Westdale Junior School news

Mrs Harrison organised another excellent Arts and Book Week this year. Taking place during the week before our February half term holiday, we had a range of visiting speakers, workshops and art activities which were very enjoyable.

The main visitors included the author, David Pascoe who writes (among other things) many of the Stanley Bagshaw books and television scripts. In assembly, he performed some of his poems and talked about writing. Then each of the Year 5 and 6 classes had a writing workshop with him.

The Roundabout Theatre brought their play entitled The Book of Miracles to school. They presented two lively performances, one for Year 3 and one for Year 4. It was an interesting story about a quest to recover a page from an ancient spellbook which had been stolen by an evil magician.

Partake, who provided a Tudor Day at school for Year 4 later in the summer, led a drama workshop for the Year 5 classes based on the story of Jason and the Argonauts. The children took on a variety of roles to re-create episodes from the story which linked with the Year 5 history work on life in Ancient Greece.

Richard Arter brought a complete set of steel drums for Year 5 and 6 classes to learn to play. He demonstrated the drums, explained how they were played and then everyone had the opportunity to be taught how to play the drums. At the end of the afternoon there was a concert to present the music that had been practised to the whole school. Kevin Skillings used his puppet, Eddie, to lead an assembly, Germaine Cookson provided a modern dance workshop and there was a visit from Seven Trent Water Authority. Years 3 and 4 also had library visits.

In addition to all these visitors, pupils in all classes were involved in a range of art activities including creating a flip-picture, book jackets, drawing, painting and using pastels, making cards, scraper-board pictures and quilling.

Labels: 2001, report, summer fair