New year, new adventures!

It is set to be another exciting year at Crownfield Junior! Mr Gorner is now managing our UK and International Partnerships and hopes we can apply for the International Schools Award in the near future. As well as our video conferencing partnership with Steuart Weller Elementary (Virginia, USA) we also hope to be video conferencing with a school in South Africa. Year 3 will be taking the lead in this and we look forward to hearing all about it!

Michael Rosen Poetry Slam - VC event

We were invited to take part in this Havering-wide competition, held during a multi-point video conference. The aim was to perform one of Michael Rosen's poems better than the poet himself - and he was the judge! A group of our Year 6 children performed their version of one of Michael's poems, as he watched via VC from Parklands Junior School. Michael also gave us a sneak peak of his new book of poetry and read us a one of his new poems about being attacked by a banana. Well done to the group who represented us - they were fantastic - and to Miss Denham who worked hard to get the group ready to perform. It was great fun to watch all the performances and we were also able to ask Michael some questions afterwards. Another great event via VC

Year 6 NC tests

National Curriculum tests week (also known as SATS) is upon us again. The children have worked incredibly hard all year and we wish them the best of luck this week. :-)

Year 3 visit to Rainham Marshes

Today all our Year 3 children went to visit Rainham Marshes. News on the trip and photos will appear here soon.

Comic Relief Day Fun

Today we were having fun and raising money for Comic Relief. Our theme was 'Wear Something Funny for Money' and these photos show us doing just that!

England - US Year 6 - 5th Grade Partnership

Today we joined out partner class via video link, for a Question and Answer session. We learnt a lot about life, particularly school life, in each other's countries. The children at Steuart Weller answered the questions we had sent to them, including 'We don't celebrate Thanksgiving. Could you tell us what it is?'

Both sets of pupils rose to the challenge of communicating via a vc link - they spoke clearly and confidently and were a credit to their schools.

Spring Term Partnership Work

The theme for our partnership work this term is 'The View From My Window'. We will be sending off parcels of work to our partner schools around the world, and waiting excitedly for their work to reach us! The photos show some of Class 4M's wondeful work. Many of the children took photos to accompany their drawings. The results are brilliant!

Year 4 Tudors Video Conferencing Workshop

Some of our Year 4 children today took part in a National Archives VC workshop, given by Education Officer, Catherine. We were treated to a look at the confession statement of Guy Fawkes, the SOS message from the Titanic and the Royal Seal of Henry VIII. Catherine had to wear gloves when handling some of the documents. Why do you think that was..?

The session was excellent - the children listened really well and gave some brilliant answers to Catherine's questions. We can't wait for our next VC link with the National Archives.

Photos of our vc link with Virginia

Year 3 vc partnership with Parklands Junior School

Mrs Fewings and her Year 3 English set will be sharing some work with pupils at one of our local schools, Parklands Junior. We are trying to use our video conferencing kit for a range of activities, sharing work and building friendships on a local, as well as global scale.

World Book Day

Lots of 'literature inspired' activities were taking place in school today, to celebrate World Book Day. Don't forget to spend your World Book Day voucher...

Crownfield - Steuart Weller v.c. link

Today we carried out our test link with our partner school in the United States, Steuart W. Weller Elementary School, Virginia. 6N were involved in the test and waved their England and US flags excitedly throughout! We are now working on a set of questions about school life in the US, which we will email to our partner class. They in return will email us some questions they'd like answered about school life in this country. Our next v.c. link with Steuart Weller is on 17th March.

Michael Rosen VC event

Using our Video Conferencing equipment, children from Years 3 - 6 took part in a discussion with poet and author, Michael Rosen. in September. There were lots of laughs and the children asked Michael some brilliant questions, including one about his reasons for not completing training to be a doctor...

We have lots more VC events lined up, including workshops from the MET Office for Year 6 (Climate Change and Extreme Weather) and history sessions delivered by the National Archives.

Crownfield Wiki

Our new Year 6 will be contributing to the school wiki from September. Although we will focus on information for our global partner schools, we hope our work will be of interest to everyone! The wiki is available for everyone to view at www.crownfieldjunior.wikispaces.com

Using MSN to chat to Escola do Max

Last week we used MSN to chat to pupils at our partner school, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Teacher Gabriela Dimitrov and her class of 8 and 9 year olds chatted to some of our pupils during Miss Smith's Library Club. We hope to link up with Escola do Max using our webcams in the new school year.

School Partnerships

From September 2010, each of our classes will be exchanging work and letters with one of our partner schools. We now have partner schools in Brazil, Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Ukraine, Jamaica, Australia and Turkey. The Head Teachers and teachers from each school will be sharing how our schools are run and how we work together to ensure that all our pupils reach their full potential.

We have already sent some letters to each of our partner schools.

Our Year 6 children will be exchanging emails with pupils at Park Lake State School, Helensvale, Queensland, Australia, via our new email system, London Mail.

Circus Week 2010

Doody has been with us this week for another great Circus Week at Crownfield Junior. It culmintated in a superb performance this afternoon, which saw children from all year groups showing us their skills.

Rag Week

What a great week! There was so much going on in school - it was great to see so many of you taking responsibility for different activities. There was a great buzz around school and we raised over £800 pounds which will be shared between our House Charities. Well done to everyone!!

Happy Holidays!

Wishing everyone a happy half term break - don't forget to log in to the Virtual School, explore some of the Subject Zones you haven't been to lately, have a look at what's in your Year Group spaces and keep in contact with your friends via stickies.

Password Security

Several of you have reported issues with the security of your log in details. It is your responsibility to keep these details secure (private) as you are responsible for any messages/forum posts that come from your account. Simple steps to help keep your details secure include: LOGGING OUT CORRECTLY. Always click on Log out and then shut the browser down (you get a message reminding you to do this). If you need to write your log in details down, do it somewhere secret, so that other people can't find them.

If you think someone else knows your details, please speak to your teacher who can arrange for your password to be changed.