term, our children have continued to show their altruistic nature by organising and supporting further fundraising events. As well as the Mad Hair Day which raised a phenomenal £918, split equally between money for Mrs Minifie & The Little Princess Trust. Sofia & Rosheen (Y3) raised £84 for the Orangutan foundation and Emma, Adele & Rio (Y6) £120 for DementiaUk. Without your continued generosity none of this would have been possible, so thank you so much.

Fantastic Finishing in Year 5 and 6

On Wednesday 3rd April, thanks to our supportive PTFA, our Year 5 and 6 pupils were treated to a truely Fantastic Finish when Primevruk bought into school their vertual reality headsets and transported Year 5 to the USA and Year 6 to see some spectacular volcanoes! The children were able to see up close all the landmarks and features that they had been learning about all term! A trip to the USA or a real volcano could have been very tricky so this certainly helped take the pupils on a journey to support their #stickylearning

Year 4 Foremark DT Design Day

On Tuesday 2nd April, Twelve of our Year 4 budding design and technology pupils spent the morning at Foremark Hall, where they had the opportunity to design and create their very own 2D creations! From Pilar drills, electric saws, to CAD/CAM and laser cutters, the children were exposed to a variety of new technological resources and machinery. The day was organised by our very own Silverhill Mum, Mrs Hobson, who, along with her colleague, Mr Davis, helped to create a new and awe-inspiring experience for our children! 

Shared story time in FS2 and Year 1

Year 1 have been writing their own versions of Little Red Riding Hood - they were so amazing, that we decided to share them with the children in Foundation Stage. When reading their stories, the Sparrows and Swallows demonstrated lovely clear voices and tried their best to use expression, and the children in Robins and Wrens showed fantastic listening skills! Well done to all.

STEM science in Year 6

Year 6 welcomed STEM Ambassador Laura and University of Derby student Robyn to support their learning in fossils and evolution and adaptation science themes. The pupils learned a great deal from their visit, getting their hands on some amazing fossils and taking part in some activities outside that really got them thinking about how to survive. The children came up with some great ideas about how they would adapt and evolve and had great fun in the process.

Poo from the past!

During their science week, on Thursday 21st March, the Year 4 children spent the week learning all about ‘teeth’ and the digestive system. The children created their own 3D models of the digestive system and even had the chance to dissect and look at Norman ‘coprolites’! This was very much a ‘sticky learning’ experience! 

Street Dance

Over the last term, the Y4 children have been learning a new style of dance-street dance. We have been very lucky to have a teacher from, Baby People, to teach the children a new skill. All children have demonstrated all SPIRIT values and finished the term by putting on a fabulous show to the rest of the school! Well done Year 4! 

Rocksteady Showcase!

On Thursday 21st March, what a treat it was for pupils, staff and a lot of proud parents to be able to watch their first Silverhill Rocksteady Concert! With an eclectic and varied range of rock band names, like 'Blue Lemonade', our budding stars o their spots with guitars, keyboards, drums and some very enthusiastic front men, the concert really got the crowd clapping and cheering!Well done to all the performers - we can't wait to see what they come up with next time. 

Football update

Tuesday 19th and Wednesday 20th March

News from Mr Turner and the football teams coming soon!

Comic Relief 2019

On 15th March, Silverhill yet again proved how charitable we are by raising money for Comic Relief. Our normal green uniform was replaced by a sea of red as we all wore something crimson, scarlet, claret, cherry, pillarbox or ruby and donated to be able to do so. We are very proud to say that we raised a grand total of £410 which will go to help people in this country as well as Africa. Well done Silverhill! 😊

RSPCA visit FS2

The Robins and Wrens had a sensational start for their new theme 'Does everything grow?'
Visitors from the RSPCA came into school to talk about animals and how they grow.  The children were very lucky to meet the guinea pig that was a little shy, but happy to come out for food!
Thank you to the lovely ladies from the RSPCA for their time and interesting information about animals.

UK Parliament

On Wednesday 13th March Malcolm from UK Parliament came to speak to our pupils about how new laws are made in the Houses of Parliament.

More information coming soon!

Willow's (the Cavapoo) visit to Year 3

On Wednesday 13th March, the Goldfinches were lucky enough to have a visit from Willow, Mrs Roberts’ 7 year old Cavapoo. This was a treat for the children as they have all been putting in a real effort to read lots at home to improve their reading skills. Willow was exceptionally well behaved and loved all the cuddles she received, she even sat quietly with the children whilst they read to her. We hope to be able to have Willow for a repeat visit very soon!

Explorer Al

To compliment their current theme work, Year 6 and year 1 pupils were visited on Tuesday 12th March by Al Sylvester, a well known former RAF Mountain Rescue Service team leader who was actively involved with over 400 operational rescues. In addition, his life of adventure has taken him to some of the most extreme environments on the planet; including the South Pole, Aconcagua, Mt Kenya and the base camps of Mt Everest and Annapurna. His stories were fascinating and inspiring for all the pupils who met him, with real life references to all our SPIRIT values. Thank you Al for coming to speak to us and to the PTFA for funding his visit.

Year 4 girls DCLFC football

What a brilliant day the girls have had on 12th March at the Powerleague Derby!! Our incredible Year 4 Girls football team won their group in the Derby County Ladies Football Competition and came home with a rather impressive trophy! They won every match they played and only conceded 2 goals all day! Superb Siverhill SPIRIT girls - well done!

Big thanks to our PTFA

Back in June the PTFA Committee met with Mr Gallagher to set out our funding goal for this year, it was decided that we would provide £600 per year group for enrichment activities to bring the children's learning to life. So far we have provided a Wendy House and play guttering for Reception, new outdoor learning equipment for Year 1, some Titanic resources for Year 2 and there are some upcoming visits and special guests that we have paid for in the Juniors (we don't want to spoil the surprise!). It has been so nice to see the money raised by the school community put to use by the pupils and knowing that all our hard work is directly benefiting our children!

One of the ways in which we raise money for these activities is our Christmas Fundraising. This year we made a magnificent £3200 in total. This includes the Reception Children's Tea Towels, Personalised Christmas Cards, the Raffle, Santa's Grotto and of course our wonderful Christmas Enterprise Fayre. The Junior classes that took part did an amazing job, the ‘Dragons’ were so impressed with their professional approach to pitching and invested in all of the ideas. In total the enterprises raised £395.96 which was passed directly back to the classes to choose how to spend. The ultimate winners were Barn Owls who ran a variety of stalls and made £67.40 profit!

To help us to continue raise funds the PTFA has purchased a shed, this will be used for both storage and to provide refreshments at outdoor events, such as sports day, we hope that this investment will make a real impact on the way we fundraise.

You may have also noticed that the new climbing area has now been completed in the Junior Playground, this was spearheaded by our previous Chair Julie and has made a massive impact on the children's free times. In total the PTFA contributed £3500 to this project - definitely money well spent, thank you all for making it possible!

As always, the PTFA is open to new ideas, if you'd like to get involved or find out more then please drop us a message via our Facebook page or email us at silverhillptfa@gmail.com.

U11 Girls Midlands Regional Finals

It was a very cold and windy early start on Saturday 9th March for our amazing Girls Mini Soccer team took part in the Midlands regional final. As the only team representing Derbyshire they performed admirably throughout the day. Each game was evenly contested as they won 1, drew 1 but lost 3 meaning we didn't progress any further. Unfortunately, it wasn't our day but Mr Turner was so incredibly proud of the achievement to get to regional finals. Outstanding girls - well done!

Dance Festival 2019

On Friday 8th March some of our Year 6 children took part in the annual Dance Festival run by Derby City SSP. This year's theme was 'Number ones' and Mrs Brundish decided to go with 'Born this way' to reinforce the 'tolerance' stand of our SPIRIT values. The children have been so committed to rehearsals and practising at home over the past month or so and it really paid off! It was an utterly superb performance which can be viewed here and the children received lots of compliments from spectators on the day due to their superb timing and enthusiasm. A huge well done to all involved. 

Year 5 and 6 Bikeability

Many congratulations to our Year 5 pupils who, over recent weeks, have all completed their Level 1 bikeability with Cycle Derby and to the Year 6 pupils who have all passed their Level 2 bikeability and are now competent cyclists on the roads.Well done to you all!

World Book Day 2019

A massive thank you to everyone who took part in our World Book Day celebration, including our very own Freddie Mercury (a.k.a. Mr Turner - we were a little confused about the 'book' connection - apparently it's an autobiography!) Over the day children enjoyed reading,listening to and sharing some of their favourite and books taking part in book swaps while our parents enjoyed attending our PTFA Book Cafe and the launch of our latest book fair. Thank you to every one for supporting World Book day and remember - keeeeeep reading.....

Year 4 skype with Cressida Cowell

Year 4 have been doing a lot of work in their writing and reading lessons linked to Dragons, so on 6th March they really enjoyed their Skype and live Q'N'A session with the author of 'How To Train Your Dragon' - Cressida Cowell. They took lots of tips away for their writing and were really inspired!
Miss Garrington

Year 3 trip to Conkers

On Wednesday 6th March, Year 3 had an amazing day out at Conkers to support our Romans theme work! We met a Centurion, designed our own mosaics, talked to a Roman slave and attended a workshop with Boudicca.  Our behaviour was amazing and we thoroughly enjoyed our day from beginning to end!

Mrs Roberts

Dualthlon Competition

On Tuesday 5th March, 2 teams of Year 6 boys and girls went to Moorways Stadium to compete in a  dualthlon competition. With Emily as the only year 5 representative, there were some brilliant individual performances and also relay performances saw our 'B' team claim 5th position and our 'A' team claiming yet another gold to continue our success so far this year! Well done to our superstars!

FS stare into Space

Mr Turner the real life astronomer! We even got to look through his telescopes. What a fabulous experience as we come to the end of our Space topic

Dealing with internet safety and fake news

Following a week of heightened concern for children and online safety we would again like to remind our parents and families of some recommended web links where you can find reliable and factual help and advice when discussing internet safety and fake news with your child at home. If you have any specific concerns please speak to your child's class teacher or Silverhill Safeguarding leads Mr Gallagher, Mr Burley or Miss Nevin.

• E-safety - Net Aware - Stay up to date and keep your child safe in today's digital world

• CEOP - National Crime Agency - Child Exploitation and Online Protection

• E-safety - Think You Know - CEOP E-safety age related advice for adults and children

• UK Safer Internet - Stay up to date and keep your child safe in today's digital world

• National Online Safety - online safety guides for parents and careers

BBC Newsround have produced an article you might wish to share with your child regarding this week's news.

Year 4 Indoor Athletics

Many of the Year 4 children had a wonderful afternoon taking part in the Indoor Athletics Festival on Wednesday 27th February, held by Derby City SSP. All of the children got to take part in various different athletics activities, including javelin, speed bounce, long jump and vertical jump. Despite it not being a competition, we had 5 individual medal winners! What a brilliant achievement! Well done to all of those involved. 
Mrs McBride

Year 2 Indoor athletics

On Wed 27th February Mrs Brundish took a selection of Year 2 pupils to the Sporthall Athletics competition run by Derby City SSP. The children were chosen based on their attendance at a variety of sports clubs on offer at the school as well as displaying a positive attitude in the PE lessons. The children were able to move around a selection of different activities such as vertical leap, standng long jump and chest push. All the children were fantastically behaved and showed off their skills with a smile on their face. We also had 6 individual winners with Toby, Alex, Amelia, Matilda, Elodie and Seth all winning events! Well done to everyone involved.

Super Safety Seymour in Year 2

On Tuesday 26th February the Year 2 children took part in a Carbon monoxide safety workshop to help them learn about how to keep themselves and their families safe at home.  They met" Super Safety Seymour" the bear who told them all about the dangers of carbon monoxide. He also explained to them how to check their homes are safe as it is an invisible poisonous gas.  They enjoyed taking part in a variety of interactive activities and role play tasks and they all became experts!  During the rest of the term the children will also all have the opportunity to take Safety Seymour home to reinforce their understanding and awareness of carbon monoxide.
At the end of the day they all were given a carbon monoxide detector so they they could pass on their knowledge to their families and keep everyone safe.
Mrs Goodchild

A new floor for FS2

Just before 1/2 term, it was all hands on deck to clear the FS2 unit in order for our new floor to be fitted over the holidays. The children went and had fun with Mrs McBride and Miss Kersey in Year 4 while some willing volunteers from Year 6,  Mr Turner, Mr Seeley, Mr Coupland, Mrs Gratton as well as Mrs Allen and Miss Foster spent the afternoon moving everything out. The floor fitters ripped up the old stinky carpet and replaced it with new hardwearing flooring and then it was just a matter of putting everything back in. Again, there were lots of willing helping hands, and we managed to finish the job in one morning! Wrens and Robins are super happy with our new beautiful floor
Mrs Allen 😊