Breakfast at Tiffany's (or maybe Mrs W's office- doesn't quite have the same ring!) Today I was inspired by 11 of our Year 6 children who had spent a year completing their Civic Award. We shared a special breakfast together and chatted about what they had done and the impact of being involved in this. They all talked enthusiastically about the activities they had been involved with and told me about the development of their independence, confidence and organisation through achieving the award. It is a huge achievement to complete this and we are super proud of them. Our thanks go to Mrs Jones and Mrs Nowell for their support and encouragement in doing this with the group. The children are now going to prepare a presentation for the Year 5 cohort to inspire them to give this award a go next year. Mrs W

A huge thank you to the community of Exminster Community Primary School. You have raised an amazing £386.45 today from the non-uniform day. You have also raised over £120 from bob-a-job so far. To this, we can add the £146 that Mrs Whalley raised from having her cake sale at home in the holidays. Our total so far is £652.45 and still people are raising more. Every single penny of this money will be spent on buying books and resources to fill our suitcases and leave at Nayamba school. Thank you!

Today, we had a panto as an end of term treat.  The monies raised from our productions went towards funding 2 pantos, one for FS and KS1 and one for KS2.

The pantomime was based around Christmas traditions with a comedy twist – decorating the tree, singing Christmas songs, pulling crackers, eating Christmassy food, going to see Santa and writing Christmas lists. The children got to enjoy singing, lots of comedy rhyming poems, and got to find out lots of things about Christmas past that they didn't know. It made Miss Madge laugh and Mr Wilsher understood some of the jokes! The pantomimers used Makaton – correctly! - and did a bit of spelling! Miss Jacobs liked the fact that they played Bob Marley and Mrs Norman learnt something she didn't know about why candy canes are put on our Christmas trees. Mrs Glover enjoyed the children's delight in watching, and Mrs Gilronan loved the hanky mouse who sang about custard! Thanks to Sam, Rob, Sophie and Dexter for such a captivating and educational performance!

Here's what the children thought:

"Loved it" (Callum)

"Very dancey" (Finn)

"Amazing and exciting" (Scarlett)

"Fantastically funny" (Millie)

"Absolutely brilliant" ( Emily)

updated Friday 8th February, 2013

Thank you to the 48 adults and children who attended this year's poetry workshop.  We had great fun listening to poetry, playing poetry games and writing poetry.  Below are some links you may wish to explore:

Michael Rosen website (video clips)

Children's Poetry Archive (poetry to read and listen to)

Young Writers (competitions, ideas)

Read Write Think (create shape poetry)

Love Reading 4 kids (recommended reads)

Poetry 4 kids (rhyming dictionary and much more)

On the 9th and 10th of December, Choir (and some other people) were staying in London's Holland Park Youth Hostel. We visited some tourist attractions, and watched an all time favorite musical......... Shrek!!