On November 9th, Year 5 children were treated to an energetic and entertaining performance from Guy Bass, award-winning author of the Spynosaur, Stitch Head and Dinkin Dings series.

Guy explained that his books reflect the way he pictured the world as he was growing up and confessed that he created the Spynosaur series to indulge his childhood ambition to be a dinosaur!

Guy drew upon his background in the theatre to debunk some of the white lies we tell our children – carrots help you see in the dark; spiders are more afraid of you than you are of them; the ice cream van plays its jingle when it has run out of ice cream – and reduced the audience to helpless laughter with his portrayal of an aggressive spider!

Aided by a member of the audience dressed as Spynosaur, he rounded off his performance with a lively reading from his latest novel, Goldenclaw and took time to have a proper conversation with every child that had bought one of his books.

We all enjoyed this event enormously and the clips will give you a flavour.

On Tuesday 14th November, all Year 7 students took part in an Energy Quest workshop ‘The Energiser Event’.

The STEM workshop included hands-on activities, careers information and stories from real engineers working in energy.

Concepts of energy generation, sustainability and technologies were explored and pupils were left with exciting ideas to explore.

On Monday 9th October, 16 members of the Newminster Student Voice went along to the Council Chambers as part of Local Democracy Week. During the course of the day the Student Voice deepened their understanding of youth democracy opportunities such as the Youth Cabinet, Youth Parliament, and the national youth consultation – ‘Make Your Mark’. All the students passionately campaigned about issues which they cared about.

Many of the students prepared questions to pitch to the local Councillors Dodd, Thorne, Murray, Dunbar and Moore.

Abbie and Tom proudly received a certificate of participation at the end of the day. The visit was followed up by workshops for our KS2 students on Thursday 12th October.

Year 5 had a full day dedicated to thinking about their future careers and study pathways during the ‘Hopes and Dreams Day’ on 30th June 2017. The purpose of the day was to raise an awareness of a range of different careers.

This is the first year that we have trialled a full day of CEIAG (Careers education information and guidance) for our year 5 students and the day proved to be popular with the students.

Here are some quotes from the students…

“It was a fun way to think about what you want in your future.” Lily

“Amazing day and it really helped me to think about what I could do in the future.” Anna

“I enjoyed the police workshop and looking at all of their equipment.” Elliot

The event was supported by a range of organisations as outlined below.

• NERAP (North East Raising Aspiration Partnership) – An organisation that works in partnership and on behalf of all of the North-East Universities – they facilitated a fun, interactive activity that outlined the benefits of higher education, focusing on the careers it can open up
• British Army – a variety of army equipment was brought in for the students to see / touch and try on. This included clothing / webbing / power suits / headsets etc. They also brought along a Land rover vehicle so that students could take a look inside
• Northumbria Police – A hands on and interactive session. The session explored separate roles within Northumbria Police
• Accenture (IT and technology company) – The team from Accenture outlined who they are and what they do as a business. They will be brought mini robots for students to programme and test.

National Women in Engineering Day was set up by the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) to celebrate its 95th anniversary.

The premise of the day is based on highlighting the  great opportunities for women in engineering, at a time when it has never been more important to address the engineering skills shortage.

The  year 7 girls took part in a full day of activities on 13th J

une to celebrate International women in engineering day. Throughout the day the girls were involved in a themed ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ activity where they carried out a range of practical activities and problem solving exercises to avoid getting infected by the zombie virus!

The RAF roadshow at the end of the day gave all the KS3 girls and insight into a range of careers in the RAF.

We would like to thank the following organisations for their support during the day by sending out Ambassadors to either run or support activities.

• Nissan Sunderland
• Institute of civil engineers
• MWH Global
• Teeside university
• RAF engineering roadshow

A special thank you to Fritha Bevin-McCrimmon for facilitating the Zombie Apocalypse

Here are some quotes from the girls..

“My favourite part of the day was the RAF presentation, I might end up joining!”- Louise

“Girls can do it too”-Fran

“It has made me think about my future and what I want to be”-Chloe

“I really enjoyed today, because the theme was fun” Amelia

On the penultimate day of the last half term, children’s crime writer, Robin Stevens, visited our combined Year Five. She talked about her early inspirations, explained how to construct a murder mystery and helped her young audience put together and solve a dastardly crime set in a museum!

We discovered that Hazel, one half of the Wells & Wong Detective Agency, is modelled on Robin’s teenage self. Robin felt as though she’d been transported back one hundred years when, newly arrived from America and aged thirteen, she found herself at Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Just like Robin, Chinese Hazel finds the food, traditions and uniform at Deepdean School for girls bizarre, hates the English weather and playing games in the rain and feels clumsily out of place.

To comfort herself at boarding school, Robin read voraciously, devouring Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle mysteries. It’s not surprising that superior, calculating Daisy – the self-styled leader of the detective duo – is based on Sherlock Holmes while self-effacing Hazel takes the role of Watson and narrates the stories.

As a teenager, Robin was struck by the impossibility of solving Agatha Christie crimes and tries to emulate this style in her own writing – a fact that may contribute to the wide appeal of her work. A great number of students already had books by Robin Stevens and are eagerly awaiting publication of the next one. Now they can put a face and a personality to the author!

On Thursday 25^th May, Y5 will be meeting Robin Stevens, award-winning author of the Murder Most Unladylike series, and will be able to buy signed and personally dedicated copies of all her books, featured below.

Agatha Christie meets Malory Towers in these thrilling detective mysteries set between the two World Wars. Neatly plotted, they have plenty of twists and a particularly engaging narrator in Hazel. Linking the books is the development of the two central characters, Wells and Wong, which is as fascinating as the crimes they strive to solve.

Blackwells Bookshop will be selling all the books on the day for a discounted cash purchase price of £5.00. Please note that we cannot, therefore, accept cheques.

The event promises to be exciting and inspiring and we are very much looking forward to it!