The annual Staff v Parent netball match took place last night.  It was a tight(ish) match with much focus and determination.  A classic 4 person pile up, a bit of ballet dancing, assertive instructions, interesting foot work and the concept of 1m all made it a tense match!  The oranges came on at half time and a bit of firm team talk got the ladies in check!  All in all it was a long, gruelling 40 minutes but the staff managed a convincing win against the parents with a final score of 15-11.

Today, our 2 new headteachers helped to run the school.  Edith and Scarlet won the raffle at the school fair to become the headteacher for the day.  The day started by greeting people at the front gate.  Next they went to each class to introduce themselves to everyone. We had a visitor who looked around school and the new headteachers told them all about our learning.  After supervising break time, the girls went to the school kitchen to find out about how our school dinners are prepared. The girls found out about our school budget and what we have to spend the money on to run the school. We talked about school governors and their role in school.
The girls have a list of things they want to find out about today and we are gradually making our way through it!

We have really enjoyed going up to the allotment today. We have all had a chance to go. The children have watched potatoes being dug up. They have explored the fruit, vegetable and flower beds. What happy children and knowledgeable children we have in our school.

On Thursday 7th July 2016 the children of Exminster Community Primary School were treated to a once in a lifetime assembly. As a reward for our participation in so many of the DSSP events and festivals this year we were visited by Cassie Patten; Beijing Olympics Bronze Medallist in the 10km Open Water Swim. The assembly by Cassie was extremely motivational and was aimed at promoting children to persevere in everything they do in order to reach their potential. After the assembly, sixteen lucky girls from Year 3 and Year 4 took part in an hour of games run by Cassie and her assistant Scott. The girls chosen have all been part of our Change4Life Club over the school year, and hopefully the experience will give all children in school a passion for reaching their goals.
"This is the best day of my life!" Scarlet.
"I never thought I would meet someone in the Olympics!" Emma
Thank you Cassie for your visit. It was an honour for the children to meet an international sports star.

Former Exminster pupil, Ozzie Parker, returned to school today to hold a jamming session with budding drummer, Brandon.  The boys had an hour of jamming together, with Brandon learning how to work together musically and being inspired by Ozzie's musical journey.

Ozzie attended Exminster Primary and was the first ever winner of the Helen Foundation award.  Ozzie then progressed to Dawlish Community College, winning the award again at the end of KS3.  Ozzie progressed onto Exeter College to study music and is now off to Leeds Conservatoire in September, the country's leading university for music.  Ozzie cuurently works with a country pop singer, Clara Bond, is part of a band named 'Jonah hitchings and the Superband' and has had 2 BBC introducing sessions.  Tune in for Ozzie's next live session on BBC Devon on 30 July. 

Thank you for your time today Ozzie and for inspiring young musicians.  The very best of luck for September.

For the first year, Mrs Nowell has introduced the Year 6 children to the Civic Award. 5 of our students, Anna, Callie, Erica, Ella and Eva have spent 9 months working towards this. Below is an outline of what they have been busy doing:
1. They have had to show they are an active citizen in the school community for at least 4 months. Activities they have done have directly impacted on other children in school and widened their experience through running a KS1 choir, running a drawing club, being part of the sports Council, becoming reading ambassadors and running with allotment club.
2. Be an active citizen in the local community and charity work. The children have helped at pre-school breakfast club, held sales to raise money for WESC and the Blue cross and raised money for Nayamba school.
3. Take part in an active hobby. The girls have enjoyed clubs such as ballet, Street dance and rugby and will continue with these beyond the award.
4. Take part in a non-active hobby. The girls have enjoyed cooking a varied range of recipes, designed clothes and completed book reviews.
5. Take part in adventure trining. The girls all enjoyed challenging themselves and overcoming fears with their residential week and loved surfing, the adventure assault course and the whole residential experience.

The girls have had to provide evidence of all these aspects of the award. We enjoyed a breakfast together this morning to talk about their award and now they are having individual interviews with the assessors, Mr Clements from DCC and Mrs Mason, one of our school governors.

I would like to congratulate the girls on their commitment and contribution. They have positively impacted on their school, their local community and the wider community through the great work they have done. We are all very proud of you.  Mrs Whalley and Mrs Nowell

Due to the poor weather this morning, Key Stage One Sports Day is CANCELLED. Weather permitting, it will go ahead on Monday 27th June 2016.

What an amazing afternoon we had yesterday with our year 6 students and their parents at our Pop up Family SEAL session. As you can see from our photo's lots of fun was had by all. We had feeling activities, play dough, cake decorating, fruit kebabs, a photo booth and so much more! We wish all our year 6 student's the very best of luck in their new school's from everyone on the Family SEAL team.

We were lucky to have  a visit from Carl from The  Donkey Sanctuary today. We have been learning about the donkeys and what they need to be looked after properly. We were even luckier to meet a donkey after learning about them.

Today we have enjoyed bouldering and the high ropes in the sunshine. The children have braved wobbly high seesaws and the zip wire. Some were petrified initially but we were really impressed with their perseverance. They supported each other brilliantly. Kate, one of the instructors, congratulated Maddy and Betty for their encouragement of their friends - great team work! Jack OC and Thomas C were first across the challenging side of the High ropes. Mr Phillips and Mrs Nowell were impressed with their swinging skills.

We have been given 4 weeks to plan, conduct and review a science area of our choice. We wanted to research about natural disasters and this is what we have created so far. Every week we review how we are doing and then set new targets for next week. We look forward to presenting in week 4

Our school allotment team have today harvested the first crop of spring onions and spinach, tested by Mrs Whalley and all willing volunteers in Year 6

We have really enjoyed our reading roundabout today. We have some amazing new books to add to our library. Thank you to Nicola Cowling for sharing some of the newest titles and getting us excited about reading.

We made up our own instructions today to make worm pie. The ingredients were oreo cookies, strawberry laces and angel delight. Yummy! We wrote the instructions and then followed them to make our pie!

Composer Peter Kyrke-Smith came to visit Year 3 today with Claire to make a musical in a day and what a day it was!

GREECE LIGHTNING!

Making Olympic History In A Day!

The first Olympic Games were religious festivals as much as sports competitions, and the Greek gods always took a very keen interest in what happened…

GREECE LIGHTNING! tells the history of the Games in Ancient Greece - and then shows what happens when the Greek gods turn up rather unexpectedly for the Opening Ceremony of Rio 2016!

Will the Greek gods simply sit back and watch, or might they just be tempted to meddle with the medals..? Why else would a wing-footed runner from Greece called Hermes be up against Usain (Lightning) Bolt in the final of the Men’s 100 Metres..?!

Dramatic drama… great songs to sing… the historical truth (well, mostly…) - Year 3 put on an incredible performance to parents and the rest of the school.

Here are some of the pictures from the rehersals.

Click read more to see some video clips from the performance.

This week is Science week in Reception! We have had some special visitors today! We have been extremely careful. This snail was very quick at travelling. It almost slipped away!

Exminster Community Primary school is proud to be trialling Family FUNS. Family FUNS is a programme designed to work on children's fundamental movements combined with parts of the SEAL curriculum. Mrs Martin, Mrs Godbeer and Mrs Mason are delighted to be working with some parents of children in key stage 1. They are having great fun and have so far been pirates and astronauts. Take a look at some of the children leaving their spaceship this week to collect space rocks!

We followed the instructions ( see Reception blog) and today we raced our paper aeroplanes! It was AMAZING!

Today children school-wide have been celebrating our British Celebration Day with singing, dancing, food, making crowns, writing letters and making cards.  The costumes were amazing with knights, princes, princesses, party dresses and bow ties.  My favourite part of the day was my hand delivered letter from Florence!