Newsletter March 2017 We Are The Champions! For the seventh consecutive year, Mills Hill Primary School has represented the borough of in the School Games; this year competing in athletics, basketball and gymnastics.

Diary Dates

March 31st School closes for Easter April Tuesday 18th School opens for Summer term 25th Friends of Mills The children started the day at the Etihad Stadium - Opening ceremony, they Mills Hill Basketball Team took the enjoyed a balloon release with Olympic Medalist Nicola White opening the games, Games by storm Hill meeting (6.15pm); a mascot replay race and lots of dancing. The day was very well organised by last week! new members Olympic Gymnastic Star Beth Tweddle and her team of coaches! Definitely one of The competition was fierce through- welcome! the highlights of the day. out the entire day as we were up Our first competition piece was the Vault, all 5 gymnasts competed excellent against National Basketball players from across the North West, May vaults, very smart, tidy with perfect landings. Phew 1 piece down 2 to go. We then moved on to "Body Management", this was a new routine to the however, Mills Hill dug deep and proved to be a competitive force, gymnasts that they had to learn after they qualified at the regional semi finals in 1st School closed— never losing their determination or bank holiday February, so not very long at all! This routine included, lots of flexibility moves resilience. Unfortunately, we were such as Splits and Japana and required the gymnasts to be very controlled and unable to win any of our matches 8th-11th Year 6 precise with each movement. They were all a bit worried about the skipping at the outright (though we conceding a win, beginning of the routine and remembering all 20 moves in the routine its due to the other team voiding the National Assessment rules). self...... But they nailed it! Even the judge commented on what a lovely set of Tests In all our matches though, our losses gymnasts Mills Hill had. 2 down 1 to go. were minimal, being behind at 1-2 15th-28th Year 6 By now, the children had relaxed a little and actually looked like they were points after the 10 minute final Writing Assessment enjoying themselves. They had their picture taken with the Mayor of , whistle. Due to this we manged to one of the mascots and Beth herself before preparing for their last piece - "Floor reach the play offs and played three 15 minute matches at this stage. Our Routine". This routine required the gymnasts to show a routine including forward 15th-26th Year 2 last game proved to be our toughest National rolls, backward rolls and cartwheels, strength moves and balance moves. Again, of all, yet it was the one where we Assessments another fantastic set of routines and lots of smiles! really ‘gritted our teeth’ and showed The team now had to wait nervously for the results - when they called our name ‘fire in our bellies’, we worked as a as the Greater Manchester Champions we cheered and jumped up and down and unit! By the end of this match we had 26th School closes a twisted ankle, a busted lip and hurt even shed a few tears! It was a very tough competition. Well Done Team Mills Hill for half term jaw, along with ten beaming red - same again next year! (Kimberley Woodward —Gymnastics coach) faces, all in the effort to be the best June we could be! On Tuesday 21st March, 25 athletes went to the Manchester Games to compete Overall we came sixth out of ten 5th School re-opens against the best schools in Manchester in both track and field events. Having teams across Greater Manchester, trained extremely hard this year in all of the events we were prepared to give it the Basketball team were an epitome 12th-16th Year 1 our all and that is what our children did. The competition was fierce but our hard of what it means to persevere and work paid off as we finished 10th out of 20 schools maintaining our previous years show determination, even when the Phonics screening odds are against you! position. Well done to everyone who took part! 14th Class & Team photographs Mills Hill Bats Take-off at Engineering Event! Months of hard work and preparation by the Year 5 Engineering Team 19th-23rd National (and Mr Bayley) paid off this week as they entered the Jaguar F1 Sports Week (Sports Primary School Challenge. The team had designed their car (the days this week) Batmobile) using CAD software on the computer and then produced the chassis and body using very precise cutting equipment which was purchased having secured sponsorship from Procter and Gamble. The team had to present their design process to a panel of judges and were quizzed about their ‘pit-stop’ skills before racing the car down a 20m track powered by compressed air in under two seconds. The team had a fantastic day and represented Mills Hill superbly! Foundation Stage News We have had another brilliant term in foundation stage with some fantastic learning. Across school we have been learning about mindfulness and we have practised some techniques to calm our bodies and we have had fun learning yoga.

Reception children were lucky enough to take part in the “bikeability” programme and had the opportunity to practise their skills on balance bikes over four days. The progress the children made from the start to the end of the week was amazing!

In Nursery the highlight of the term was their Easter show. The children were fantastic with their singing and their actions.

In Nursery next term our topic will be “growing” - we will going on a spring walk and planting some seeds. Following on from this we will be learning about Minibeasts.

In Reception next term our topic will be dinosaurs and we are really looking forward to our surprise visit on the first Friday back.

Finally, Foundation Stage staff would like to wish you all a happy Easter holiday and we look forward to next term. This half term the topic for year 1 children was Memory Box. The children have been comparing old and new toys. They have been looking at their own baby photographs and comparing themselves from then to now.

Our Eco warriors Nicky Mackay and Lexie Strain were selected to attend the Oldham Healthy Champions day at Oldham Leisure Centre. They took part in different activities to help encourage Year 3's topic this term has been 'Tremors.' In geography, we a healthier lifestyle, they will represent have been learning about volcanoes and earthquakes; we have Mills Hill and be our ambassadors of the learnt about the causes of them and looked at which parts of the school. They were also very fortunate world experience them. We have also made our own volcanoes to meet Natasha Jonas the professional using paper mache and we plan to explode them on the last day Olympic boxer. of term. We have enjoyed looking at and discussing the chil- dren's home learning on this subject; it was very clear that the In year 2 our topic has been The Scented children had put a lot of time and effort into their research tasks and we thank you for supporting them with this. In science, we Garden. We have been exploring the have been looking at rocks and soils. We have found out about outdoors and looking at different types of the different types of rock - igneous, sedimentary and metamor- plants. We have learnt about the parts of phic - and we have also conducted experiments to explore their plants and what they need to grow. In properties. We wish you all a relaxing Easter break. school we planted some ‘magic’ beans and gave them water every day. We were amazed at how they changed and grew. We are looking forward to sharing our sunflowers that we have been looking after at home when we come back after the Easter holidays.

In numeracy this term one of the things we have been learning about is weight and capacity. We really enjoyed working in our teams to estimate and weigh different objects using the weighing scales. For capacity we worked in our teams to measure ingredients to make our very own

Year 6 Foil Boat Experiments. Year 5 Have you ever wondered how a ship made of steel can float? This This half term, Year 5 learnt about the ancient Egyptians. question was posed to Year 6 children. We had many weird and At the start of the topic, we learnt how to mummify a body, wonderful suggestions, after much discussion they really could not in order to send it to the afterlife. After this, we were able explain how an heavy steel ship can float. Many knew the principles of to successfully write up the instructions for an embalmer to floating and sinking but not how those enormous tankers or ships like follow the necessary procedures. Also, we found out about the Titanic stayed afloat. Howard Carter’s historic discovery of Tutankhamun’s The Science fabulous tomb, which was full of hundreds of wonderful An object floats because it is less dense than the surrounding water artefacts (technically found by a water boy). that it displaces. (Density is how heavy an object is compared to its th size). On Comic Relief Day (24 March 2017), we learnt how important it is to look after our mental health, as much as An object floats because its buoyancy (upthrust) is equal to the down- ward pull of gravity (weight) we have to look after our physical health. This involved learning more about our thoughts and feelings; plus, Large ships float because the weight, the mass of the ship is spread out strategies over a wider surface area, it is less dense, and it pushes the water aside to fill that space. we can use to Ship designers include pockets of air to encourage a ship to float more help us and make it more buoyant, like in the Titanic and it was the first of its keep our kind. minds When a ship sinks it is because it is denser than the surrounding water healthy. that it has displaced and the force of gravity outweighs the force of buoyancy/up-thrust. We learnt about Archimedes. He is most famous for discovering the law of hydrostatics, sometimes known as 'Archimedes' principle', stating that a body immersed in fluid loses weight equal to the weight of the amount of fluid it displaces. Archimedes is supposed to have Year 4 made this discovery when stepping into his bath, causing him to ex- claim 'Eureka! This term year 4 did an enquiry into what actually happens in the digestive system. This involved us learning about the From all this scientific knowledge Year 6 conducted an experiment to organs and their functions so then we could use a range of design a foil boat which would stay afloat and would be able to carry heavy weights. From the experiment we discovered that the wide, flat- everyday equipment to create a version of our own bottomed boats, that look like barges, held the most weight and very digestive system but outside of our bodies. This was very rarely sank. messy but loads of fun. We recorded our experiment by videoing it so then we could watch it back and write it up.

Towards the end of the term we started to use our creative side and make Papier Mache eggs which by the end of term will be used to display a little bird’s nest. We have been

acting like real designers as we had to sketch our egg in our sketch books and then design them before we paint them and decorate them. This project has taken a lot of persistence however it is also incredible fun.

A big well done to the children from Year 5H who represented Mills Hill at the Radclyffe School Charity Bonanza. Our children opened the show and performed brilliantly, they then sat back to watch some of the older Radclyffe students entertain the audience in a variety of ways.