Middle School Newsletter

To our Middle School Community, 

What an incredible past week we've had in the Middle School! It was absolutely filled to the brim with special end-of-year events. Read on to hear about them and what else is coming up in the final days of the 2018-2019 school year!

Dates For Your Diary 

Return Date for Academic Year 2019/2020 - Monday 9th September   

Monday 8th July - Friday 12th July: Year 6 Residential Trip - In2Action Gloucester

Monday 8th July - Friday 12th July: Year 6 remaining students trip week
(Kidzania, Cinema, Hackney City Farm, Natural History Museum)
​
Friday 12th July: Reports sent home

Monday 8th July - Friday 12th July - Last Week of Clubs

Monday 15th July: Year 7 Macbeth Performance (after school)

Monday 15th July: Year 6 Disco (6:00pm - 8:00pm New Hall)

Wednesday 17th July: Year 8 Legacy Event (More information to follow)

Wednesday 17th July: Summer attendance winners visit to ZapSpace
(More information to follow)

Thursday 18th July: Summer Exhibition of Beautiful Work (4:30pm - 6:30pm) 1:00pm finish (3:15pm supervision option available - more information to follow)

Friday 19th July: Middle School Annual Awards (see below for further details)

Friday 19th July: Last day of the Year - School Closing at 1:00pm

Dehydration in hot weather

Dehydration occurs when there isn’t enough fluid in the body to keep it working properly. The body needs water to help maintain body temperature, make bodily fluids and for day-to-day functioning.

Young children and babies are at greater risk of becoming dehydrated than adults. Keeping your child hydrated is important at all times, but especially when they are unwell and in hot weather.

If your child is very thirsty, they are probably already dehydrated. The effects of severe dehydration can be serious.

Signs and symptoms of dehydration

If your child is mildly dehydrated, they may have:

If your child has severe dehydration, they may be:

• dizziness or light-headedness 

• nausea or headaches 

• dark yellow or brown urine (wee) – urine should be pale yellow 

• fewer wet nappies or nappies not as wet as usual; or older children will not go to the toilet as much 

• dry lips, tongue, mouth or throat.

• extremely thirsty 

• lethargic or less active than usual 

• pale and have sunken eyes, tears may be absent when crying 

• cold – especially their hands or feet 

• breathing faster than usual and have a fast heart rate 

• irritable, drowsy or confused.

What causes dehydration?

Children are more likely to become dehydrated:

• after lots of physical activity or exercise 

• with severe vomiting or diarrhea 

• if they have a fever 

• if they take certain medications, such as diuretics 

• if they don’t drink enough, especially during times of illness 

• if they are younger than six months of age 

• in hot weather.

Making sure your child drinks enough water each day can help prevent dehydration. Providing extra drinks of water in hot weather, during and after exercise and during illness is particularly important.

Term Dates for 2019/2020

Attendance Winners - Week Beginning 24/06/2019

5 - Snowdon 99.2% Middle School Winners

6 - Everest 95.2%

7 - Ben Nevis 97.1%

8 - Fuji 97.1%

Summer Term Overall Attendance Winners: 

1st Place:  SNOWDON (Y5) 98.17%
2nd Place:  Kilimanjaro (Y6) 96.50%
3rd Place:  Olympus (Y8) 96.43%
4th Place:  Kilimanjaro (Y6) 96.50%
5th Place:  Matterhorn (Y5) 94.68%
6th Place:  Rockies (Y7) 94.61%
6th Place:  Koscuiszko (Y6) 94.61%
7th Place:  Himalayas (Y7) 94.16%
8th Place:  Everest (Y6) 94.40%
9th Place:  Machu Picchu (Y5) 93.18%
10th Place:  Fuji (Y8) 92.83%
11th Place:  Mont Blanc 91.02%

Congratulations to Snowdon - Year 5 have dominated the attendance awards this year - will they keep this up in Year 6 or will another Year Group rise to the challenge? Information for the ZapSpace visit next week will come home soon (again!) for Snowdon class members. 

Please see the Middle School After School Club Timetable Summer 2019

Band Project Recital

Last week the Year 5 and 6 cohorts all took to the stage in a number of ensembles to put on a truly spectacular concert, showcasing their learning from the last 1 or 2 years! The Hip Hop Brass Band filled the hall with Bruno Mars' 'Treasure' and the Y6 Big Band with Macklemore's 'Thrift Shop' with the entire evening being completed with an incredible rendition of Beethoven's 5th. This was an awesome thing to behold considering all 150 musicians from Years 5 and 6 and all their teachers took part. Every year we are amazed by the talents of our students and the music team. Let the countdown begin to next year's Middle School Band Project Recital!

Year 7 Ignite: A moment of humanity 

Last week also saw the Year 7 raising their voice to present their Ignite speeches based on the theme of 'A moment of Humanity'. All students chose an issue that was meaningful to them personally and had impact on their lives to craft a speech about. We had such a wide mix of topics from the inspiration little brothers can provide, to dealing with loss in families to how frustrating school uniform rules can be! The newest members of the Year 7 family stepped up impressively to deliver their speeches in 5 simultaneously-running rooms around the middle school. We hope all of the parents and carers who came along to support were as impressed as we were!

End of Year Picnic in the Park

When school finishes for the summer on Friday 19th July at 1:00pm, why not join a group of parents with a picnic to let the children play the afternoon away and say bye to school friends for the summer?
For the last six years, a growing number of parents have done this, with numbers growing every year in West Ham Park near the ice cream van and playground. It started with just three parents! 
We play rounders and football with a casual and supportive set of parents keeping an eye on our little community in the park. 
No need to book, just rock up with a picnic blanket, deckchairs and food. The kids will do the rest!

A Middle School Odyssey

Middle School pulled on another incredible feat last week - 300 students across 12 classes in 4 year groups each crafted a piece of our own Odyssey, inspired by the ancient version by Homer! The day kicked off with our amazing Middle School core team bringing the story of the cyclops to life in a Storytelling assembly that had the students transfixed. Inspired and ready to go, the entire school broke into smaller groups, each working with an adult to learn, write and illustrate our own adventure epic. A big shout out of recognition must go to Ms Druce, Ms Kenshole and the Storytelling Queen, Ms Barron for their hard work planning out the day, and to all of the wonderful Middle School coaches who stepped up to run the day. Of course as well to the students who engaged so brilliantly in the creation of our very own Odyssey! Being published soon... watch this space!

Annual Awards

Teachers and staff are currently voting on nominated students for our first Middle School Annual Awards. Students who have consistently gone above and beyond in our different curriculum areas of 'Head', 'Heart' and 'Hand'. We will also have a major award of Student of the Year. Nominees will be voted on with winners being announced and collecting trophies at our ceremony on the last day of term, 9am on the 19th July! Letters will be sent home to nominees this week! 

Summer Sports Day

Because we didn't think there was enough packed into last week with 4 major events already, our Summer Sports Day was also held! Again, the whole school mobilised, even with a last-minute change of venue, to play hard in a day filled with all the sports the students have been learning over the term. Year groups played in rotation, each taking part in Badminton, Football, Cricket and Dodgeball and Table Tennis as well as relay races and a game of Tug-o-War throughout the day. Huge thanks and recognition to Ms Jenkins and the PE department (Mr Kidd, Mr Travis and Ms Hayes) for their hard work in organising and running the day. Congratulations to the White team who beat out the other colours to emerge the victors of the day! 

Recognition last week 

Our recognition boards were filled with names again last week. Congratulations and thank you to all who demonstrated working in the zone, choosing kind and stepping up - you make our Middle School community #middlestrong! 

The bulb in our projector has broken unfortunately, so some of the recognition was squeezed onto one day! Please share with your children as they may not have seen their name last week!

The Lunch Menu has changed - please see the changes above.

The Lunch Menu this week is Week 2!

Receiving Emails from School 

Those with Yahoo email accounts need to add: 

3164001@capita-intouch.co.uk  as a safe contact so that they can receive emails from the school.

Camp Horizons - Kids summer camp in the Olympic Park

Camp Horizons is an Ofsted-registered kids (ages 6-14) summer activity camp provider, who will be running their 4th summer camp programme at Mossbourne Riverside Academy between 22 July - 09 August 2019.

Camp Horizons offers kids an action-packed summer filled with sports, drama, arts & crafts, dance, inter-camp competition and theme days! All staff are qualified childcare professionals (coaches/teachers), and are all have enhanced DBS checked. Camp Horizons can accept childcare vouchers and weekly rates start from £95.00.

For more information about the summer camp programme, please visit www.camphorizons.co.uk or get into touch via enquiries@camphorizons.co.uk.