The children in Amazon Class found out that casein plastic, which was commonly used at the start of the 20th Century to make buttons, buckles and other plastic trinkets, can be made by mixing warm milk and white vinegar. The experiment was part of our investigation into reversible and irreversible changes. A full report, in the form of Professors Hardy, Roome and Gibson’s interviews with Radio 4 can be read here.
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REMEMBRANCE SERVICE 2024
Well done Eden, Jayden and Jasmine who represented the school on Sunday’s Remembrance Service at St Peter and St Paul’s Church and afterwards at the War Memorial. The children comported themselves with the dignity befitting the solemnity of the occasion as they each fulfilled their different roles: Jasmine lit a candle of hope midway through the service at the church, whilst Eden and Jayden laid a wreath at the War Memorial. The children at school also paused on Monday at 11am to mark the moment the guns fell silent on the Western Front and to remember and give thanks to all those who fought and, especially, those who lost their lives during that and subsequent wars. Well done, children, and thank you.
Odd Socks Day!
Well done to all children who wore odd socks on Odd Socks Day! This is a day organised by the NSPCC to celebrate differences and diversity. We may all be different, be we all need to feel happy and we all deserve respect. Thank you to our Red Caps group for organising it, as part of Anti-Bullying Week 2024. Thank you to Archie for taking the pictures.
anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/anti-bullying-week-2024-choose-respect/odd-socks-day
INTER-SCHOOLS’ CROSS COUNTRY at MELLIS COMMON
The children of Zambezi and Amazon Classes joined hundreds of other children from schools across the area for the first round of this year’s Cross Country competition. The afternoon started with an enormous warm-up with stretches and jogging on the spot, before the Fun Runners set off on a slightly shorter route across the common. However, don’t be fooled, even the shorter route disappears out of sight of the onlookers as the children head out across the Common. Following this, the competitive races began, with children split by gender and year group.
We were immensely proud of all our children for taking part – simply completing the course is an enormous achievement, as was evident from the red faces and total exhaustion of all those crossing the finish line. Special mention must be made of five children who finished in the top 5 in their heat, thereby qualifying for the next round later in the year. So, well done Ernie and Daniel, who finished fifth, Isaac, who finished fourth, Archie, who finished third, and Amy who won the Year 5 girls’ race. Epic!
APPLE DAY
Thank you so much for supporting our first Apple Day. We had such a good time. The festivities started after the Harvest Festival in the Baptist Chapel as we split into our house groups to prepare the food we would need for the evening’s events. Columba spent the morning chopping vegetables from Mrs Tooley’s garden to make a delicious chunky vegetable stew. Cygnus were set the task of preparing sweet potatoes and butternut squash to make a fiery, bright orange soup that was delicious with a dollop of crème fraiche and parsley. Apus’ job was to prepare the dough for our bread rolls. They kneaded four kilograms of flour to make over 70 super tasty rolls. Meanwhile, Aquila’s job was to cut up several hundred apples so they could be pulped and then squeezed to make apple juice. This was a hugely sticky affair and the wasps were quickly interested in our efforts, but the results were several litres of really appley, slightly tart but absolutely delicious juice that everyone who tasted it really enjoyed.
The evening was delightful: it was lovely to invite our families back to school to taste all the things we had prepared. The atmosphere in the hall was lovely and the children were really proud of their efforts. Having eaten our fill, we made our way out to the Forest School to admire the pumpkins in the competition, play on the field, then settle down around Miss Adamson’s fire to enjoy some baked apples with crushed biscuit crumble and some campfire songs. It was great fun.
The pumpkin competition was hotly contested and there were some brilliantly carved offerings, including toadstools, vegetables and farmers. Our winners were, in second place, Layla’s wonderful owl and, in first place, Dexter’s brilliant combine harvester.
Thank you to all our volunteers for your support in the morning and the afternoon.
Shed Monitors
Thank you to Belle and Oliver, two of our new Shed Monitors. They have been helping to decorate or new super-sized prayer tree in the reflection shed. We can’t wait to introduce our tree in assembly. Read a prayer, write a prayer, use the feeling bag to help you with ideas!
HARVEST FESTIVAL
The children did so well on Tuesday when we celebrated Harvest at the Baptist Chapel. They sang with gusto – especially the Conkers song – and real enthusiasm and performed brilliantly. We really enjoyed Thames Class’ rendition of Dingle Dangle Scarecrow and Rhine’s performance of Bonkers About Conkers. Zambezi Class entertained us with another Mrs Buckenham special called Thank You, to the tune of Valerie by the Zutons. Amazon Class led the school in a prayer for the farmers and performed a story about the King and the Seeds to underscore the meaning of Harvest – we all reap what we sow. We are grateful to Pastor Stuart and his team at the Baptist Chapel for hosting us, and to Rev Susan for joining us and leading us with a beautiful blessing. Well done Fressingfield.
GIRLS ACHIEVE BRONZE IN THE HSSSP GIRLS’ FOOTBALL COMPETITION!
On a beautifully mild and sunny afternoon, nine of our key stage 2 girls went to Hartismere High School for the High Suffolk girls’ football tournament.
These games were short (12 minutes), seven-a-side and with no half-time change. In the first round, Fressingfield played six games, aiming for enough points to go through to the next round. For each game, the girls needed to quickly sort themselves into a team of seven, working out who was attack, defence and goalie, and who would be substitute.
In the first game, Imogen scored two goals in rapid succession. What a positive start that was! Quite near the start, we realised that the sun was bright, and this affected the goalkeepers’ ability to see. As a consequence, we decided to make sure our goalies got to the right end of the pitch for each game!
Harriet and India both took it in turns to be in goal, and did a great job defending the goal mouth. Amy was also in goal once, making a magnificent save! Jasmine was an absolute little terrier – wherever the ball was, Jasmine seemed to be there. What incredible fitness that player has! Bonnie was very enthusiastic, and did a good job of marking some strong opponents. Ella’s strength was strategy, and she played a great role in deciding who was on or off, and what position they played. Sophia used her match experience in hockey to be in the right place, at the right time. Eden and Imogen used their experience as local club players to make some great tackles, and move the ball nicely towards goal.
In the first round, Fressingfield played six games. They won four, drew one and lost one. They even felt proud about losing the one match, as some of the opponents were clearly very experienced players. Because of the points scored in those games, Fressingfield went on to the play-offs, for bronze medal position. A confident, early goal from Jasmine meant that, from the start, Fressingfield had the edge. They held onto the 1-0 lead until the final whistle, to gain a well-deserved third place.
Mrs Scott and Ms Perry were so impressed by the girls’ attitude throughout the entire afternoon. Showing all our sporting values of honesty, respect, determination, passion, teamwork and self-belief, our girls’ team made us proud!
