Reception went on their first ever school trip; the children had a fabulous time at Farmer James' Farm. They learnt about baby animals and their names including: lambs, chicks, kids, foals and even kittens (which is the name for a baby rabbit!)

The children had great fun looking at and feeding the farm animals as well as playing in the hay barn and the Fun barn soft play area. They asked lots of great questions and enjoyed working with the adults on the trip to find the answers.  Thank you to all the parents and carers who came along to help us on the trip; it is much appreciated.  You can see more photos from the trip on Reception's class page.

On Thursday, 2nd March, 11 children took part in the Leeds City Cross Country Final at Middleton Park. We were very fortunate to have entrants in every age category after qualifying through the West Leeds final. The conditions on the day were cold, damp and extremely windy which made running cross country all the more challenging but every single runner finished their race and never gave up. The afternoon started with our Year 4 boys who all came in the top three quarters of places, running their hearts out and encouraging each other all the way. They were swiftly followed by Nia and Dylan who had qualified as individuals. Both children finished in the top 40 of their categories. Our afternoon ended with the Year 6 girls team who had qualified for the final in first place. By this point in the day, the wind was howling round the park but it didn't stop all of our girls finishing in the top 44 places out of well over 100 runners. This makes them some of the best Under 11 girls cross country runners in the entire Leeds City area! Every single runner's achievement was outstanding and they should be extremely proud of themselves; the school certainly are! We are now waiting to hear if any of our teams have made it through to the West Yorkshire final in 2 weeks time and we will let you know as soon as we do.

What an incredible World Book Day we had at Springbank this year! The school was bustling with the shared love of reading. The day started with an assembly where children showed off their outfits to the whole school. It was great to see such creativity and passion for reading. Throughout the day, the children engaged in numerous reading-related activities, including: creating new characters, performing poems, making quizzes and most importantly, ‘dropping everything and reading’ independently, as a class and to younger children. Each class also decorated their door with clues about a book of their choice. Over the course of the day, each year group walked around investigating each door and we came together for an afternoon assembly to solve this mystery as a school. Well done to everybody who has taken part in the sponsored read and who helped make World Book Day so special.

On Wednesday the Year 5 and 6 football team travelled to Priesthorpe for a seven-a-side tournament against schools from the local area. The children took part in three games and ended up with a record of won one, drew one lost one. The defeat against Farsley Farfield was a brave display, as was the stalemate against Calverley Parkside which required superb concentration to ensure a clean sheet. The victory over Bolton Royd included a spectacular goal from Year 6’s anchor man Thomas H and was a deserved result from the effort shown by the whole squad.

Year 1 and Year 5 were very lucky to take part in a live video conference with the National Space Centre! The children came up with 10 very thoughtful, intelligent questions, which they submitted to the 'commander' who then presented his answers via a live video link in the hall. The children (and teachers!) learnt some amazing facts about life in space. They found out what stars are made from, what experiments astronauts conduct in space, what a black hole is and last but not least... that astronauts need to wear nappies in space! Who knew?! . All the children are clearly engaging very well with the topic. If anyone is really interested in learning more about space, Leicester Space Centre is well worth a visit.

This week Year 5 took part in a heritage theme day in collaboration with Leeds Beckett University. Student teachers from the university joined Miss Clark, Mrs Hayton and the children to take part in a series of activities throughout the day that focused on their own personal history. The morning started by looking at the children's concept of heritage by looking at and talking about their teddies and special items from when they were younger. As the day progressed we looked at how this related to national history and the places and items that make up the history of England. The day was culminated by the children delving into the history of Farsley by looking at a series of maps and aerial photographs that documented how their local area had changed over time. The children really enjoyed looking into their personal history and talking about all the memories that make up part of that and we look forward to continuing our journey with Historic England and Leeds Beckett University in further heritage projects.

We submitted two films to the Golden Owl Awards 2017 – one film from Reception called ‘The Simply Superhero’ and one by a group of children from across Years 1 to 6 called ‘The Magic Library’.  We have recently found out the ‘The Magic Library’ has been shortlisted for the final event which is fantastic news.  The Golden Owl Award night is going to be held on Thursday, 30^th March at Leeds Town Hall and I am sure it will be a fabulous night for all those children involved.  Congratulations must also go to duo Molly Ashcroft and Tomi Smalldon as well as trio Poppy Fewtrell, Kaitlyn Walsh and Sarrah Mookhtiar who were nominated in the individual award category for their two films.

If anyone has not seen the films we entered and would like to, they are available to view on our school website in the Children’s section/ Creative ICT projects http://www.farsleyspringbank.co.uk/creative-ict-projects/ 

Lots of children turned up in their onesies to both the KS2 and Reception/KS1 film nights; the children enjoyed watching the films together in the school hall.  They particularly enjoyed treat of popcorn and ice-cream; it went very quiet!  We raised approximately £650 which is going towards our growing fund for new adventure playground equipment.