Youth Speaks

On Thursday 11^th February, two courageous teams sat in the Town Hall mentally preparing themselves for their moment in the lime light. It was time for the annual Youth Speaks competition. After a couple for weeks of writing and practising their speeches, they were ready to compete.  Team 1, who’s chair person was Lewis, went first. Their speaker, Arthur, had put forward their debate title which was, ‘Graffiti, is it art or vandalism?’ Lewis opened the speech and introduced the other team members. Arthur then took to the stage and spoke on his subject for 4 minutes! Finally, Josh, the Vote of Thanks, took to the stage to summarise the debate.  Several teams and minutes later, it was Team 2’s go. Brandon opened the debate as the chair person whilst Nyah, the speaker, passionately put forward her debate on ‘Animal testing’. Their speech was concluded by Merryn their Vote of Thanks. Then came the anxious wait as the judges made their decision. Half an hour later and the results were in.  Out of 13 local schools only two could go through and amazingly Team 2 got through! Brandon, Nyah and Merryn would be heading to the second round against schools from Devon and Cornwall! Both teams were ecstatic by the news and even better, Lewis was chosen as the judges favourite chair person.

 

A week later, on Tuesday 23^rd, Brandon, Nyah and Merryn travelled to Tavistock to compete again. There were 13 teams and it was a tough competition. Despite being nervous, the team gave their all and gave confident speeches and answers to a very complicated question from the questioner. After a break, the judges came to their decision and Tavistock Primary School and Lifton Community Primary School were crowned the winners. Although the children didn’t get through the next round, the did incredibly to get this far and it has been great experience.  I am very proud of their achievements! 

 

Congratulations to the children who won the Christmas jumper competition put on by our local Tesco. The jumpers were great and very festive! 

 

Mini-Glee show cased their singing at the Christmas Fair!

 

Mini-Glee performed for the first time this year at the Christmas Fair on Saturday. Overcoming nerves, they sang twice in the hall and canteen to a huge crowd who were very impressed by their smiles, actions and singing voices. In Mini-Glee we sing lots of songs but our favourites at the moment are, ‘There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea’, ‘Jingle Bells’, and ‘See the little Bunnies’. For the rest of the term, we will concentrate on learning some more Christmas songs and enjoying ourselves in all we do. Why don’t you ask one of Mini-Glee to tell you about our vocal warm ups? They are experts now!  Well done to all those who sang on Saturday! You were brilliant!!  

The language of the month is German.

 

German is the official language in Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein and Switzerland and has official status in Belgium and Luxembourg.

 

There are 118,000,000 people in the Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Russia, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Chile, the United States of America, Australia and Puerto Rico who speak German.

October's ‘Language of the Month’ is Afrikanns

Afrikaans (also called Cape Dutch) is an official language of South Africa, where it is spoken by about 6,200,000 people.

Afrikaans speakers are also found in Namibia, Botswana, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. 

There are about 6,400,000 Afrikaans speakers in the world.

 

See this website for a few of the phrases that the children will be using in class this month. http://www.newburyparkschool.net/langofmonth/afrikaans/player.html 

Diversity Day - October 2015

 

On Monday  5th October, the whole school took part in its first Equality and Diversity day of this academic year. The theme of the day was about 'Disabilities’. Each year group explored what the word disabled meant and explored issues surrounding this. In all year groups, stories and texts were used as a vehicle for introducing the concept of being disabled and children were given insights into what life is like for those with a disability.  The children were able to voice opinions and through discussions learned that although some people may have a disability they should be treated equally and supported to achieve their goals. 

See the class pages and accounts below for details of each year group's day.  

British Values day October 2015

At the beginning of October, the whole school took part in British Values Day. The focus for the day was ‘the Rule of Law’. In Key Stage Two, children gained a strong understanding of the what Laws were and how they are formed in parliament. They acted out the process of making a Law, examining it in parliament and then making some very important decisions about passing it. In Key Stage One, children learned about what rules were and how they can be similar to laws. Some classes even had a visit from the police who taught them all about how they help to protect the law for a job!

Lots of work and photos from the day are available below and on the British Values Board in the hall.

Children from Year Four spent a day planning and making a Withie Giant to be paraded in the Callington May Fest.  The giant was based on King Arthur who apparently has historical links to Callington! On the day, year four children paraded around the town with the giant, waving it's arms and dancing around for all to see. Lots of onlookers where amazed at the enormity and creativity of the giant. 

Congratulations to all of the Callington Primary School community who participated in the Great Callington Run. A diverse range of activities were undertaken over the 24 hour period: cooking, gymnastics, spray painting, human hungry hippos, street surfing, dodge ball, many laps of the cricket field and tackling assault courses. Throughout these activities, there was always someone running on the treadmill to ensure our running was non - stop. During all of the activities the children, parents and staff showed great determination, team spirit and enthusiasm, with the wonderful community effort resulting the an astonishing distance being recorded; in total we ran 1632.33 miles which is from Callington to a small village named Vyazma in Russia! An amazing time was had by all and we are sure that it will be a treasured memory for years to come. Thank you to everyone that supported the event.