Westdale Junior School news

Term has ended and the school summer holidays have begun.

The school year finished with our Leavers' Assembly when we congratulated our Year 6 pupils on their achievements and wished them well for the future.


Earlier in the day we had congratulated all the children who had 100% attendance for the year and Mrs. Gosling, one of our TAs, who has just been awarded her degree.

We hope that all our staff, pupils and their families have a happy and safe holiday.

School re-opens at our usual start time on Tuesday 4th September.

Labels: 2012, news, parents, report, Y3, Y4, Y5, Y6

In this year of special events, our Sewing Club have made a decorative cover for the back of the piano.

It refers to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the 2012 London Olympic Games and the diamond jubilee of the opening of our school.

Labels: 2012, clubs, report

We had super weather for our Team Sports' Afternoon today, 12th July 2012. Twenty teams of children (each with some Y3s, Y4s, Y5s and Y6s) played eighteen different activities and earned points, with the three highest points-earning teams being awarded medals at the end of the afternoon.

Labels: 2012, sports day, Y3, Y4, Y5, Y6

On Wednesday, 11th July, we had our annual Music Concert. The children performed to the whole school in the morning and to parents and friends in the evening.

The Choir started the concert off by singing When I'm 64 and You raised me up followed by a complex arrangement of This is our world. In addition to singing, we had contributions from our orchestra and Music Club and from our Ukulele Club. As well as this, we had group and solo performances from our musicians who play the violin, flute and/or the recorder. The concert ended with further songs from the choir which concluded with a presentation of Sing, the song witten by Gary Barlow and Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber for the Queen's jubilee.

This was an excellent concert, very well received by the large audience, and we are all very proud of the children who have worked hard to achieve such a good standard.

Labels: 2012, choir, music, report, Y3, Y4, Y5, Y6

The members of the Year 5 Ukulele Club had a great time at the "come and play" concert given by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain at the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham on 6th July 2012.

We took the bus into the city and had plenty of time to settle in and tune up in the concert hall before the concert. The UOGB presented some of the items that they were going to perform in their evening concert and the children were able to join in the playing of some of these. There were also some special items to play along with that we had practiced beforehand. These included Dr. Knickerbocker, A sailor went to sea and Old Macdonald had a ukulele.

Labels: 2012, clubs, music, report, Y5

Despite the poor weather, which meant that we had to run the Summer Fair indoors this year, our Year 6s ran an excellent and successful Summer Fair.

The Year 6 children wrote to and visited shops and businesses in Mapperley and many of these were able to donate items for the raffle or other prizes. They also made games for the children to play. In addition to these, we had our usual stalls including books, cakes, toys, etc.

The event was very well attended.

Well done to all involved.

Labels: 2012, report, summer fair

Last year we were able to take some violin and flute players to the Halle Orchestra "Come and Play" concert and we were delighted to be able to do this again this year and also be able to take some guitar players too.

The Halle Orchestra played a number of pieces of classical music (including William Tell: Overture by Rossini, the Knightsbridge March from London Suite by Coates and the overture to Cinderella by Prokofiev) and some film themes (including John Williams' score from Star Wars).

The highlight of the concert, however, was the opportunity for the children to play along with the orchestra in two pieces. One was a specially written composition linked with the London Olympics called Dreams of Glory composed by Steve Pickett, the other was the Thunder and Lightening Polka by Johann Strauss II. The whole audience also joined in the sining of another specially composed item, Chase down the Sun  (music by Steve Pickett, lyrics by Terry Caffrey

Labels: 2012, music, report