Thank you, Margaret! It was a privilege to share your memories.

On Tuesday, we were delighted to welcome Margaret, who came to share her experience as an evacuee during the Second World War with us. Margaret is 90 years old and her memory is as sharp as ever. We asked Margaret many questions about the host family she stayed with in Wales. Despite having no running water or electricity, Margaret had happy memories of her time in the countryside staying with Mr. and Mrs. Brown – milking cows, collecting eggs from the chickens, growing vegetables and making new friends. We had many questions about how the evacuees found a host family to stay with. Margaret recounted waiting in the village hall upon arrival in Wales whilst couples came to ‘look the evacuees over’. If they liked the look of you, you went home with them – that was that!’ She regaled us with stories of gas mask drills at school and scary nights spent in an Anderson shelter taking cover from the enemy planes overhead. Margaret also brought her identity card and a cookery book from the war to share with us. What a truly wonderful experience to be able to learn about the past from someone who has lived it! A huge thank you to Margaret for bring History to life. We had a wonderful afternoon listening to your memories and learning from you, Margaret! Thank you also to Bella’s mum for helping to arrange this visit.

Some of us took part in the HfL Year 6 Maths Challenge this week. We competed against other Year 6 pupils across the county. There were four different rounds including an estimation round. All rounds were strictly timed and the questions required plenty of team work and perseverance. We absolutely loved it! We look forward to receiving the results after half term.

In Art, we practised drawing faces using using the proportion skills we have previously learned. We used the work of mid-20th Century artist L.S.Lowry to study the proportions of the face. Some impressive initial sketches…

In PE, we held our own mini hockey tournament, putting the skills learnt over the past few weeks into practice. We dribbled, defended, attacked, and marked our opponents showing improved skills and communication. Well done to all the teams! A fun way to conclude our hockey lessons for this half term!

This week we celebrated poetry as we took part in this term’s ‘Poetry By Heart’ event. Each class learnt a poem by heart and performed their poem in front of the whole school. We performed ‘Television’ by Roald Dahl. We spoke with clarity and performed brilliantly. Learning a poem by heart allowed us to manage pace and timing to powerful effect. We learnt how to hold a silence, eye contact, body language and gesture. We also had a lot of fun learning the poem. we thoroughly enjoyed listening to the poems performed by the other classes too, including ‘Invictus’, ‘Mr. Nobody’, ‘Walking with my Iguana’ and ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’. You can enjoy listening to a recording of ‘Television’ by Roald Dahl by clicking the link below.

Television by Roald Dahl

What better way to bring this half term to a close than by having a super Golden Morning of enrichment activities! From circus skills to miniature gardens to autumnal craft to sewing pumpkins to baking, there really was something for everyone. We welcomed Henry (Bella’s older brother) back to Little Hadham Primary for Golden Morning. He expertly lead one of the activities – watercolour pictures with a scary twist! Henry was brilliant, showing us how to create different effects and sharing his expertise with us. Henry is a  talented artist and it was a pleasure to have him back with us. Thank you, Henry!

Our next Learning Together Morning will be Thursday 7th November, 8.45am. We hope you can join us and share in our learning.

Thank you for your support this half term. Have a wonderful half term break. We look forward to seeing you back in school on Monday 4th November.