Festive Greetings Advent Calendar

Try out our festive greeting advent calendar!  You can learn a different daily festive phrase thanks to the videos from Radio Lingua.  Learn to wish people around the world a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year or Happy Holidays in 24 different languages.

This initiative is primarily aimed at school children across the country and each episode of our video podcast will provide some background information about the language concerned including the number of speakers and where the language is spoken.

The festive fun begins on 1st December with Norwegian. Each day visitors to the site can ‘open the door of the Advent Calendar’ and access a new video.

Our website also keeps you up to date with weather condition alerts, newsletters and latest events happening in and around school.

Never seen snow before .... ?

Bad news - school's open (but closing at 2:00 pm)
Good news - a chance to play on our school field with the snow

Fun and laughter was had by all when pupils enjoyed some break and lunchtime fun in the snow.  Masses of snowballs, snowpeople and other sculptures were being created before the snow disappears. 

Some new students to Fairlop had never seen snow before, so it was a wonderful moment to capture on film of their new experience and an upside to our English weather conditions!

Keep checking our website for latest updates on weather conditions daily - it's the earliest widespread snowfall for 17 years .....

Fairlop's own 'Paralympic' Team!

In early October, Fairlop students with special educational needs visited Redbridge Sports Centre to participate in a very special day, as you can see from the photos below.

They had great fun with many sports - hockey, curling, skittles, athletics and boccia to name but a few.  As well as enjoying a great day together, they were also able to spot London's Mayor Boris Johnson and have their photos taken with past Olympic Gold Medallist and the current London 2012 Olympics Committee chair, Lord Sebastian Coe!

Redbridge Sports Centre was the first venue to be signed up to provide state-of-the-art training facilities for 2012 competitors.

Thames Festival - Animation by Fairlop Primary

Towards the end of last term, some of our ‘now’ Yr 6 students worked with Miss Gibbons to make some designs for the waterwheel project. Their artwork was entirely created by the children in response to the concept of the water-cycle.
James Ormiston, Fairlop Primary and a school in Muswell Hill have worked together to create the animation below – all part of the Thames Festival 2010. We think it’s excellent – click on the link to see for yourself!

Our Animation!

Farewell Year 6 and July activities ....

Year 6 - have a great summer break and we wish you well in your new school. Make sure you come and visit us occasionally!

Tai-Chi Week - Fairlop’s Chinese themed week started with a fantastic Tai Chi lesson delivered by two professional Tai Chi teachers who own their very successful Tai Chi school in London. All of Key Stage 2 learnt the fundamentals of Tai Chi and took part in a whole school Tai Chi display on Friday 5th July 2010 in the playground. Representatives from Key Stage 1 learnt a traditional Chinese lion dance and even got to wear the ancient Chinese costume as well as play traditional Chinese instruments!

Chinese Picnic - on Friday 2nd July, Fairlop hosted its very first Chinese themed picnic. Year 6 stall holders rose to the occasion by submitting very well thought out business plans which enabled them to receive a loan from Ms Brannan to run their businesses. Children and parents visited the 'Chubby Panda' food stall and feasted on traditional Chinese foods. The event really did bring the whole community together which was clearly evident as parents and friends set up their picnics on our school field.

Shine Week 2010 - parents kindly gave up their time to talk to our children about their chosen profession and career paths. What life is like as a Solicitor, an Engineer, a Police Officer, an Accountant or a Clinical Nutritionist were just some of the professions that children had an opportunity to ask questions about, and I am sure many were inspired by the speakers' presentations. Overall, the assembly was a huge success and left children with the idea that everyone has a unique gift or talent and that all dreams are possible.

Go Bonkers - our annual event which took place on Saturday 10th July 2010 and was another roaring success for Friends of Fairlop! Children jumped, bounced and tumbled on an array of brightly coloured inflatables while parents ate beautifully barbequed burgers and queued for ice-creams! A number of very dedicated parents and helpers worked tirelessly all day to ensure the event was enjoyed by all. Mrs Allen and Mrs Chipperfield organised the whole day which as I am sure you can imagine is not an easy task.

So, on behalf of Fairlop staff and pupils I would like to say a huge thank you to all parent helpers, staff and friends who once again gave the children a day to remember!

The Big Dance - Big Dance 2010 invited everyone to do 20 minutes of extra dance or physical activity each day in Big Dance week and to participate in a Guinness World Record attempt at 1pm on Friday 9 July by taking part in a 30 minute dance lesson on their school site. Over 650 schools signed up to take part including schools in The Lebanon, India and Sri Lanka as part of the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms programme. Fairlop were proud to do their bit and our students took part in the World Record attempt!

As well as Sports Days, Recycling Robots and many other activities in school, it's been a really busy end to this term. Have a great summer break, we hope the sun continues to shine and children will start their new year groups on Monday 6th September.

Sports Week

For Sports Week, children were chosen to go to Ashton Playing Fields and competed against other schools in Redbridge. Fairlop students came third in Y3 and Y4 came second!

The sun was shining for our KS2 Sports Day and everyone enjoyed it. Overall, the results were 1st - Red Team, 2nd - Yellow Team, 3rd - Blue Team and 4th - Green Team.

NEW!!!!! WEBSITE AND FRONTER

NEXT WEEK OUR NEW FAIRLOP WEBSITE IS GOING LIVE!

The new address is www.fairlop.redbridge.sch.uk and we hope you enjoy browsing the revised layout, information and features it offers. If there is anything you would like included - please let us know.

You can access Fronter directly from our website - why not make it your home page!

FRONTER - Our students have been excitedly logging on to our Fronter MLE for the past few weeks, and participating in the online activities for their year groups. They have also had fun creating avatars (using http://www.myavatareditor.com/), uploading them and using their Visual Mail accounts to communicate with each other.

If your child doesn't have their Fronter logon & password details and you have signed and returned the student & parent User Agreement forms, please let Mrs Skinner/Mrs Frost (ICT Team) know.

Fairlop grows their own & food tasting days

This month, Fairlop and ISS Caterhouse (our school meal provider) have held two taster sessions for children and parents to try a selection of dishes that are new to our menu. Tasters sampled the food and gave each dish either a 'smiley' :) or a sad :( face! Parents welcomed the opportunity to try their school dinner experience.

Fresh produce grown by students in our Environmental Area was on sale too ......

Celebrating Easter in all sorts of ways ....

On Maundy Thursday, we had hoped to have an Easter Hunt throughout the morning for all the children in Nursery through to Year 6 - unfortunately, the weather wasn't on our side. Later, when it had brightened up a little, we were able to begin the Easter Parade, though parents had to shelter in our school hall for a bit! It was a noisy and enjoyable start to the Easter break.

Our film below shows some of our wonderful Easter Bonnet creations. This year too, we had the opportunity of watching and waiting for our chicks to hatch in the Nursery. By carefully planting our webcam, we can see them emerging from the eggs, becoming warm and fluffy before they were reunited in their new home for a few days. The pecking sound is one very inquisitive chick who took a shine to the webcam lens!

Fairlop fundraises for Haiti earthquake

The Ilford Recorder reported how children across Redbridge raised thousands of pounds after being spurred to help those whose lives have been torn apart by the Haiti earthquake. Hearing the heartbreaking stories of the victims of the January 12th disaster gave youngsters the desire to do their bit to help.

At Fairlop we asked our pupils to donate old toys which could be sold in a ‘bring and buy’ sale which was a fantastic success. The School Council and Friends of Fairlop sold pancakes with ice cream and syrup after school - an amazing 120 pancakes in total! Parents and friends made onion bhajis and other delectable goodies on site which were snapped up, as were the wonderful array of cakes donated by parents.

Children and staff came to school dressed in jeans if they contributed £1:00 to the appeal. In total, we raised a fantastic amount of £1,200 and our thanks to everyone who helped, donated and contributed in some way.

The day really highlighted how well the children of Fairlop and the community work together to help make a difference to those who are suffering. The generosity of everyone involved was truly phenomenal.

It's snow joke ....

Happy New Year to all our Fairlop blog readers around the world! Although we've just returned to school, the snow has fallen thick and fast around IG6 and children are leaving early today. Our school field looks like a winter wonderland and most classes got the opportunity earlier to have a run around and build a few cool snow sculptures. Keep looking at our website to find out if the school will be open over the 7th/8th January 2010. We'll post updates daily.

Having fun in the snow is below!