Video Conference with Chris Lubbe - Nelson Mandela's Bodyguard

On the 21st October 2015, 6R had the experience of a lifetime, and were very lucky to be able to speak to Nelson Mandela's bodyguard, Chris Lubbe. 

We were told some very interesting and touching stories about his life. One of his amazing yet depressing tales of his childhood was about his mother being very sick on one of the non-white buses. Half way through the journey, Chris asked if the driver could stop; however, the bus was driving through a white area and unfortunately could not stop until they reached Durban. 
After they reached Durban the bus stopped and helped Chris's mother out, on a white people's bench. A black man came along and inquired what was wrong, and went to get help; however, two white police men came and threw Chris's  mum onto the floor. Luckily Chris's mother survived the terrible condition she was in, but this whole story was very depressing and made us realize what a nightmare black people had to put up with. 

Year 3 - William Morris Gallery...

On Friday 26th June, Year 3 went to the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. WIlliam Morris was a famous artist. He designed wallpaper, curtains and textiles. When he took walks in Epping Forest, he was inspired by nature and he drew pictures to reflect this.

In the Gallery we saw a trellis and he even drew a picture of his wife Jane. We had a worksheet and it asked us to draw pictures of ceramics and tapestry. My favourite part of the gallery was when we saw a button which played Morris's favourite piece of music. There was even some stairs and they were called the 'Servant Stairs' and the 'Family Stairs'. 

Later, we did some printing with paint and we had a piece of paper and we had to connect the dots of a dodo and colour them in. After that we went down the servant stairs and had our lunch.

It was a very enjoyable day and fun as well!

By Parmeet Class 3T

English Conference Day....

On Friday 19th June three children selected from year 5, Katelynn, Taniya and Krishna had the amazing opportunity to go to Redbridge teachers centre to take part in an English conference.  There were 19 other schools with representatives to produce ideas for activities based on the book ‘Slog’s Dad’ by David Almond. Before starting the conference we were provided with conference packs and delicious refreshments.  When the conference started, we each had a slip of paper with one word on it and we had to form a group with people who had similar words to ours.  All of the words were in the book and we then predicted what would happen in the book. This helped us to meet other people from different schools. Next we were given pictures from the book and we annotated around them to say what was happening. We did lots of activities based around the text.  It was hard to choose a favourite activity but in the end, our favourite was when we wrote for 5 minutes about our own real life super heroes.   In the afternoon we wrote on large pieces of paper to plan ideas for lessons we can use in school to do with the book we discussed. Once we had written all our ideas down, we stuck them up on the wall and had a chance to look at other schools ideas. We then added to our own sheet and we are looking forward to using this idea plan in our school. Overall, although the time we spent there was limited, we thoroughly enjoyed it. We are looking forward to returning in October and would like to thank 'Maggie and Miriam' for hosting this spectacular event for us.

Owl Time...

On Thursday 30th April and Friday 1st May, the children of Fairlop were very lucky to have 2 women, accompanied with owls, come and show us and explain how Owls live. The children all really enjoyed this! 

First the 2 women, Syrah and Jenna introduced themselves and then we met the Owls. They were beautiful, they had silky and soft feathers and humongous wings. We found out that there were 6 breeds of owls in Britain.  They are White Face Scott, Tawny Owl, Little Owl, long eared Owl, short eared Owl and the Barn Owl. In the entire world there is a total of 240 unique types of owls. 
After being introduced to these fantastic birds we were lucky to watch them soar gracefully above our heads. What we also learnt was that once owls have digested their meal of mice, raw meat, small insects and beetles the following day they produce small pellets, a small cube of what their prey was left of.

Then each class was given the opportunity to sketch the owls outside on Fairlop's field. The owls that they bought outside were perched on stands for us to draw. These were the Eagle owl, Tawny Owl and little Owl. 

These owls originate from many different parts of the world, which included Asia, Africa and Europe. Another outstanding opportunity the children were given was to have a photo taken with the barn Owl stood on their shoulder with a wonderful woodland theme behind them. Although the owls are nocturnal, the birds that we met were awake during the day. There were many facts that we learnt about the owls which were:

1. They have 3 dimensional hearing. This means that one of their ears could hear better than the other because they were higher.
2. Owls can turn their heads 3 quarters of the way around as their eyes are fixed to a certain place.
3. Owls are very quiet and elegant birds due to the fact that they need to hunt their prey, so they rely on their excellent sense of hearing to pinpoint where their prey is.

The children of Fairlop all really enjoyed this experience of a lifetime with the owls and would love to something like this again.

Thank you so much to Syrah and Jenna for coming

Taniya and Choi-ying  Class 5S

Simon Higgins visits Fairlop...

On Wednesday the 25/03/2015 a few selected children were lucky enough to work with a famous author, Simon Higgins. He was a very funny and humorous man and the children of year 5 and 4 were delighted to have the opportunity to work with him.

We were also accompanied by two other schools. 

In the morning session we learnt a bit about Mr Higgins himself and then took advice about how to write an introduction to a mystery story. The children came up with some fantastic stories filled with wild imagination. 

After break we discussed the features of a good, well written story. This included tense, dialogue and setting. 

After lunch we had a mini book signing where we could buy his books and get them signed. 

Later on Mr Higgins told us about how his friends, who are also authors, have written their own stories. 

We planned out our own adventure stories according to what special features he told us. He gave us some special advice on how to write a standard story. 

To a conclusion we had wonderful time and learnt a lot more about what there really is to stories. 

Thank you to everyone who arranged this and most of all, Simon Higgins

E - Safety Video Conference

Parkhill, John Bramston, Hylands and Redbridge Primary, all took part in the Video Conference. Mayespark kindly invited us to talk to two police officers, PC Kim and PCSO Winston. Fairlop was the only school to have a power point. During the VC, Fairlop found out a lot about how to keep safe online. 
You are responsible for what you write, not your parents you are! Some people lie about their age, when the website has an age restriction i.e Facebook, if you have a bad message or photo sent to you, the police can't do anything about it! However some websites don't have age restrictions so if you are being sent nasty stuff, either screenshot it or tell an adult. If you decide to screenshot it then go to the police and show them straight away. There is a 'Ceop' website that will give you lots of advise to do with bullying online. In 2014 1 in 7 people were bullied online. If you are a bully online the please STOP!

Callum Class 6B

Junior Science Competition

4 Children from our school attended the Junior Science Competition  at Forest School. There were 3 experiments for us to do. We were against at least 20 other schools from Redbridge, Walthamstow and Waltham Forest.

The first experiment was chemistry. We had to put 2 pieces of zinc metal into an empty test tube, then add 2 drops of hydro chloric acid into the same test tube. We then heated a wooden splint using a bunsen burner. Next we held it beside the test tube and placed out thumb over the tube. This was supposed to create a reaction but unfortunately the experiment didn't work. Our last experiment was to try and make colours to figure out if  this liquid was acid or alkaline. We did this by mixing usual liquids such as milk and lemon juice. We mixed this with universal indicator strips to see whether it was an acid or alkaline. We test the pH level using a pH chart.

Then the second experiment. We started off by drawing with a paintbrush, dry, wet and in water. We then had to cut out a 2d boat and placed it in water. Unfortunately it sank within a second but we knew where we had gone wrong.
lastly was a tasting experiment. We tasted: Grapefruit skin, citric acid and ice cream with salt. We had to explain where these tastes were on the tongue and whether they tasted bitter, sweet or sour.

When we finished we went upstairs to hear who the winners were! Before that was announced we watched a scientist pop things, blow things up and set things on fire. The announcements were made but we didn't win although we all had a great time and got to try things we had never done before in science.

Isobel
Jake
Samia
Sapphire                                                                    

Art week at Fairlop...

This week (23rd-27th February) has been Art week. Our whole schools focus was Antoni Gaudi, Spanish Architect.
The children in Year 5 have had the opportunity to work with an artist called Kat. The made buildings inspired by Gaudi based on our topic for this term.

Whilst the children selected were working with Kat, the rest of year five have been making sculptures out of recycled materials. This took quite a lot of time as we had to plan it, build it and then decorate! We did paper mache on top of it and then stuck gems on. 

As well as that we have been sketching and using our environmental area to make, Gaudi inspired, bird houses. We used twigs and stones to make our houses.

As well as art, this week has been a great chance for us to learn about Gaudi and what buildings are really inspired by. Gaudi was inspired by nature and we were inspired by him.
The week was amazing and the whole school clearly enjoyed it. 
We were very lucky to have the chance to work with Kat.

The Children of Fairlop look forward to next week, Book Week
Taniya Bilal

Year 6 Hate Crime Workshop..

On the 5th February 2015, the Hate Crime Roadshow visited year 6. We were so lucky to have this chance  to see and participate in this show and discussion about many different types of hate crime. It was amazing and really clever how they mixed in many types of racism.

The show was about a plane crash and only 2 people survived. One boy and one girl were now trapped on a desert island and had to work together to survive. The 2 people Jess and Tim were very different, they looked different and had different opinions and through the show they agreed and talked about why their opinions hurt other people.

The show made us really think about what we say and what we do and how this can upset other people. We all enjoyed this workshop and learnt a lot from it.

By Zara
Class 6R

Writers Day...

Today was a great experience for us in Ms Masterson's writers club as we met author Jon Row. He had suffered a cold that would have killed him if it hadn't of gone away but after a cup of tea  he felt fine, so he came to us at Fairlop Primary School. 

He showed us a German notebook that was in a different style of writing to what we had seen, it had  squares instead of lines. When Jon was in hospital there was some saying there were aliens on the roof! That gave him an idea and he wrote a book all about it. From this we wrote our own book about a 35 year old man who eats; slugs, cold leftovers and rats cooked on spit fire, however he had a problem. He had 3 pets that have special abilities who solved the problem but then another problem occurred and the pets solved it again!

At the end we had a fabulous day, we couldn't be any happier. Finally we all got our books signed by Jon Row. He is an amazing writer who could't have tried any harder with his efforts to help us be better writers.