On Tuesday and Thursday evenings of last week Year 5 worked extremely hard at running their restaurants as part of their enterprise ‘Can you run your own restaurant?’ topic. The children have been really enthusiastic about the topic since the start.  At the beginning they made a visit to Deeva so they could investigate and find out how to run a successful restaurant.  The topic has incorporated different subjects; in literacy they planned and wrote their persuasive menus and recording radio adverts for their restaurant; in science they looked at healthy eating and some of the maths has involved calculating costs, ratio and proportion and working out profit and not to mention the ICT skills they have used. 
 
The children had a £20 budget with which to work and went up to Asda to do the shopping themselves.  Shopping has never been so exciting!
 
Over the two nights we had Chinese, Indian and Italian restaurant being run throughout the school. There were five restaurants run by 5W on Tuesday night: Italiano Paradise, Gibbyanos, Indian Amazement, Rice and Spice and Bella Italia.  On Thursday night there were five different restaurants by 5C on offer for the customers: Charmotekj, Namtods, Indian Rose, Cozba and Papas Pasta. 
 
The children were fantastic on their night and worked incredibly hard.  They stayed at school at 3.15pm to prepare their food and restaurant and worked through until about 7.45pm; the children were in good spirits but tired by the end of a 12 hour working day!  Both nights proved to be an amazing success, making a clear profit of £530 for both evenings and getting almost unanimous five star reviews from their customers.  The children are now deciding how they can spend it.  Year 5 children and staff would like to say a massive thank you to all the parents who attended.

Year three had a great time with a local artist making sculptures. In the morning they investigated 3D shapes and used their knowledge to try to make a structure strong enough to hold a large weight.  In the afternoon all the children worked outside in groups to create structures using bamboo poles and cable ties. The children had to work as a team to make a successful structure helping each other hold the poles whilst others fastened them in place.
It was very windy which made it even more difficult to make a structure that would stay up but the children showed great determination and did not give up. The children had a great time and it was lovely to see them having so much fun whilst learning about team work and construction.

Year 6 raised an impressive £687 for Macmillan following their recent 'Giant Coffee Morning'.  Both classes worked their socks off selling tea, coffee and cake to hungry families and their efforts resulted in them achieving one of the highest charity fundraising totals of recent years. We would like to say a massive thank you to all those people who visited the coffee morning/afternoon as we couldn't have done it without you. We also give huge thanks to those who provided buns and cakes and raffle prizes to be used on the day; we were even fortunate enough to have some children bringing in cakes who weren't even members of Year 6.  We were very proud of the children for their hard work and some regular visitors even commented that it was some of the best service they had ever had at Springbank! Well done to all.

The decision to hold our annual sponsored fun run early this year paid off.  The weather was perfect for such an event; it was dry but cloudy so made for great running conditions.  The children as always were fantastic and put in their best efforts; stamina and perseverance shone out! 

A huge thank you to everyone who has contributed;
The money raised is going towards some storage for scooters/bikes and if there is any left over we are going to look into getting some I-pads for the children to use in school.

Scarecrow making day was great fun! The school hall looked like a big jumble sale in the morning; we had so many clothes, shoes, hats and all kinds of things that had been sent in from home.  Thank you to everyone who sent in things for us to use.
 
All the children have worked in groups of 9 or 10 to make a scarecrow for Farsley Festival next weekend.  The groups were mixed up with some children from every year group, providing the children a chance to work with different children in school which they really enjoyed.  They had lots of wonderful ideas and as usual were very creative. 
 
A big thank you to those parents who were able to come in and help, it was really appreciated and we couldn’t have done it without you!  Here are some photo’s to give you a taste of what the children did.

All the left over clothes were collected by Hobsons and this raised £72.42 for School Fund so thank you.

The children worked incredibly hard to put together this fantastic production written by our very own Mr Chapman.  Miss Jenkins choreographed all the dances and Mr Chapman worked with the children on their acting.  I have to say we have a huge amount of talent here at Springbank!  The final performances were brilliant and all the children should be extremely proud of the contribution and effort they put into this production.  We hope you enjoyed it too!

The weather finally improved and we were able to hold our competitive Sports day.  As usual the children gave it their all and showed great sporting attitudes by encouraging and supporting each other as well as congratulating the winners of the races.  Thank you to Mr Walker, a Year 4 parent, who took some fabulous photographs capturing the occasion.

The Springbank Athletics team are straining under the weight of GOLD after winning the Pudsey Olympics at the John Charles Centre for Sport on Thursday afternoon. Teams from lower and upper key stage one joined together with the Westroyd Infants team to take on the best of the rest from local schools. Some truly remarkable performances were on display (ask Mr Chapman if you would like a blow by blow account of one of the best Year 5 and 6 relay runs ever witnessed!) with every member of our team and supporters giving 100% focus and dedication. A nervous wait ensued as the points were tallied and speeches made before the announcement finally came that the combined Westroyd and Springbank team had been crowned overall Champions! We are always extremely proud of our children for their dedication and sportsmanship when representing our school; on this occasion the victory was an added bonus! Well done to everyone who took part and the trophy will be on display in the front entrance if you would like to take a look.

Health Week 2013 got off to a great start this morning with our 'Wake Up Shake Up'. All the children (and staff) joined in brilliantly and everyone had great fun. Wake Up Shake Up will be on every morning during Health Week so please feel free to join us - the more the merrier!