Pupil Quotes: 2019/2020
As a school we are naturally interested in what pupils have to say and in their own self evaluation of the learning. Please find below quotes from our children about many aspects of the curriculum and school life, drawn from interviews and from their report writing.
General
“My advice is to just have fun and go for it as soon as you step in. Don’t think about SATS or exams, just get in there, make some friends and enjoy.” Yr 6 Leaver
“I am really grateful for all the opportunities. People will always help, will always go out of their way.” Yr 6 Leaver
“Minch is different because we are all so close as a community.” Yr 6 Leaver
“I will miss the teachers and their electric wit.” Yr 6 Leaver
“I think the school have taught us to just be you, to not try to be someone you’re not.” Yr 6 Leaver
“I am really enjoying being in year 5/6 because I love learning more things. I am also enjoying being in Turquoise class because I like being with my friends and Mr Weinberger.”
“I like being in year six because of fun activities in lessons and its fun because you have more responsibilities like house captains and stuff.”
“The reason I’m doing cookery is because I’ve not done anything like this before in a club and I want to try something new. I’ve started doing piano this year to because I decided I want to try something new.”
“I would say that I am curious. The deeper I go, the more questions I have.”
When asked what he has enjoyed doing most this year, ??????’s response was “everything, it’s so hard to choose!” When asked what he enjoyed doing most at school, ????? replied, “I love everything!”
“I have found y5 quite challenging with all the things I did not know that I’ve been learning. Some of it I did in Year 4 but as you go up it gets harder. I have more hard work to do but I feel I can do anything.”
“I enjoy being in my class because I like to learn in a happy environment.”
“My top strength is bravery and courage and my second was group loyalty and friendship. I think I really agree with it because I am always helping people and I like working in a group.”
“I agree with all of the strengths on the strengths survey we did (humour and playfulness; enthusiasm and zest; leadership; forgiveness and mercy; teamwork and group loyalty) because they nailed it on putting humour and playfulness as #1! I always try to cheer my friends up via laughter. I can’t help it but they start to laugh. Seriously people, can’t they take one little joke without being hysterical?!”
“I like being in year 6 because of the teachers. Thanks to them, I am a lot more confident in maths. It helped a lot with the Eleven plus! Sadly, it is my last year here and I already know how much I will miss it. I love being in Turquoise class because no lesson is EVER dull.”
“A couple of weeks ago, we all did a strength survey and my top 5 strengths were: love of learning, critical thinking and objective judgement, industry and perseverance, gratitude and honesty, authentic and genuineness. I was surprised by critical thinking and objective judgement because I never would have thought that would be one of my strengths . I use love of learning at school everyday by loving school. I would like to improve bravery because it is an important strength to have.”
“I felt that my top strengths were a true reflection. It was nice to have them confirmed. I feel that I am a grateful person. It shows that we are all have strengths even though we are different. We may share some same strengths. It made me think about the strengths that weren’t in the top 5. Could I do anything to improve?”
“We feel equal in class. Other people don’t come across as better as me. They may know more about something but the teachers want us to share our learning.”
“Learning in our class is really fun. Our teachers make it fun and enjoyable. There is an ‘air’ in the room that they create. They are interested in what we have to say. In science my teacher asked us what we knew and she learnt things from us as well as us learning from her. It’s like a circle – we may have different ways to learn and we get to share that with others- we get to throw the learning back.”
“We need to keep true to the strengths. I want to keep them so I need to continue working on them. I don’t want to lose them as I appreciate the fact that I see the beauty in everything.”
Autonomy
“We are given a bit of freedom, given choices about when and how we learn something. I think having a bit of choice helps you to learn.” Yr 6 Leaver
Wellbeing/ relationships
“I feel people look out for each other and this makes them smiley.” Yr 6 leaver
“I have learnt that there are many people you can be friends with. Every person you meet is a new opportunity. I think talk partners help this.” Yr 6 Leaver
“I have learnt that everyone is different and unique to one another and i have learnt to appreciate that. I have learnt to encourage others so that they have confidence in life.” Yr 6 Leaver
“I have learnt how to make great friendships and what a great friendship is.” Yr 6 Leaver
Reading
“This year I’ve found my new favourite book- it’s called Holes its by Louis Sachire It’s about a boy who gets sent to a juvenile correction camp where all he does is dig holes but then he finds the founder of the camp has a secret and he’s going to find it out. My favourite class book this year has been The Day I was Erased because it’s funny and has a lot of mystery which are my two favourite things in books.”
“I have been reading the His Dark Materials trilogy ( ten out of ten), The Murderer’s Ape (ten of ten) and the Princess Diaries series (infinity out of ten). I like action-packed books and love stories. I have enjoyed our class reads, and I particularly enjoyed Journey to the River Sea. However, I didn’t like The Man who Planted Trees for I felt it had no real story. My teacher Mr Weinberger is very good at choosing and recommending books.”
“In English, we are looking at ‘The Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carroll. We have been looking at portmanteau words (frabjous) that he puts in and the nonsense words he has invented (outgrabe) It has been very silly but so interesting. I would rate it 5 stars!” Yr 6
“At the Cheltenham Literature Festival I liked seeing the author who wrote The Storm Whale. It was good that he showed us how to do the illustrations.”
“I’ve loved reading dragon books— they’re intense when the main characters find a dragon. I like the Podkin series too. In class I liked The Boy Who Was Erased—it was emotional; Journey to the River Sea has made me feel like I’m there with Maia but she can’t see me; I like the poems Mr W reads at reading time. I want to read some Artemis Fowl books and the rest of the Secret Seven. I enjoyed writing about Maia from Journey to the River Sea, and the warning story I wrote.”
“I think I’ve shown love of learning this year and enthusiasm too. In my learning journal I’ve enjoyed thinking more about the stories we’ve been reading in class.”
“We have been reading Podkin One-Ear in class and it is so good; I love the bits where the writer describes the sounds being made. The ending was great when Podkin fought Scramashank and chopped his leg off! The very last page was a shock when we found out who the bard was!”
“The best thing this year for me has been being able to read even more Michael Morpurgo books – I have collected so many more words for my writing from his books.”
“When we went to the Cheltenham Literature Festival I enjoyed listening to the authors explaining how they made their books. I liked WOW by Tim Hopgood the most.”
“On Tuesday this week Sky class were lucky enough to have a library session with Mrs Webb, who kindly set up a mobile bookshelf to share with us! Mrs Webb told us a lot about some of the books in our school library, like poetry books, picture books and also a book that you could make up your own stories with. One of the books Mrs Webb showed us was ‘The Spider and the Fly.’ She talked to us about how the black and white illustrations helped with the spooky feeling of the poem, as well as the fly wallpaper and the furniture made out of dead flies! We also looked at the books ‘No Ballet Shoes for Syria,’ ‘Hate That Cat,’ ‘Granny Torrelli Makes Soup,’ ‘Wikd Boy,’ ‘Wonder,’ ‘The Boy at the Back of the Class,’ ‘Twelve Minutes to Midnight,’ ‘The Umbrella Mouse’ and much more.”
“The genres we looked at included magic, adventure, humour, poetry and many more. Lots of people at the end of the session borrowed some books.” Yr 6
Vocab
“We listen to different books each day and we do one word of the day each day.”
“If you don’t know the word you need to figure it out and it can be the word of the day. We do research on it. The kids tell us what it means or the teacher does. We talk about it.”
“I like word of the day. It is really interesting. You find them in books and stories. I use them in my books I write and in stories.”
“I liked the word “timid”. I like word of the day because I like finding out about words and I like writing sentences and I can write them in my sentences. Sometimes I use them when I talk. “I was too timid to knock on Mr Moss’s door.”
“No Mummy not that word I know that word already. That can’t be a word of the day.” (Choosing words of the day from a bedtime story at home.)
“Astounded is a word of the day. I like long words.”
“A word of the day comes from a book. They are interesting words because they are long and make me smile. I make a story with words of the day in my study at home.”
“We get words of the day from books because there are lots of interesting words in books.”
“Determined… “I am determined to walk.”
“We are determined to learn to read in Midnight Class.”
“We are imagining we are in the snow.” (Role Play)
“We all agreed; the book was funny.” (Story time)
“We are nibbling our crackers today.” (snack time)
“A creature has nibbled this pine cone.” (Outdoor learning)
“Eventually we were all ready for PE.” (Changing for a PE lesson)
“I am plunging my hands into the gloop.” (Messy play)
Oracy
“In English, I loved doing our rap battle against the other year 3/4 classes. Mr Moss even came to watch it and be the judge. We also got to perform it in front of the whole school and that made me feel good. I think that practising performing the rapping helped me write my poem about winter.”
“The Talent show at Christmas was a lovely way to show people what we could do. I did some acting/dancing with my friend. We were pleased with what we achieved.”
“I like having a talk partner who can help me if I get stuck, and I can help if they get stuck. The talk partner system is great because you get to know what they are like to work with.”
“One of my favourite parts of this year was our class assembly because it was fun to see people love what we do and show how hard we work.”
“I have had a lot of time to try out different people as talk partners and get to know them better. I always hope that my talk partner will be another year 6 girl, but there have been some surprises.”
Writing
“I love writing because when I write I make it exciting.”
“I have recently been writing lots of different things in English , but I am most proud of my bird in a cage poem, because it was powerful and I spent a lot of time on it.”
“Poetry is important. They like poetry at Minchinhampton and they seem to like my poetry.” Yr 6 Leaver
“I feel the most proud of making my Aztec style graphic novel, it was a very hard challenge but I overcame it. It was hard because I had to sew, glue, stich, draw and write to finish this project but I love the finished product!”
“I’m most proud of my poetry because at the beginning of the year I found poetry boring and hard but now I really enjoy it.”
“In writing I have written my Toms midnight garden story, the canal ,our journey to the river sea letters and writing about that. My toms midnight garden storey I was very proud of and the journey to the river sea writing I have been proud of and satisfied with as well.”
Maths
“I also like the fact that I get to go as far as I want in Maths when I am interested in an area.”
“I like five. I really like that number and I am five and the number five is everywhere. Three and two make five and four and one make five.”
“In maths the thing I’m most proud of is improving my problem solving skills. When we first started doing Barvembers I found them very challenging but towards the end they got easier and that didn’t just make Barvembers easier it made doing any problems easier because I learnt different ways of using a bar model for problems.”
“I am enjoying being challenged in Maths this year as it makes it much more fun. I have loved the numbers to zero game as it makes you think and your brain fizz!”
“I like maths—I really like it. I’m quite fascinated by it. I’ve definitely found telling the time hard…until now. I always thought I’d get it, but didn’t. This year I’d given up hope but it’s finally clicked.”
“I like maths because sometimes the problems are really hard. I don’t like easy questions because that makes me bored.”
“I love it being difficult….I like solving the barvembers..”
“I just like maths overall- like harder stuff but also like helping people. I prepare maths buddy work at home.”
“I like doing skills cards because I like achieving stuff. I’m very competitive.”
“Good to be able to talk through my maths…and to have the talk partner there in case you don’t understand or need to talk the thing through.”
“I like twist its and explore it’s because they are challenging.”
“I like maths buddies – helping younger children with things like their times tables. It’s difficult cos need to challenge yourself to work out how to teach it. Have found it especially hard teaching division. I try to recap myself, my understanding and how I learnt it and then think through how I will teach it. I had to break down the steps. We can do it our own way including having board games in the week and skills practice at other times. It helped my learning- I think I understand it better myself now.”
“I am enjoying it…fractions was fun….we learn songs, hinge questions can be challenging—these are basically multi-choice questions with traps to fall into. It shows the teacher why pupils are struggling. Gecko maths can be challenging—especially when you work in a group with less confident mathematicians… but I like doing this.”
“Sometimes I sit there feeling I know this… this more gives me confidence but sometimes I can get a bit bored. Usually there is a challenge in every lesson—really enjoy ‘twist its’ and ‘explore its’ because you can keep going and explore….but also nice feeling you can do it with a do it before going on the more challenging stuff.”
“In Maths – Do it, Twist it and Explore it. We get to explore solutions for problems and therefore we get to find something out for ourselves rather than being told it. It is much better. I like working with a talk partner.”
“I have struggled with Maths and find it difficult when someone just tells me. I have to be able to learn it myself in my way so I feel more comfortable.”
History
“I really enjoyed our topic of the Aztecs because we got to cook and eat Aztec food more than once.”
“We learnt about Tutankamun – that they didn’t get the burial right because his feet were hacked off — we thought perhaps it was his uncle who did this. It wasn’t Howard Carter who discovered Tute- it was the water boy who then went and told Carter.”
“I loved being able to take part in the archaeological dig and act like a real archaeologist.”
“History is interesting. Finding out about the past– a time when I wasn’t here and learning about what they did in those days, is really fun. I can then experience that too. The Aztecs invented chocolate. We got to make the food such as salsa, guacamole and tortillas, that they made and taste some of their culture. It was delicious apart from the salsa– I didn’t really like that!”
“At Avoncroft Museum I liked making our own bricks and doing the wattle and daub. You got to see how in the olden days people got their homes built before they had bricks.”
“I find it much better when we get to be practical and do things to help with our learning rather than just receiving a load of facts to work with. Our Aztec box is personal to us. They are all different. They show us what we have learnt personally. I will probably remember the learning better through this way. Each box is unique because each pupil is unique.”
Science
“Science is fascinating like maths. Pinhole cameras and light is quite cool. I’m looking forward to trying to take a photograph.”
“In science, I liked watching to see how the experiments go, like if this experiment doesn’t work, I will try again with something else or add something on.”
“We took apart owl pellets in science and found bones and what the owl had been eating and identified different animal bones by their features. We taped them down in our book.”
“We learnt about the digestion system. We did an experiment – we got a plastic bag and put in banana and cream crackers– then water for spit and orange juice for the acid. We mashed them and squeezed them down one leg of the tights– we squeezed out the liquids which represented nutrients. We learnt the difference between big and small intestines.”
“We have been learning about light. We made pinhole viewers out of pringle tubes. We coated them in tin foil to reflect the light away from the viewer. The viewers showed that light travels in a straight line — so you see it upside down on the viewer. We used our knowledge to make pinhole cameras which need to be light tight. The photographic paper absorbs light so you must be careful. We varied the distance from the camera and the time we left the hole open to find out the best outcomes.”
“I enjoyed making the pinhole cameras. I found it fascinating how you could see a picture through the Pringles tube. Our camera worked out the first time. I had to try bending over through 180 degrees to see the picture the right way up. I like building stuff and doing arts and crafts so this would have helped me to build it. In Science we have been investigating forces (so far gravity and friction). We asked questions like ‘why doesn’t the flag fly on the moon?’ and ‘why do astronauts bounce when they walk on the moon?’ We did a crater experiment using flour and weights. Science is super fun – I wish there was more of it.” Yr 6
“I belong to STEM club and I have enjoyed the science bit where we made potions which exploded and it was fun!”
“I wasn’t too impressed when I first found out that I had to dissect an owl pellet, but it wasn’t long before my partner and I got really into it and were so impressed with the bones and skulls we found. I couldn’t believe how many creatures the owl had eaten!”
“I enjoyed the owl pellets lesson because it was a gruesome lesson. I don’t know many schools that would let their pupils dissect owl pellets and look for bones belonging to the prey of a barn owl!”
“I have also enjoyed the Science lessons where we mummified apples and got to see whether or not they rotted in the different substances. It was gross to see the final results! I like the fact we get to do our own experiments in class and find out the results for ourselves rather than being told them.”
“Learning about micro plastics in Science week was fascinating. You got to learn about how we need to cut back on our plastic use. Who knows what will happen if we don’t cut back now?”
“I really liked science week, it was one of my favourite weeks in school, especially when we took all of our work into the hall to show the rest of the school. We designed a sun cream bottle that was totally biodegradable. It was made from hollow bamboo from China. The sun cream inside the bottle didn’t have any micro plastics in because these can escape into the sea and damage the animals. Also in science I really enjoyed the time that we made the room dark and used mirrors and torches to make an experiment—our experiment was to find out how far we can make light bounce to. We shone the torchlight on one mirror and saw how many mirrors it would bounce on to. We also tried to recreate the Pepper’s Ghost illusion. This kind of worked because we made a pencil look like it had changed its length.”
“I really liked going to the Living Rainforest and finding out about how humid and hot it was, and comparing the temperature in England and Brazil. I have learnt about lots of animals that live in the rainforest. The rainforest would be a good place to do a photography tour but maybe too hot to live. On the trip I was lucky to get a picture of the sloth dangling. I really like watching the animals as they roamed about.”
“I liked the making the video in science and learning how the eye works. In our video, we show people how the eye works and then show them how to make a pinhole camera and what one looks like. Then we show them how light works and how we see things. It was fun to work with the children in my group because they are good at suggestions and listening to my ideas.”
“I like doing science because at the moment we are doing light in science and last term we did a science week when we learnt about the seven types of plastic and 4 scientists came in who were doing their PhDs and it was really interesting learning about micro-plastics.”
“I was really proud of our group’s pinhole camera—ours was the clearest. When you looked through it you could see the image and colours easily. Because the image reflects off the back of the camera, you see it upside down. One of the challenges that we had was that we couldn’t get the pin through the bottom. When we finally did we had loads of dents in the bottom which made the image unclear, we were able to fix this and sharpen the image using duct tape.”
“This year I loved science week because it was fun making all of the poster with my friends. We were given the challenge of designing a new sun cream bottle and teaching other people about plastics. Our group won the challenge and went to SLG to find out more about science and show off our posters to the people who gave us the challenge.”
Geography
“When the lady from WWT came to talk about the Madagascan Pochard it was cool to find out how they saved a bird that was lost for a long time and almost extinct. It inspired me by what people can do.”
“We have been looking at Climate Change in Geography where we have learned that our world is heating up, which means that polar bear and penguins’ homes are melting. This makes me feel sad and we need to do something about it.”
“I really liked comparing the Rainforest to London– it is so cool to learn about the differences with their weather. The Amazon is an average 27 degrees whereas London is 11 degrees– that is quite a big difference. The trip to the Living Rainforest was so good because you got to see all the animals and what their habitats looked like.”
French
“One of my favourite parts of the French lessons is when we get to learn a new song as they are so catchy!”
“I really enjoyed learning about food in French. I can remember frites means chips, orange is orange (!) and bread is pain! We made a film about our school and practised saying our directions in French as we did it. We tried to not speak English at all.”
ICT
“I liked learning about data and how to do stuff on computers when we went to the computing day at SWR. It was complicated because we all did different things and had to make a spreadsheet and formulas. There were different challenges set.”
“I enjoyed making the Kodu worlds during ICT. I especially like the freedom to be able to go in the mazes. They are tricky and it is fun to work out how to get through them. I worked well with my partner with this. We learnt how to programme a robot to help us escape from the maze.”
“ICT is a lovely way for me to express myself and get my ideas out of my imagination. For my Kodu world when I was working with a friend, although they were the one that would click the buttons, they were all my ideas and I did the coding. We were both pleased with our final worlds. I couldn’t have done it without them.”
Music
“I like acting and singing and everyone pulling together.” Yr 6 Leaver
“Playing my guitar is really fun because I get to learn loads of songs. If I request a song Michael (my teacher) will usually teach it to me. Also it’s exciting at the moment because we are turning the poems that we wrote with Mr Moss into songs.”
“I liked playing my flute in music, I have played it to Livin’ on a Prayer and To Make You Feel My Love. I have also played it in assembly. I kind of shake when I’m doing it but don’t feel scared. I feel happy when the audience claps because I have just managed to get through the whole song.”
“I am doing my Grade 3 guitar in June and am also doing orchestra and will go to play in an orchestra at Rendcomb College. We are going to play the Dr Who theme tune and some other pieces. I am quite nervous to do my Grade 3 although I think that I’ve got the hang of the pieces and now need to practise my scales and arpeggios.”
“I am also proud of how well I am doing in my music lessons. I can’t wait to play for the class. Learning the violin with all of my friends is great fun.”
“I love Music because I get to have new ideas of what to play on my piano. I play my piano when I go to my Nan’s house. I play Dance Monkey– first of all in small bits which I then put together. I am teaching myself how to do it. I especially like calm music– it makes me feel relaxed.”
“I love to sing and Music has been really fun this year. I loved learning ‘Make you feel my love’ by Adele. The tune is just so catchy and that is what got me to start loving that song. I enjoy my violin lessons and I have learning that since Year 2. I would like to play my violin in front of the class.”
“I do choir and I like the song that goes “Ding, digger, dan”. In recorders I have learnt low D better now and I know B, A, G, E and low D.”
RE
“The best thing about RE is learning about the Bible, about lots of different stories. It’s really interesting- I’d give it 8 or 9/10.”
“I did a collage of a harpy eagle—I had quite a bit of green in the body which represented deforestation and the loss of trees in the world, I had blue in it which represented the sea and the sky and then I had some purple on the tail which represented pollution and on the legs I had some red card which represented the blood of animals that have been killed by poachers.”
Art
“I really enjoy Art. I have loved making the bird collage. I find it a really peaceful subject.”
“I enjoy Art as much as I enjoy writing. Art runs in my family blood. I think it will be my dream job when I am older. I am going to be an animator when I grow up. We did stop motion animation in Literacy and although it was challenging to get the characters in the right place, I did enjoy it.”
“I love art because there is so much you could do—there are infinite possibilities, like you could do a penguin on the moon eating a burger. ITS CRAZY.”
“I have enjoyed D.T. because I like making and building things, sewing and sawing. I LOVED making our clay ocarinas even though I hate the feel of clay. I also LOVED art this year, making rainforest animal collages. I made a tapir, a rainforest animal in Asia and South America (thank you library book).”
“Occarinas/shakers – Aztec instruments. We were allowed to design it in our own way. We have freedom. Helps us to remember it better in our own way.”
Joseph said, “We have learnt about tints and shades and dabbing.” Lucy said, “I like this style of art. I thought it would be fun to paint a big landscape. Doing it in the open air was hard because the landscape was so big and it was hard to choose what to focus on. We used viewfinders to help us do this. Also straight away we had created a shade or a tint with our colour mixing, the light would change and it would look different.” Joseph said, “It was definitely different because I‘d never done that before and it was hard because we were on the top of a hill and it was windy and cold. However it was eye-opening to go outside and actually see what you were painting.” – Yr 6 art project
PE
“Over all, my favourite subject is Indoor PE. I love playing on the ropes in the hall. As I climb up them, I feel as if I pierce through the sky into another world. However, ground rules still apply in the air. I make sure that I am careful and that I don’t fall, otherwise my Mum would ban me from ever climbing ropes or going on a trapeze again, which would SMASH my dreams of being a trapeze artist.”
“Climbing the wall, bushcraft and making dens in woods were probably my favourite activities. When we finished our den, half was waterproof and half wasn’t –it was ok though because I just put my waterproof on!”
“I went to basketball club because I wanted to get better at basketball and I was chosen for the team yesterday. I ended up getting the second most goals for our team (10 nets—2 three pointers and the rest two pointers) and was one of the four players chosen to be man of the match for the whole tournament. I am pleased with the progress that I am making in basketball.”
“I loved sleeping in a tent with my friends at Viney Hill and working really hard to complete hard core stuff! I liked working as a team and my group got better at this through the week. In team building we encouraged each other and our ideas and changed plans when things weren’t working. Caving was my favourite activity. When we fell in whilst canoeing it was really cold! I was challenged at Viney Hill. For example, I tried climbing up the climbing wall with one hand—I managed it though! I really enjoyed Viney Hill; it helped me to grow my confidence. When we did the water activities, we jumped in and I went deeper than I thought I could go. I went into the cave and took a wrong turn and got confused. Luckily the instructors helped me with their torchlight! I learnt not to crash into trees when biking!”
“I was proud of when our team at the rugby match won! We won first place at Rendcomb! We were a good team because we all worked together; we didn’t just try to get tries on our own. We had 2 people that had never played before and we still worked together.”
“In PE I like doing laps of the track before doing the PE lesson because I like running—it makes me feel happy. I enjoy doing running and ball activities. This year was the first time that I represented the school at football (I have represented the school at hockey before); it was fun!”
“I am enjoying sport in school and have gone to basketball, netball and football club this year. I am proud to be picked to represent the school.”
“At Viney Hill I learnt how to army crawl up hills and avoid being found by the people looking for you. I also learnt that in order to complete some things, you have to work as a team.”
“In P.E. we have been doing some parkour running. I find the rolling difficult because I worry that I will hurt myself but I like to give it a go. In the lessons, I like to use the wall to jump up and push myself away from it. I really enjoyed the Beyonce dancing– I even performed it in front of the whole school in the class assembly. It was actually really tiring but I enjoy performing.”
“In P.E I really enjoyed doing the hip hop Beyonce dance. It was good fun to be able to perform in the rain outside to show the younger children. They all had a go afterwards—we tried to teach one of the children, but it was a bit hard as she had a broken leg! In outdoor P.E we are making up our own games using cones and chalk. I really enjoy designing these games.”
“P.E is still my favourite subject. I just love to play different sports like netball and basketball and we have been making up our own games using cones and circles. The different defending and attacking teams have to use the court to try and hit the cones over. We made up a point scoring system. Football is still my favourite thing to do in my spare time. I would do it all the time if I could! Parkour running has also been a lot of fun—it uses up a lot of energy and can be quite hard.”
“I have been learning to ride my bike with Mr Jansen every Friday. I enjoy riding my bike now and gradually becoming more skilled. I plan to go out on the Common in the summer with my dad.”
“The best moment this year so far has been Viney Hill: there were so many new games I found out about. Also, I have a bit of claustrophobia but I challenged myself and still went caving, then, at the end, I even tried the challenging route. I was most proud of that.”
“Parkour running is really fun. When I do it, I feel like I am really free. It feels like I am actually some sort of spy. My group has got two cops versus one robber. We are starting to plan what is going to happen but we want the cops to win eventually. I enjoy all outdoor P.E.—there are some games that I find harder such basketball but I still enjoy doing it. I would like to get even better at that.”
“Bikeability was one of my favourite things to do so far in Year 5. I was really looking forward to it before I became a Year 5. I was feeling really nervous about riding my bike but it gave me the confidence to now go out on my own and on the roads on my bike.”
“At Viney Hill I liked mountain biking because it was really difficult. At some points you had to go really slowly. Once we had to put our brakes on whilst going up a hill. I accidentally went through a puddle on my bike and got drenched. When we got to the top we played on our bikes in a mud bowl—it showed me I was confident and could keep control on slopes that were almost vertical. When we got back to the camp, I felt really happy that I had achieved it and I felt that I had done well because I had tackled all of the hills and hadn’t come off.”
“I was really happy that I got to go to the netball tournament and we came third. Everyone had a go at playing all of the positions, my favourite was probably Goal Defence. I hope that I can go to more tournaments.”
“Ian most proud of abseiling of a cliff at Viney Hill because I am really scared of heights. Also I am proud of reading 11 books over 2 weeks and 2 days! My best moment of the year so far was going to Viney Hill and trying ALL the activities there.”
“My best moment of this year has been playing for the school in the basketball tournament (we came second and third).”
“I really liked going away on residential trips; challenging myself to abseil down a quarry face. It’s good to be with your friends, even better to be having these experiences together. Poetry is important. They like poetry at Minchinhampton and they seem to like my poetry.” Yr 6 Leaver
DT/ Cooking
“I do a lot of cooking at home and so I found it fun to do in school. It was different from writing. I tasted all the things we made– salsa, guacamole and tortillas. It was all delicious—well maybe I wasn’t a big fan of the guacamole!”
“I really liked making all of the different foods that I wouldn’t have known about if I had not gone to cooking club. One of my favourites was probably Rocky Road with honeycomb—I had finished them all by the next day! I also really liked making guacamole when we did the Aztec cooking because I love avocadoes. Making the wraps and flipping them was fun too. It was quite hard to make the Aztec salsa because you could easily get it wrong if you added too much of one ingredient.”
“I like design and technology because you get to design lots of different things, like a clay pot and a paper bag puppet. It was fun when we made Marshmallow Krispie cakes, toast and Instant Whip too!”
“Design and Technology is great because you can design things on a blueprint and then you can make them and improve them.”
Mindfulness
“I am proud of my mindfulness sessions because I think carefully about my breathing and it helps me.”
I enjoy doing Mindfulness because it helps you to know what you are meant to be doing and to know what your standard is. I liked mindful eating. Although I found it a bit cruel (having to look at my food for so long before eating it) it was a good practice to focus on one thing and training your mind.
P4C
“This year I’ve also enjoyed doing P4C because I like sharing my opinion and listening to other peoples. We’ve discussed lots of different things and normally you don’t get to talk about things like animal cruelty and climate change just on the playground so it’s nice to hear opinions you don’t often get to hear.”
“In P4C, I liked it when we had a picture of a town on the board and we had to spot all the different values like friendship and respect. For friendship there was a man getting a cat out of a tree and for respect there were people holding up signs saying ‘Save the World’. I like giving my ideas in P4C.”
“I enjoy P4C club because its peaceful and you have to concentrate which helps you to learn how to concentrate in other situations. Its good for debating because you have to talk to people that you might not normally talk to in a respectful manner and everything that you do is calm, including the games. You have to respect what other people thing and say. Sometimes we do the Odd One Out and you mustn’t judge them for their opinion—you can’t say I’m right, you’re wrong, you have to explain your reason. I also enjoy doing P4C lessons in class.”
“P4C is an unique learning place. It really gets me thinking deeply and often makes me think- ‘is that really what I think?’ You can experience lots of different things such as confusion or frustration because you just can’t think of the right word. You can learn something you didn’t know before, you can build on whatever other people are saying. You can learn a lot but most of all, I enjoy it.”
“I love doing that. P4C gets my brain working a bit more and the games we play really do help me think.”
“I prefer it when the teacher listens to me. The lessons I most enjoy are the ones when the teachers listen to what I have to say. P4C – I enjoy this a lot because it is about listening. I would like to have more P4C sessions across all of the subjects.”
Values
“So when our Value was ‘Friendship’ we made some friendship bracelets. I got to teach the class how to do it. I enjoyed watching everyone to struggle because it helped me to show how much everyone needed still to learn. The day before, I had taught a group of four how to do it and then this groups tried to help me with the whole class. I would definitely like to do something like this again.”
Problem solving
“When it comes to problem solving, I like being in a team as we get to bounce ideas off of each other.”
Committees
“I am in the eco-warriors committee and we have been learning about the bins in school and making sure that all of the classrooms have been putting the right things into the right bins.”
“I have enjoyed my committee this year so far. It is called ‘The World’ and we get to know about places that we don’t know about such as Thailand, Gran Canaria and Japan.”
“Community Committee aims to help people around you and in your area. You try to help by things like litter picking. I think this is good because it teaches you the right thing to do in your local area and for your local environment.”
“Worship Committee tries to teach other children about God and what different Christian celebrations actually mean. Irt was really good and exciting knowing that you were going to be ‘performing’ in front of the whole school.”
School Council
“It’s good that it’s a chance for children of all ages to make decisions for the school and it will probably help them later in life to be able to make big decisions like this. It makes people want democracy rather than autocracy or dictatorship because everyone gets a say and they can be more free. It takes us a while and if you want to get more done, it can hold you up but if you want to go into it in more depth, taking longer and analysing all the pros and cons would give you the full picture about the decision you are making. People will know a lot more about the decision and why it was made and people will be happier.”
Extra-curricular opportunities/clubs
“Outdoor learning is really fun because you can get to go outside and make things such as fairy houses and dream catchers.”