For Red Nose Day this year, School Council challenged the children to get out their wooden spoons for a 'Great Springbank Bake-Off'. We were amazed by the results, so many of the children had brought in some amazing cakes for judging, eating and selling. The standard was incredibly high but finally 2 overall winners were found. Then the children moved onto a new stage of the day... the cake sale. The children started by buying some of the smaller cakes and buns themselves, before we opened the door to some very generous parents.

The children also enjoyed the chance to have funny faces as part of the day. There was some very creative face painting and even some facial hair!

We were very proud of all of the children pitching in to raise money for such an excellent cause. So far the total is £648.76 and still rising. Well done Springbank!

Today all of the Springbank children came to school in their onesies, to raise money for research into type one diabetes. The children all had a lesson where they learnt about the condition, which currently affects four children in school. They found out what living with the condition was like and talked about their own differences. In the afternoon, the whole school came together to find out more about diabetes from Mrs Bradshaw, a type one diabetic and nurse. The children all behaved beautifully throughout the assembly asking sensible, sensitive questions and listening carefully.

The whole day in school has been a great opportunity, not only to raise money, but also awareness of the condition.

Find out more about this condition using these websites:

https://www.jdrf.org.uk/

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Diabetes-type1/Pages/Symptoms.aspx

Year 5 and 6 were visited this week by a pair of actors taking part in some drama workshops. The play told the story of a boy (Callum) who had gone to spend a few days with his Grandad and the resulting discoveries they make about each other's life. The actor playing the part of Grandad interacted with the children in the audience constantly throughout the drama by asking them to explain to him what they thought was happening and why Callum was behaving in the way he was. They were also asked to advise him about how he should speak to the boy character and what he should do next in the story. Underlying the drama was a theme of domestic violence which was cleverly entwined into the story by the use of Pinocchio toys; this allowed the children to give advice to the characters about a serious subject but in an age-appropriate, sedate and controlled manner. The children were enthralled from beginning to end and came up with some fantastic ideas and advice for the characters in the production. Afterwards, the gentlemen who ran the workshops were extremely complimentary about our school and the quality of discussion and thoughtfulness shown by our children.  Well done Year 5 and 6!

The Farsley Springbank athletics team saw their exciting run in the indoor athletics competition come to an end with an impressive performance in the city finals at Leeds Trinity on Tuesday. The best of the best came together, with Springbank having won the Leeds West Area competition before Christmas, to go head to head in the University sports hall. A fiercely competitive set of teams slugged it out in all aspects of athletics with our Year 5's and 6's holding their own with a combination of blood, sweat and tears. The announcements at the end of the day were tense to say the least but when it came down to points we ultimately finished in third place, marginally missing out on progression to the final round of competition. This equalled our highest ever place finish and disappointment soon turned to pride when we realised the scale of our achievement; to put it into context, out of 250 schools in Leeds we can proudly say that we are now in the top six! This is undoubtedly an exceptional result. The athletics team now take a short spring break before returning to refocus efforts on retaining the Year 3-4 and 5-6 outdoor athletics crown at John Charles Centre for Sport in the summer.