Special Events 2017-18

As a special end of term celebration event, Mr Barnes, one of our MSAs, organised and ran a football tournament. It was open to children in Years 4, 5 and 6, regardless of their footballing ability.

A sign up sheet was circulated and children signed up if they wanted to play. From that, Mr Barnes chose 6 captains form Year 6 to be in charge of a team. Names for the teams were picked form a hat.

The children played a 7 a side tournament, with a squad of 10 players. The rules said that subs had to come on at half time.

We had group stage matches from Monday to Wednesday, a semi-final on Thursday. The semi-finals were both very close games and finished 1-0.

There was great excitement on Friday for the grand final. The winning team won 2-0, with the winning team captain scoring a fantastic goal from near the half way line.

A trophy and medals were presented to the winning team on Friday after the final, with the presentation being made by Mr Barnes and some of the children.

It was a great event, and the children all worked well as part of a team. It was good to see them all working together and supporting each other.

A big thank you to Mr Barnes for all of his hard work with this, and to all of the children for their great sportsmanship. It was a great end to the term.

World cup excitement was felt around the federation on Wednesday 11^th July for England’s semi final game against Croatia. The children and staff came into school wearing football and England themed clothing, and took part in various activities including flag making to help celebrate the achievement and success of our country’s football team. During our world cup themed assembly the children enjoyed waving their flags and joining in with a well loved football song!

Toftwood Infant School hosted a pre-school sports morning on Thursday 28^th July. Over 70 children aged 3 and 4 years old from Toftwood Infant School, Toftwood Pre-School Nursery, William Cowper Pre-School and Little Owls joined together for traditional races, as well as a circuit of activities. This is the first year that Toftwood Junior School have also been involved with the event. Year 6 children from Toftwood Junior School did an excellent job at demonstrating the activities and gave the younger children support and encouragement. A great morning was had by all.

The second federation family picnic was held on 2nd July 2018, following on from the Infant School Race Day which was held in the morning.

Parents and carers and other family and friends were invited to join their children for a family picnic on the field, giving families time to spend with their children, chatting and relaxing in the sunshine, away from the distractions of everyday life, including electronic devices!

All 650 children were involved, with some bringing a picnic lunch and others buying one from the school kitchens.

All children, except 20, had visitors join them for the event, which was an impressive turn out. For those children who were unable to have a visitor or two, the staff joined them so no one was left out.

The sun shone brightly for us all, and the fields of both schools were awash with deckchairs, picnic blankets and the odd parasol to keep out of the sun.

We think we had possibly around 1300 people enjoying the picnic on the day, basing the turnout on an average of 2 visitors per child, although all children could have up to 4 visitors and many did! We had grandads, grandmothers, aunts, uncles, younger siblings, neighbours and friends, all eating together to enjoy the community atmosphere and the sunshine. One young visitor was there all the way from America! The picnics were impressive, with whole cakes, large plates of sandwiches and a whole range of goodies seen.

One grandparent said “Thank you so much for inviting us, it has been fabulous, we have had such a lovely time.” A parent said “There was an excellent atmosphere and it was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone I could see.”

We are already planning ahead to our next picnic next summer and looking at ways to make it bigger and better! Thank you to everyone who came along, it was lovely to see so many families enjoying each other’s company and the sunshine too.

The Infant School also had their open afternoon following the picnic, giving further opportunities for parents an carers to join their children and celebrate their learning.

Toftwood Ukulele Club were invited to perform at Dereham Memorial Hall on Wednesday 27^th June as part of the ‘Live Wire’ concert.

The event, organised by Year 10 BTEC Music students at Neatherd High School, was the Ukulele Club’s first experience of playing on a real stage to a packed audience (quite a leap from playing in our own school assemblies) however everyone performed brilliantly and were cheered and applauded enthusiastically.

‘It was really fun,’ said Edward, ‘we were nervous at first, but we managed to pull it off and it sounded really good.’

Evie  added, ‘We got more confident as it went on. It was fantastic to play in a concert and all of the acts were so good. When we were actually on stage it sounded amazing!’

Not only was this a fantastic opportunity to gain experience of performing in a wonderful venue, it also gave our pupils a chance to see the incredible musical talents of the high school students and see what they can aspire to in the future.

Thank you so much to all the parents and grandparents who supported the event and Mr Owen (Neatherd Head of Music) who helped make it all happen.

The children are still glowing with pride from their success and are looking forward to more chances to get on stage and shine.

Congratulations to all of the children who worked so hard and embraced the opportunity to perform in front of such a large audience, with such enthusiasm and such excitement. Thank you to Mr Hardy for all of his work in preparing the children for the concert and for encouraging and supporting them on the night. We are proud of all of you.

Ukelele club is offered free of charge to all children in the junior school currently and we are looking to possibly extend it to Year 2 at some point in the future.

3 of our Year 5 children were invited to take part in a special day of activities at Northgate High School based around designing and running a theme park . They had to design rides and work out the running costs for each and work together as a team to ensure the best outcomes for their business. Northgate told us they were extremely impressed by the skills they showed and in particular their teamwork.

Northgate have written a blog for their website about the day which you can read here: www.northgate.norfolk.sch.uk/year-5-numeracy-literacy-theme-park-project

There is also a piece on the Dereham Times website: www.derehamtimes.co.uk/news/dereham-schools-numeracy-literacy-theme-park-1-5573583

On Wednesday 18^th April Year 1 and Year 2 at Toftwood Infant School had a virtual reality workshop. The year one children were able to zoom into space and visit lots of the planets in the solar system. The children learnt so many facts about these planets and couldn’t wait to share their new knowledge with the class.

The year 2 children travelled through space to Australia. They listened to Aboriginal stories and discussed the beliefs of the people who live there. The children watched many tribal dances that gave them clues for different animals and finished the workshop with a ‘find it’ game.

It was a brilliant experience for the children as it enabled the children to use technology to learn about their topics and has provided a wonderful learning experience for all of KS1.