PENTAGON SCHOOLS’ NEWSLETTER Issue 1

ASHILL BUCKLAND ST MARY COMBE ST NICHOLAS NEROCHE WINSHAM DRAMA DAY—Yr2

On Tuesday 9 th May we went to a drama day at the village hall with some children from the Pentagon schools. A lady called Caroline ran the day and we started by introducing ourselves. Next we had to repeat what Caroline said loudly and clearly to practise our speaking skills. Then we had a break time. After break we dressed up as swamp monsters and wriggled about on the floor! Then we had lunch. After lunch we practised a play called the Cookie Queen which was about cookies that ran away! We performed the play to our parents at the end of the day. It was a great day. We loved acting! Rose and Jamie—Ashill DINOSAUR DAY

On Tuesday 29th May our class went to Combe St Nicholas school for a Dinosaur Day. There were children from the Pentagon schools there. We listened to the story Tyrannosaurus Drip then we did lots of activities. The activities were junk modelling dinosaurs, dino dancing, dinosaur mask making and drama in the woods. We learnt a lot about the different dinosaurs and had a lovely day. Libby—Ashill

OLYMPIC ATHLETICS

On Friday June 25th a team of 4 children from Yrs 5/6 went to Buckland St Mary for an athletics afternoon with children from the other Pentagon schools. Gaby, Madeleine, Jasmine and Royston represented our school. There were four activities; long jump, a long distance race, a relay and a sprint race. Jasmine came first in her long jump competition and Gaby and Royston won their sprint races. Points were awarded for finishing positions and these were added together to get a team place. Ashill came 3rd. We all came back to school exhausted because we had all done our very best. The Athletics team—Ashill

HEALTHY LIVING DAY

On Tuesday July 3rd , we, Jasmine and Royston (Yr5),went to Combe St Nicholas School for a Pentagon Schools Healthy Living Day. Mrs Cawley, a teacher from that school intro- duced herself and told us what we were going to do during the day. First, we each made a fruit kebab. We had to peel and cut up the fruits that we wanted to use and then we put them on a kebab stick. We ate these at break-time. Next we made our own lunch! We made bread rolls, salmon fish fingers and beef burgers. We were told that the kneading of the dough was good for stress. Mixing the egg yolk with the salmon was a very slimy job, but it was great fun. The best bit was making the chocolate fridge cake. We mixed crushed up biscuits with melted chocolate and added dried fruit. This was then put into the fridge to set. Our lunch was yummy! After lunch we were shown how to do an Indian massage. The school hall was made dark and some candles were lit. Then in pairs, we followed instructions so we could give our partner a massage. It was really relaxing and everybody thoroughly enjoyed it. The day was brilliant and the food was really tasty. We both made lots of new friends. Jasmine and Royston—Ashill CRICKET TOURNAMENT

On Tuesday September 25 h, our school hosted the annual Pentagon Cricket tournament at Ilton Cricket Club. The weather wasn’t very good in the morning but the rain held off until almost the end of the tournament. All the Pentagon schools sent a team. There were 6 children, from Yrs 5/6 in each team, of which 3 had to be girls. The cricket pitches were marked out by our cricket coach, Mr Price. He marked out two pitches so we could play two matches at the same time. Mr Clancy from Chard Cricket Club and Mrs Woodman were the umpires. Each school had to play four matches so everyone in the team got a chance to bat, bowl, field and be the wicketkeeper. All the matches were very competitive and extremely close with just a few runs between the winners and the losers. At the end of each match we shook hands with our oppo- nents. We all were really determined to do well and everyone tried their hardest. It was great fun playing the other schools’ teams. Finally, when Mrs Woodman announced the results we were all surprised to hear that Ashill had come joint second with Buckland and Combe St Nicholas, each team winning two of their four matches. The win- ning team was Neroche who won three matches, losing their fourth match to Winsham by 12 runs. They received a plaque. The afternoon finished with everyone having a drink and biscuit. We can’t wait until next year’s tourna- ment. Everyone that took part in the tournament played in the ‘spirit of cricket’. The Ashill cricket team PENTAGON LITERACY

Last summer, a creative writing day was held at Winsham for 20 children across the Pentagon schools. The children turned up in the morning only knowing the few friends they had arrived with; the warm up games we held outside were a little tricky because the weather was not favourable and writing in the rain was not an easy exercise. It did, however, ‘break the ice’ and got the children talking. By the end of the day, the children were working together successfully, writing poems, sharing ideas and talking like old friends. They had all successfully written kennings (poems where something is described without using its name e.g. stick fetcher=dog), played the ‘fortunately / unfortunately’ game and collaboratively put together a piece of work from three sentence openings, as well as having made their own pizzas. This was a real Pentagon success. This academic year, we have two Pentagon literacy events to look forward to. In March, children from Key Stage 2 will be invited to take part in a poetry recital competition at The Shrubbery Hotel. This will be judged from Sarah Cook from the Somerset Literacy Network. This will be a highly publicised evening and will bring all of the Penta- gon Schools together to share the success of positive public speaking and performing. Winsham Starting in March, four children from each of the Pentagon Schools are to be invited to take part in the ‘Pentagon Quest’, again another collaborative writing opportunity which will take place over five days in the spring and sum- mer terms across each of the schools in turn. The children will be able to explore different writing styles and genres, building up their writing portfolio to complete the quest set for them. THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS

During 2012 the Pentagon schools ran a reading competition for more able readers in Years 3 and 4. Each school chose a challenging read, for this age group, and took it in turns to read each one either as a reading club or as part of their guided reading group. The competition culminated in an afternoon in which representatives from each school ‘did battle’. The ‘battle’ consisted of a quiz, pre- pared by each school, a piece of art work and a drama presentation. Sarah Cook came to judge the entries which resulted in a win for Combe St Nicholas. The children all enjoyed the reading and the competition and said that it had encour- aged them to read books that they otherwise would not have read. Sarah Cook is planning to develop this further to include more schools. Combe St Nicholas The winning team—Combe

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