There was much fun and excitement across the school today, both at Earls Hall itself and off site!

The children from Year One donned their high visibility jackets and set off on coaches on a day trip to Barleylands Farm. At the farm they visited the animals on the farm and fed the goats and sheep. There was excitement in the group too as the children were introduced to two lambs who were born earlier in the  morning. The day was centred around food and the classes looked at wheat specifically. They went on a tractor ride to visit the crop field and then went on to grind the wheat into flour. Then they moved into the kitchen and carried out some science experiments based on food. The children made predictions and observed what they could see happening. The children were extremely well behaved and made the teachers all feel really proud.

Back in school, the children in Willow used the xylophones to learn to play Largo, a slow tempo piece of music, by playing ‘From the New World’ by Antonín Dvoøák in unison. Meanwhile, outside on the playground, the children in Year Six continued to use mod rock to create the shapes of their Tudor masks.

Team spirit was in the air at Southend Rugby Club today as a team of children from Year One represented Earls Hall at the KS1 Tag Rugby inter-schools competition. The team played against local schools, including West Leigh and the Federation of Greenways, and in the five games they played they scored points in all. Miss O’Rourke, Mrs Mellish and Miss Chandler were impressed with their team work throughout the competition.

There was lots of learning outside in general today as the children from Beech took part in the third of our ‘Bikeability’ sessions whilst the children in Hawks took part in PE and developed their tennis skills.

On the field the children in Sycamore got up close and personal with nature! Sycamore learnt about the work of naturalists and animal behaviourists today in science, in particular the work of David Attenborough and Jane Goodall.  They later put into practice their work by making close observations of the school grounds, focusing on the senses (see, hear, smell) and sketched some of our findings.  Nature continued to be a theme of the day as Mrs Brock hosted another ‘Green Fingered Gardening Club’ over at the Summer house after school.