Pupil Zone
On the evening of March 28th 2017 the Ladbrooke JMI junior choir, led by Mrs Prior, were invited to showcase their talents at Mount Grace secondary school's Spring Concert as special honoured guests.
Please enjoy their performance of 'One Little Voice'
In the Winter term Year 3 interviewed Mrs. Durrani about the customs and daily life of Muslims.
Year 5 and 6 also had a visit from Mrs. Young who talked about the rules for living,
traditions and customs of Jewish people.
This Spring term Year 1 and Year 2 went to visit St. Mary’s church to look at the special places and features of a church. We asked Father Stefan lots of questions.
At the end of our visits Father Stefan read us a story about Jesus. We all had a lovely time.
This term Year 3 have been learning about the life of Jesus, and the Christian festival of Lent. We made our own pancakes by following a recipe, we mixed the ingredients to make a batter, and then fried them in a pan. Some of us even had a go at flipping them.
They were delicious with sugar and lemon. Yummm!
Father Stefan visited Year 3 to help us learn about the story of Easter week and why it is important to Christians. We made a timeline of the story of Easter using hand and foot prints.
On Wednesday 25th January, Years 3 and 4 were treated to a visit from the Fire Brigade to talk about fire safety.
A fire crew arrrived from Potters Bar Fire Station and explained about the job they did, how to keep safe if your house caught fire, what to do if you caught fire and how important it was not to play with fire or make prank calls.
The children were shown the fireman's fire uniform which consisted of heavy steel capped boots, thick padded leggings and a tunic. One fireman put on bis BA - breathing apppartus and everyone thought he sounded like Darth Vader! This equipment helps him to withstand fires of around 600 degrees celcius, although the children learned that a fire can burn at 1000 degrees at ceiling height. John explained what to do if your clothes catch fire and Robyn from Year 3 demonstrated the stop, drop and roll technique.
Attending fires is not the only job that the firemen do, they also attend road trafic accidents and in fact they explained that they are attending more and more of these, where the cause has been the driver texting or using their mobile phone. So each child was told they can tell parents off if they see them using their phone whilst driving - so parents WATCH OUT! They also showed us the 'Jaws of Life' as they are known in America, 'Spreaders', here in England. They are used to prize open crashed cars among other things. These can lift the weight of two fire engines - that's 24 tonnes!
In the summer the firemen said that they attend quite a few fires in woodland, where children have lit fires which have quickly got out of control and spread, so the message was: "Don't set fires and don't play with matches." This includes lighting scented candles at home, unless an adult is present.
Too often the fire crews are also called out on prank calls. This is usually where a child has dialled 999 for no reason. The crew explained that this means they cannot go to a real emergency and people could die, so it is really important that you only call the fire brigade to real emergencies.
The chidlren were really excited to meet the firemen and as an end to the talk the children were allowed to climb in to the fire engine.
During the week of 17 October the whole school participated in a combined science and history week. Each class chose a separate focus and their work is currently displayed in the reception area of the school.
In year 6 the focus was Space, with children looking at inventions that made space travel possible. They designed and made their own rockets, then launched them using effervescent tablets. Then they wrote instructions for others to follow.
Year 5 chose to look at the greatest inventions of all time, specifically those of Archimedes, which links with their current topic of Ancient Greece. The children made an Archimedes Screw out of a plastic bottle. Did you know that the 2012 Olympic Canoe course used a version of this device, to ensure that the waves were big enough for Olympic competition?
The science topic for year 4 this term is sound, so they learned about the history of the telephone. First they made a timeline which showed the development of the device, from the first device attributed to Alexander Graham Bell, learning that most of the technological developments have happened in the last 16 years. They also learned that there were other inventors of the time who also tried to lay claim to the invention. The children made string telephones and investigated whether changing the medium would affect the clarity of the sound.
The focus in Year 3 was Charles Mackintosh, a Scottish chemist and the inventor of the raincoat. The children tested different materials to find whether they were waterproof.
Florence Nightingale was the focus in Year 2. The children learned how her work helped to change the way nurses and hospitals operate. Did you know she was also a mathemetician and scientist? She gathered data about how better nutrition and hygeine helped to save the lives of injured soldiers and presented this using a pie chart so that it could easily be read. The children wrote to the Prime Minister of the time seeking better conditions in hospitals, they also drew pencil portraits of the heroine.
Year 1 looked at the work of Louis Pasteur, creating their own factfiles. The children also learned how germs are spread and the best way to wash their hands so they are clean.
Foundation stage's focus was the weather. In Foundation 1 they investigated Robert Fitzroy, the first person to forecast the weather. They made a rain guage to monitor the weather, then watched a weather forecast, before then presenting the weather themselves.
Foundation stage 1 investigated at the weather using their senses, looking closely at clouds and their colour, also made wind socks and noticed how shadows were formed when the sun came out.
As you can see there was a wide variety of learning taking place and the photos below show some of the work that the children did. What would you have chosen to learn about?
In 2014, we decided that the school needed a school song and we left it up to year six and Miss Andrews, our external music teacher, to compose and record a song. Over three days, the children thought about the elements of song wriitng and what makes Ladbrooke a special place to be. They then used the school vision and aims, along with their own ideas to write the song lyrics.
Miss Andrews then supported the children in composing the music to accompany the lyrics and children were invited to bring in instruments from home to play. If you listen carefully can you hear Millie Pratten on the clarinet?
Finally the year six classroom was converted into a recording studio for the afternoon and the different parts of the song were recorded and then taken away to be professionally mixed.
Over the summer, a special framed display was created showing the words to the song and some pictures from the day of the recording. At the bottom of the frame are sound buttons and the children love to press these and hear the school song. We have also started to teach the children the song in assembly and the verdict is ... we love it!!!
Here are some of the photos from the project and while you're watching, you can listen to our song by clicking the player below. You can even download it and put on your mp3 player to enjoy singing along anywhere.