Recently, classes from Chantry and Newminster Middle Schools have been working with James Tait to produce written work involving use of Northumbrian dialect. Students were given the choice of writing either a poem, short story or piece of prose in the Northumbrian dialect and involving subject matter related to Northumberland.

James, a teacher and poet, has been employed by the Northumbrian language society to help preserve and promote the Northumbrian dialect and to encourage youngsters to enter this particular competition. The competition will take place on Saturday 22nd April at 1.30pm in St Robert’s Church Hall, rear of Collingwood House, Oldgate, Morpeth. All entrants who attend this will be given the opportunity to recite their work. Further details of the gathering can be found at www.northumbriana.org.uk. It is free for children to enter these competitions. Winners will receive trophies, with second and third places receiving plaques.

Please note that this is not an organized school outing, but is entirely up to parents to bring their children along to these competitions.

This poem has been written by Mark Wales in year 5 as an entry for the ‘Writing Competition’. http://www.northumbriana.org.uk/gathering/

Click ‘continue reading’ for the poem.

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The Wansbeck Music Festival Steel Band competition is taking place in the KEVI Upper School Hall (next to the main reception) on Saturday 25th March. Students must be accompanied by an adult and wearing full school uniform. All students must arrive by 10am for a 10.15am start.

Competition times:

10.15am-1pm – U11 and U13 Steel Band, ensemble and soloist categories.

2pm-5pm – U16 and U18 Steel Band, ensemble and soloist categories.

Your child might be able to get free school meals if you get any of the following:

• Income Support
• income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• the guaranteed element of Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit (provided you’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
• Working Tax Credit run-on – paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
• Universal Credit

Children who get paid these benefits directly, instead of through a parent or guardian, can also get free school meals.

To see if you qualify please complete an application either online or through a written application. Further details can be found on the bottom of this link.

Northumberland County Council are proposing to redevelop the Riverside Site for a new leisure centre/cultural venue and as such we are looking to attract as wide an audience as possible.

Lichfields are undertaking the consultation on behalf of NCC and Active Northumberland with Nigel Walsh leading.

From the 23rd – 25th March 2017

This years stage musical is a popular production loved by youngsters the world over. An adaptation of the Disney Channel movie for stage…taking you back to High School days. The most important thing to remember, is to have as much fun as possible!

A modern twist on ‘Grease’ with extra ‘cheese’ and lots of comedy.

Tickets will be on sale from main reception – Adults £9, Students £7.

• Are you an enthusiastic and mature reader?
• Do you enjoy talking about what you are reading?
• Are you interested in meeting authors and getting your books autographed?
• If so, we would you like to help select this year’s winner of The North East Book Award

We have roughly 10 weeks to read and discuss all 5 shortlisted books before voting! Obviously, there’s more to say – and disagree about – as the weeks progress and more people have read more of the books!  As we read, we post reviews and comments on the NEBA website, which is closely monitored by the shortlisted authors. Extracts are used for giant promotional posters that the authors like to take home as souvenirs. (You can see some outside the library.)

When all participating schools have voted, we attend an evening prize giving at The Centre for Life.  We talk to the authors, get our books signed and generally have a good time.  The ceremony will be held in June.

Visit the NEBA website for more information – http://northeastbookaward.wordpress.com/

Click ‘continue reading’ to find out more about our meetings and which books are involved.

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As the new housing developments in Morpeth begin to take shape, we are anticipating greater demand for places within the schools of the Learning Trust and across the Morpeth Partnership.  We are working closely with our partnership schools and with Northumberland County Council to ensure a school place for all who live in the catchment area.

The Board of Directors is clear that it is our responsibility to educate students who live in the catchment or move into the catchment area, and those who are already in  partnership schools from an early age. Whilst this will provide some challenges in the next few years, we are confident that through effective partnership working we will be able to meet that aspiration.

The recent admissions consultation for entry in September 2018 to Chantry, Newminster and King Edward’s is closed.  The proposed change from our previous policy was the criteria for  the tie breaker.

There were two stages to the consultation, and a total of 42 responses were received.  Of the responses,  24 were in favour of the amendment, 12 were against, 2 partly agreed and a further 4 made comments only.  Thank you to all who contributed to the consultation.  The revised policy is available here, and the Policies page of the website.

We collected £339.66 to support the work of Book Aid International in getting books to children in parts of the world that have none. Thank you to all those who supported this worthwhile charity which makes it possible for children in desperate need to learn to read, the first step towards helping themselves out of poverty.

The number of students spending the day in character this World Book Day was truly staggering and a real pleasure to witness!

90 students put themselves forward for judging, which had to be done in batches, occupied two members of staff and took a complete lesson!  You can see from the photographs what a difficult job it was. In the end 12 students, whose costumes were judged to display the most ingenuity and originality, were selected. They were each invited to choose a book prize from the Fair and the rest won privilege passes.

The prize winners!

Thank you to everyone who dressed up, whether or not you made your own costume, because your efforts contributed to making World Book Day special – and that’s what it’s all about!

Enormous thanks to Iona Lane, Anna Jakubovics, Will Cottiss in Year 6 and Ellen Davison in Year 7 – for patiently naming more than 500 World Book Day tokens so everyone could be sure of getting one.