Over the last couple of months, our choir club have been learning some fabulous pieces of music, a number of which have been based upon BBC Ten Pieces, a selection of well-known classical music and a piece of music composed especially for the children of Leeds called 'Thumbs Up!' This week we have had a number of children taking part in two exciting music events at Leeds Town Hall. On Tuesday 47 children from all year groups went to the Town Hall to sing alongside many of Leeds schools in The Big Sing. The children have spent weeks rehearsing the songs for this event and they made us very proud with their impeccable behaviour and wonderful singing. On Wednesday, our choir of 11 children from Years 5 and 6 performed in The Finale Concert along with 4 children who were playing their flutes and clarinets in the Wind Band. The children have been to a number of rehearsals out of school in the run-up to this event and their hard work really paid off as they filled the concert hall with a truly incredible sound. Their behaviour and efforts were absolutely fantastic and they should feel very proud to have been part of such a wonderful concert. A big well done to all the children who have taken part in these music events.

The children had a great time at the disco last night as they danced their socks off.  We raised £279 which will go towards something for the children so thank you.

On Tuesday 28th April we were very excited to welcome some visitors to our school…the Look North presenters, Harry Gration, Amy Garcia and Paul Hudson along with Mike Prest from the Yorkshire Agricultural Society and Judy Thompson from the Great Yorkshire Show.

As you are probably aware, the school enters a competition to produce the best veg box for the Great Yorkshire Show each year and this year three of the Look North presenters have decided to have a go themselves!  The presenters have challenged each other to create the best veg box and so they needed the expert advice from Mike along with the assistance of some of our green fingered children to plant their pots. 

The presenters and some of our children were filmed in the school garden planting up their pots and hopefully the filming will be shown on a Look North programme after the election has taken place. 

The children involved were Joe and Alex from Y6 and Haashim, Nia, Rosa and Madelaine from Y3.   Alex and Haashim were on Harry’s team, Joe and Madelaine on Amy’s and Nia and Rosa on Paul’s.   It was all very exciting as the presenters became very competitive!  The boxes have gone back with the presenters now to nurture and hopefully produce some show stopping veg!

The children did Springbank proud!  They were wonderful; answering questions and giving advice in a very professional manner and were praised by the presenters and organisers of the Yorkshire Show.  Well done!

At school we will continue to plan and plant up our own veg box in the hope that we get selected for the competition at the Yorkshire Show in July. Fingers crossed!

This week the children have been taking part in lessons in order to increase their knowledge of Autism. All year groups have learnt that people have different strengths and weaknesses and that some of these are obvious and some of these are hidden. Years 3 and 4 have been learning this through the use of a resource called ‘Woodfer’s World. These are story books which allow the children to understand that people view things in different ways. Years 5 and 6 have used a different resource called ‘100% Awesomes’ which is a comic book that has superheroes with different strengths and weaknesses and the children decided which superhero was best to solve the four problems in the comic. The children really enjoyed raising their awareness of Autism and asked some extremely thoughtful questions.

More story books are available to read from the Woodfer’s World collection at: http://www.ambitiousaboutautism.org.uk/

75 children, parents and staff represented Farsley Springbank at the Golden Owl Awards ceremony last night at Leeds Town Hall.  Unfortunately we did not win our category ‘KS2/3 Live Action’ but we are extremely proud of the fact that we were a nominee in the final awards.  The children were gracious in defeat and gave the winning school a good round of applause.  It was a fabulous night and great experience to be part of such an event; everyone, children and parents had dressed up for the awards and looked great.  Well done to Mr Bradshaw and the team of children who produced our film entry- you all did Springbank proud!  There’s always next year…

We held our annual Easter Egg competition on Wednesday 1st April and the standard of entries was as high as ever.  Each class voted for their two winners and I honestly don’t know how they choose as there are always so many fantastic entries.  It was lovely to see that some children had used their learning challenge as inspiration for their design idea; several children in Year 4 created designs based around the Roman theme.  Some children were creative using a topical idea; a couple of designs were based on our school ‘eggspansion’ and another on the Golden Owl Awards.  There were too many other fabulous ideas to mention; yet again the children have surpassed themselves with their creative ideas.   Congratulations to all those who entered the competition.  This year winners were:

• 3C – Finlay and Archie B                    
• 3B – Eve and Ethan
• 4H – Oscar B and Madeline              
• 4CB – Corban and Kaitlyn
• 5R – Joshua A and Oscar L                 
• 5B – Harley and Kacie
• 6C – Thomas M and Ellie S/Lucy B    
• 6JC – Megan D and Billie/Ben R/Daniel C