Issue 2 Summer 2017 Furzedown Primary School’s student newspaper written for and by the children 50p ELECTION FEVER HITS FURZEDOWN Make your vote count! Like the rest of the UK, the school has been buzzing with election fever. Year 6 have created their own political parties and considered how they could improve the school and the issues that might be important to pupils. Who do you think deserves your vote? The decision may not be an easy one when you hit the polls on June 8th – as one Year 4 student explained, “They all sound like they will do great things but I’m not sure who I can actually believe!” A BRIGHTER FUTURE BLUE FOREST CRIMSON IDEA Vote for A Brighter Future Blue Forest is a unique group that We are an imaginative bunch because we want to improve focuses on the children and who are dedicated to people's your life and education. We future of Furzedown Primary opinions being heard. We will be believe in working together to School. We want every child to determined to fulfill our make the right decisions. We have fun and be educated at goals. Vote Crimson Idea to want your voice to be heard. the same time. EVERY VOTE make your opinions shine. COUNTS! FREEDOM FIGHTERS FURZEDOWN YOU-NION NEXT GENERATION Vote for Freedom Fighters We’re Furzedown You-nion. In this party we believe that because we are a special group Introducing: football, Pokémon, a everyone should have a voice. If that wants to improve your quiet room and supporting you vote for us we promise that school. If you want your voice to Battersea Cats and Dogs. we will support the things that be heard, vote for Freedom Fighting for your beliefs. We are YOU want Fighters! your voice. UNITED FOR ALL UNITY At the time of going to press, not We are United For All. This choice We are a group of hard-working, all of the parties’ manifestos were is for you. We care about the passionate friends who want to available but watch out for all school and your voice. Vote for make changes for the better. the Year 6 parties on the us, we are the change you want What you want, we will give to campaign trail and remember to to see. you. Your ideas, our commands. ask them about the issues you think are important! WHOPPING WORLD BOOK DAY! Ciara Pappoe & Mikee Nunez On Thursday 2nd March, hundreds of children in Furzedown school dressed up as their favourite book or comic character for World Book Day. The annual event is celebrated around the world and encourages children to share their love of reading by dressing up and reading to the class. Children from nursery to Year 6 all dressed up (and even some teachers too!) and the school was filled with lots of amazing characters including Harry Potter, the Boy in the Dress, Katniss Everdeen and several characters from the Wizard of Oz. " I was so excited to be dressed up as my favourite book character and seeing everyone else dressed up too was so fun!" said 10 year old Daisy. Can you name these Roald Dahl characters? 1 DID YOU KNOW? Australian Cane Toads THE BIG INTERVIEW: Architaa Krishnan 1C MONICA KITCHLEW 1) The colour of the toad is brown and it WILSON is very big 2) It eats snails and insects Furzedown’s Headteacher knows 3) The toad is poisonous everything about her pupils. Megan 4) It can live both on land and in water Batty and Abbey Jeffcoat had the chance to find out a little bit more about her. Joke of the day! Q: What did you want to be when you were younger? Q: What did the bus A: When I was about 15 I really wanted to be a pilot and I also driver say to the toad? liked working with children. A: Hop on! Q: What was your job before teaching? HANGING ROCK, AUSTRALIA A: I was a full time mum before teaching and before that I was a social worker. When I was a social worker I helped kids Tay Jeffcoat 2S who got kicked out of children’s homes because they had Hanging Rock is really nice and hot in the emotional or behaviour problems. The very first thing I did was summer. It's got loads of really great wild run youth clubs for ILEA. animals such as birds, galahs and Q: How long have you been working at the school for? wallabies - you could just look at them for A: 31 years hours on end. You can climb the rocks and there are many different sports such Q: What’s the most challenging part of being a head teacher? as cricket, football, netball, horse riding A: The most challenging part is having to implement change and swimming. very quickly and trying to get people to change the way they do things. Also trying to sort out the money that we get for the school. Q: How has the school changed over the years? A:. There has been a lot of building work and the school has become much more modern. We have installed a lot of technology and the staff have changed a little bit. Hanging Rock is an unusual volcanic rock Q: How long are you at school for every day? formation in Australia A: Well I get to school at between 7:30-45 and finish school at around 6:15 which is about 10 hours and 45 minutes. Q: What subject do you most like teaching and why? CLUB OF THE TERM A: My favourite subject is geography because I like finding out about places in the world and how people live and I also FRENCH really like teaching maths because of all the problems and French club is on Mondays after school finding out about how to solve them. I’m also quite into for Years 1-3. It has been running for two science, games and swimming too. years and helps children learn French in a fun way and practise what they’ve Q: If you weren’t a teacher what job would you do? A: I would quite like to be a social worker again. been learning in school. Why not sign up and say ‘Bonjour’ to the teacher, Q: What is the worst part of being a teacher? Anjhela? A: Rude children and rude parents and also when people THE EDITORIAL TEAM hurt each other. Megan Batty, Abbey Jeffcoat, Zofia Kitlinska, Q: What are the best parts of being the head teacher? Julia Luczak, Mikee Nunez, Ciara Pappoe, A: I think it’s exciting when children love learning and also it’s Miya Rosenberg-Cowley and Isabella Ross. fantastic watching young children growing up and becoming A big thank you to our new contributors too! really lovely people. It’s also exciting to still be learning new things all the time. 2 RED NOSES POLLUTION SOLUTION! Maia Frost, Surayha Tahir & Kelsie Licorish consider & PYJAMAS how you can help . Nancy Sparrowhawk reflects on the good In Furzedown lots of people are driving to school on a work behind the fun. daily basis (even people who live quite close). You In March the nation was gripped by Red Nose may think that just you driving to school will not have Day and Furzedown Primary School was no an impact on the world, but with everyone else different. Children across the school feverishly driving as well it is not good for the environment. As collected and compared their noses – from your driving, your car lets out fumes that will be Sneezecake and the Norsenose to the breathed in by young children and the pollution is covetable Frankinose. Best of all, as well as constantly getting worse and worse. raising money by buying noses, children also As well as causing donated £1 so they could come to school in pollution, by driving close their pyjamas. to school you may endanger a child’s life. In As well as being a lot of fun, it is important to the morning and at pick up remember that Comic Relief is all about raising there is a huge rush and money to help other people in troubled crowds of families with situations. Just read this extract of one child’s young children. People story: are likely to get hurt with so Jinnat is five and lives in one of Dhaka’s largest many cars manoeuvring slums. For her, and many children like her, the close to the school. chances of getting an education are slim. This A solution to this problem would be to leave home a simple sad fact traps millions of children in little bit earlier so that you have time to walk or cycle poverty. But projects funded by Comic Relief to school. Every little bit makes a difference and allow children like Jinnat to go to school, giving keeps children safe and healthy. her the best chance of escaping poverty. Thanks to everyone who helped Comic Relief FUN ON THE FARM raise a staggering £73,026,234! Riley Snape Last term, Year 3 had a fantastic trip to Rushall Farm YEAR 1FOREST TALES near Reading. The farm has Miya Rosenberg-Cowley a huge number of animals including cows, chickens, turkeys, sheep, donkeys and two of the hugest pigs you could imagine, Camilla and BP (Big Pig). We really enjoyed learning about them all and even got to stroke and feed some of them (we had to keep our hands very flat so they didn’t nibble our fingers by accident!) One of the highlights was seeing the sheep and lambs in This year’s Year 1 play was set in Australia and the barn.