The Primary Works

A second art day was held at Pearse House on April 9th. The children, enthusiastic and great company as ever, enjoyed tackling sketching skills using pencil and charcoal. The overall theme was perspective and architecture, with Pearse House, a Victorian mansion in tudor style, lending itself superbly to a final drawing piece out of doors. Harriet and Amelia completed superb pieces on this subject, Amelia in paint and Harriet in pencil. Jenny, Hannah, Zoe and Natalie decided their favourite piece was a tree silhouette using perspective to give a distant rural view, with fields fading into the horizon along with trees that were more distant. All 6 were excellently completed.

A really great, creative day. Congratulations to all for their fine achievements. I am sure mum and dad are really impressed. Well done. I am now planning a new course for the half term break. Details to follow or email me for these by the end of April. Photos can befound in the gallery. Click photos.

7 teams from 5 local schools congregated at Pearse House for the termly Primary Works Science Challenge Day.

First challenge was to construct a gravity run, making a toy car roll 2 metres over a carpetted surface. Many designs were made with the winning team (Summercroft) making their car travel over 1.5 metres. Friction, gravity and air resistance were all discussed before the 2nd challenge of the day: kite making. A NASA design, simple to construct and great to fly was introduced. All worked really well, with Hunsdon, Little Hadham and Albury’s going superbly. After a much needed lunchbreak a parachute challenge was discussed. Teams had to plan what they required and bought them with a $2 million NASA dollar budget. Birchanger and Albury school did well, keeping their egg intact and only spending 700,000 dollars on their design. Great work.

Finally, a pneumatically launched rocket had to be constructed. All succeeded when launched at 60psi with Hunsdon’s team, the Burned out Boffins, travelling the highest and furthest, covering over 35 metres and attaining a height of 60 feet. This particular example went straight and high whilst others showed aerodynamic problems and headed off in all directions. All succeeded in getting off the launch pad and great fun was had by all.

Eventually, Hunsdon Primary came out the winners and took The Primary Works, Science Challenge Shield.

An excellent day with inventive, enthusiastic and polite children, all keen to succeed and willing to face up to some pretty tough challenges. Well done to all. For more photos click on photos above.

Summercroft Primary, Bishop’s Stortford, Herts booked a day to kick off their whole week of exciting science activities. A whole school assembly (360+ children) was followed by a session with year 3 painting with melting ice cubes and salt. Good for evaporation learning and melting ice. Year 5 had a project on developing habitats for particular creatures and how they adapted to their habitat. A good question and answer feedback session followed. Year 1 spent time painting with poster paint and salt whilst year 2 made kites as shown in the photos. Reception children had fun in the hall playing colour games and discovering what colours made what when mixed.

Great fun throughout the day.

A live science show in front of 200 children and staff. The theme was “The Science of Sight and Sound”. The whole show lasted 1.5 hours with plenty of children participating upon the stage. The biology of the eye and ear were demonstrated with powerpoint whilst the audience were offered opportunities to create their own sounds using a wide variry of household resources. Most popular was the plastic straw flute, with 40 children attempting to form an orchestra on stage. The length of the straw dictating the note.

Plenty of optical illusions were demonstrated on the large screen, causing much wide eyed amazement with the audience. In all a great time in front of a most attentive and enthusiastic audience.

Click on the photo to visit the gallery. Here you will find many photos of this event.

4 teams of 2, from Wareside School and Morgans met at the Mill Bridge Rooms, Hertford for a day of science challenges. Points were awarded for: teamwork, creativity, inventiveness, discussion, design, planning and success. The winning team (a wareside duo of Caja and Zac) were awarded The Primary Works Science Shield.

In all, an excellent day, with amazing results. The first activity was to build a gravity ball run, with the ball having to travel for precisely 15 seconds. All teams opted for a maze type design and constructed one carefully. Plenty of testing etc took place and all four teams managed to get within 4 seconds of the target. The closest was 16.3 seconds. A superb effort.

Next were the A4 paper kites which were constructed and taken to Castle Park to fly. All succeeded with one team having an outstanding design that flew almost on its own, reaching a height of 15 metres with ease.

Finally, the parachute challenge, where an egg had to be placed under a parachute and survive a drop of over 3 metres. 2 managed and 2 returned with smashed contents.

Congratulations to all who took part. A wonderfully exhilarating day in the company of pleasant, polite and extremely thoughtful children.

25 gifted and talented year 5 and 6 children congregated in the courtyard suite at Pearse House, Bishop’s Stortford for a day’s writing course. In all, the schools represented were Little Hadham, Manor Fields, Summercroft, Widford and Albury. The objectives of the course were to develop characters, increase awareness of setting the scene and how to complete a story with satisfactory and well planned conclusion. In the afternoon the emphasis switched to poetry with a look at developing poetic description via original similes, best vocabulary and syllable patterns.
A super day with all children being a pleasure to be with. A book of all thewriting completed is now in the printing stage. At the end, one child texted her mother with the words, “It’s brilliant” Another was overheard saying “It’s better then school”
Enough said. I shall now plan a similar day for years 3 and 4 gifted and talented writers.