SES Blog

We had great fun here at SES during our Literacy Week which took place from 29th April to 3rd May. Students and staff took part in a wide range of activities, all designed to engage our students with books and to encourage a love of reading. Some of these activities were:

 

We- Designing a ‘Book Door’ for the classroom to represent the cover of a famous book. Year 9 won the secondary competition for the most creative design with a magical door opening into Narnia for ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ by C.S. Lewis.

We- A Treasure Hunt around school where primary had to answer a series of questions generated by QR codes and secondary decoded posters which symbolise a range of famous novels. Year 10 girls gained the most correct answers and so won the prize for this competition.

We- The ‘Who’s Reading’ match the person to the book competition, which was displayed on the Library windows, was enjoyed by all students, with Nihaal getting the most correct answers.

We- Students prepared their own presentations on their chosen hero and performed these to their classmates.

We- Older students and younger students were matched up and read together in a range of lessons.

We- Parents kindly came into school to read with different classes.

We- Staff took part in ‘Book Mastermind’ competitions in assembly and lunchtime, students proved their own knowledge in lessons with 20 questions to answer in 2 minutes.

We- Students from Years 5 and 6 performed the brilliant ‘The Case of the Missing Parts of Speech’ song for primary students and parents, which was followed by the primary teacher’s Book Mastermind on ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar.

 

Year 5 and Year 6 students proudly presented an intriguing musical drama, The Case of the Missing Parts of Speech. Students played the roles of Detective Hargraves and his trusty bloodhound, Hector, Professor McMertrue proper and common nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, interjections, prepositions and conjunctions. They sang a song to describe each part of speech. In the drama, the parts of speech worked with Detective Hargraves and his intelligent bloodhound, Hector, to figure out what Professor McMertrue had lost. At last, they figured it out. She lost the common noun, glasses, and finally found her missing part of speech. Students did a wonderful job singing and acting in this fun, lighthearted play that helped them learn each part of speech. Well done, Year 5 and Year 6 students! 

Year 5’s assembly was based around the theme of, ‘Morning Routines’. It took place in the new and unfamiliar environs of PGFC Meeting Room 1 and all went down on a fine, clear morning in late April. The students of Year 5 each performed their specific roles to great effect. The overall objective was to share some the most helpful morning routines that have aided them to get in the mood for learning.

Things got off to a rocky start due to a certain teacher who did not check to see if his trusty, old Macbook could receive wifi in the new location. Thankfully Ibu. Tatik was on hand to solve the problem.

Our hosts, the glamorous and eloquent twosome, everyones favourite twins, ‘Ean and Emily’ got us under way by welcoming us. They went on to say what we were about to see, who it would be performed by, and also provided an insight as to why we use that particular routine.

In the first demonstration, Vicky and Phillip showed pose and grace in their execution of the,’Salutation to the Sun’. Not only did they go through the entire exercise without single error but managed involve the audience members too by inviting them up on stage.

The following exhibition was delivered by Matilda, Ricardo, and Jeremy. In this they gave a guide as to how one uses breathing to induce state of relaxed attention. The threesome went on to show a breathing exercise that required team cooperation. This allowed parent, students, and teachers to take part and show us how they collaborate.

We ended our assembly with the sextet of; Chanelle, William, Orion, Joo Ha, Vench, and Lintang. They gave a full and unaided display of, ‘Brain Gym’. The entire assembly joined them in this, and lent a festival type atmosphere to the whole event.

From my front row seat, I can tell the reader that it was a, ‘lit’, ‘woke’, and even perhaps, ‘savage’. I hope next years’ Year 5 can be even better than what I witnessed that day.

It was a bright, clear Tuesday morning when a group of people dressed in strange clothes and costumes.  Many of the smaller people were holding hands with adults.

My mind was racing with curiosity.  Who were these strange characters and why were they carrying books??  I decided to report the strange sight immediately to the management of the school.  

Imagine the sigh of relief when we all realised that it was World Book Day… and all the children and staff had been encouraged to ‘dress up’ as a book character!  

The children all met in their classrooms before parading through the school to the meeting room for Ms Nicky’s assembly.  The secondary students gave wonderful performances with performances and readings from a range of different works including Shakespeare.    Aiko also read out her own composition which was well received. Children from Elementary demonstrated their skills by reading from their favourite books,  the audience demonstrated their pleasure by a wonderful round of applause.

On return to their classrooms, the children in each class took part in  – THE BIG READ. Everyone in the school read a chosen book for an extended period of time without interruption.  The class was the quietest place to be during this time. Wonderful!

Following lunchtime, Students from secondary visited Year 5 and 6 in Primary, whilst Year 4 students visited Year 2’s and Year 3 visited Year 1’s.  They all shared and read books together. It was a great opportunity for the older students to pass on their learning as well as reminisce about their early days in school.  It was also a positive experience for the younger pupils to experience sharing literature with older peers.