Hello all,

Welcome back to the final term of the school year! As usual it has flown and we are into the last term of schooling at Benton Park for some of our pupils!

The education world continues to change at a great pace as technology starts to envelop just about everything we do. We at Benton Park have enjoyed trying new things and the Teachers have done a wonderful job with their blogs!! By the end of the year we hope to have a new website to go along with the blog.

On the 18th of May Year 3/4 will be premiering their films at the Tyneside cinema (well done Miss Collin’s for organising this). In addition Miss Mullholland’s class and Mrs Eaton’s class have been shortlisted for an award for young film makers at Sunderland’s David Puttman’s film centre a competion organised by Sunderland University. 

So does this mean that books don’t matter? Well as educators we would firmly be on the side of books being of vital importance. Books can change the world. But technology is here and will also play a vital role in the children’s lives. Hence the blog and all the other opportunities we try to offer.

As an aside and a light hearted way to look at this debate here are 2 videos that might amuse… One of them is also on Mrs Eaton’s blog( where I stole the idea for this piece from!)

Today the listeners to the Lunchtime Radio broadcast were treated to a special treat. Kyle-in Mrs. Turner’s class performed live! He sang an acapella version of Damien Rice’s Cannonball. He entered both dining halls to rapturous and deserved applause. Have a listen and you’ll see why.

We have had a great day for World Book Day!! Most of the school dressed up and there was some fantastic costumes on show from the oldest children to the youngest. When we have sorted through the photos we will post some of them on this page.THEY ARE AT THE BOTTOM!! UNDER THE RADIO BROADCASTS!!

This page gives you-the parents-a chance to share some of your own stories from school. The Michael Rosen video may inspire you!!

At the bottom of this blog are some audio recordings from our older children. I will get round to some of the younger ones next week!! Also if you are willing to come in to talk about your favourite book we can record that and publish it here too!! Let Mr. Shepherd know.

When I was at school things were a little different!! I sat talking to my old school friends the other day and we told stories about the teachers we had. We had great fun telling the stories. I wonder what stories you will tell of your time at school. I wonder if any of you will make your living out of telling those stories? One of my teachers was a little like Michael Rosen’s Teacher!! Maybe you could tell your amusing tales here? Maybe you might even want to video you telling the story… if it is really good we may even put it on…Maybe your parents might like to blog about stories from their school days!

What will your class do to win the £100 for your book corner?? You have to be in it to win it! Mr. Cowen is convinced that Miss Collin’s class will win!!

Children talk about their favourite books…

On Tuesday night 20 excited children arrived at Key Stage 2 hall to try out Zumba!!

However the teacher cancelled at the very last minute. Fortunately Mr. Cowen was on hand to save the situation with his i-pod and his Thriller routine!!

On another note-children who get into the weekly honours board now have their photos uploaded onto the Honours assembly section.

I can’t believe that only one week ago I was in the middle of Scotland celebrating what we call Hogmany and you call New Year’s Eve!  And it was a great celebration.  In Scotland celebrating a New Year is about wishing well to everyone you meet.  First footing the neighbours, where the first person to put their foot through the door is said to bring luck to the house for the year and must bring a gift – traditionally a piece of coal for the fire, and remembering friends and family and how lucky we are. For me the new year actually starts in September – I have worked in schools for so long – so really new year is a time to relax and get ready for the hard work in the Spring Term. 

This term is my favourite as we get a lot of work done.  In the second half of this term we are undertaking some very exciting projects about the Titanic, all the classes do their class assembly, the City Hall singing takes place as well as the swimming galas and lots of sporting events can happen as it gets lighter in the evening.  Some children will get the chance to take part in the Shakespeare project of Macbeth and we will be singing at the Sage.

I hope you are also looking forward to this term, maybe it will be the term you learn to read, to write in paragraphs to conquer grid multiplication or to sing in harmony.  Let me know what you look forward to and remember to enjoy it as you go, it will be the only Spring term of 2012 ever!

Happy New Year

Miss Witherow.

The children at Benton Park decided to donate their Christmas money to Great Ormond Street Hospital. Instead of the school fund paying for presents for each child we decided that it would be better if we gave that money to a charity instead and this year that is what they have decided.

We have also been really luck to receive a load of gifts through amazon’s wish list giving programme, so if you gave a big thank you and have a look at the blogs in Mrs Turner’s class where the children say thank you too.

Have a great holiday everyone and I look forward to seeing you on the 3rd of January.

Alice Witherow

I can’t believe that it is nearly Christmas and that the term is coming to an end.  It has been a really busy but very successful term.  I have been looking at everyone’s reading this term and have been so impressed with how well everyone has done.  Our new reading policy is really working and I think that everyone, including all the teachers, are liking having lots of new books.

We have had lots of great moments during the term – runners up in the Port of Tyne film competition – the fantastic Christmas shows – the choir singing all over the city – the football team both boys and girls and some great radio shows.  This blog site has been really busy – take a look through some of the blogs from Y5 and Y6 who have been using the radio station to record some of their thoughts about their topic and if you have time take a moment to comment – they will be really pleased.

Next term we will be focussing on our writing so I hope to see lots of great examples on this blogsite as well as in your books.  I am very proud of all of you and your achievements this term and hope that you all have a good rest this holiday ready to come back in the New Year.

I hope that you get snow too, if that is what you want, but me I’m not hoping for any until after school finishes on Friday.  I’m off to Scotland for Christmas and for Hogmany but I hope that all of you have a wonderful festive season and that Santa visits.  See you in January!

Alice Witherow

On Wednesday night I went to a concert at the Sage. It was to see one of my favourite bands – James. However they had done something different and their music had been re- arranged so that they could have an orchestra and a choir accompany them. It was one of the most amazing concerts I have ever been to. I loved it, the singer, the orchestra, the choir.

Because it was so different they didn’t play many of their most popular songs but Tim Booth the lead singer explained to the audience that they were trying something new, that they wanted “to be brilliant in more than one way”.

That sentence was why I loved that concert. They were brilliant in more than one way but I think that is what we should all aspire to be.

On Thursday I am taking to children from Y6 to the Baltic because our film Quayside has been nominated for an award in the Port of Tyne film competition. We are the youngest entrants and it is a great thing for the school to receive even a nomination.

Who would have thought that Primary School children could make such a good film? But then you meet the children at Benton Park and you know – they are brilliant – brilliant in more than one way.

Let me know what you think is brilliant about you and how many ways are you brilliant?  And if you could be really brilliant – nominated for awards brilliant – what would you want to be brilliant at?

The thing about time is that when you are as old as me there is never enough of it! How come we are at the last week and we seem to have just got back to school? (And yes Y5/6 that was a rhetorical question.)

This week at BPPS we has some visitors from Holland who wanted to visit a really creative school to learn about teaching children to think. And they were so impressed with Benton Park – they really liked Miss Collins – so young and so enthusiastic and they loved being interviewed on the radio by Hannah and Josh.

Everywhere we went in the school children were thinking and thinking really hard! I was so proud of you all – the school looked really fabulous.

The best bit of the term for me however has been visting classes and seeing how much you all learning about reading and writing – I can’t get out of my office door for children who want to show me their work or who are on the best writer’s wall! Fantastic – you are all writing stars in my opinion.

So that was my favourite bit of the term – tell me about yours………I’d love to know before the October holidays start.

Andy Warhol, who was a famous artist in the 1960s predicted that everyone in the future would be famous for 15 minutes. This week Benton Park School enjoyed a little bit of fame as school of the week on Real Radio. We also had a visit from Real Radio breakfast presenters, Gary and Lisa – who are famous in the North East. Listeners to our radio programme, will know all about this as we interviewed Gary and Lisa on our show. In radio club on Monday we also spent a lot of time chatting about X factor, a programme that makes some very ordinary people very famous. I was talking to Abigail, who was part of the group who showed Gary and Lisa round and we were discussing how very different famous people can seem and we can forget that they are just people. All that made me think about fame. Who would you really like to meet if you could meet someone famous and why? What is it about them that you admire? If you tell me who you would like to meet and why, I’ll tell you who I would like to meet. Remember first names only on the blog.

And keep blogging. You may not have been famous yet but with the writing that I have read, you might just be!!!

Looking forward to hearing from you……