The Firthmoor Flame Shining a light on the things that matter.

50p April 2014

Pupil Becomes British Citizen

On Monday 10th March Pragyan Gurung of Firthmoor School had a wonderful day ahead, not only was it his birthday but Pragyan and his family went to the Town Hall in Darlington to become British Citizens. They had a lovely ceremony and were all awarded a certificate. Pragyan loves his certificate and it’s currently sat proudly on his windowsill in a wooden frame and protected by glass.

Pragyan was born in 2005 in Hong Kong, his family lived in Nepal for a few years then moved back to Hong Kong. They travelled to England and moved when Pragyan was the age of 5.

Pragyan, his sister and parents all had to swear affirmation of allegiance to the Queen and sing the National Anthem. Pragyan wore smart clothes for the ceremony and his words were “My dad wore a weird suit and he asked me if he looked like an actor! He didn’t…”

Pragyan also said “After we sang we took another photo to keep as a memory and went for some lunch, we were all quite nervous!”

Class 6 Soar into Space!

Class 6 have had lots of fun learning about things that have happened in Space. I think it is very interesting! Did you know in Space you have to do two hours exercise every day or your bones and muscles will waste away? We have researched lots of facts about Jupiter. I think the most interesting fact is that Jupiter actually has four main moons! They are called Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto.

By Sophie Hammond (Year 3, Class 6)

Pragyan proudly holding his British Citizen Certificate.

Dragons Den at Firthmoor

By Jack Irving

Last week a class participated in an activity similar to Dragons Den at a school in Firthmoor.

It started when the four guests walked into the room and introduced themselves. All of the children’s faces went white with fear. Once the guests were ready the first group stood in front of them and presented their products. That went on with another six groups. After that was done one of the Virgin Money workers told everyone that their products were very interesting and the presentations were amazing. The employees went outside with Mr McAteer and chose three completely different products. They came back in and told everyone which products had won .The winning products were Funky Bracelets, Custom door plaques and chocolate covered shredded wheat nests with mini eggs.

The dragons have now returned to their den so the children will be

Hands up for Year 6! Take a latex glove, vinegar, and bicarbonate of soda and what do you get? Read on to find out…

After watching an inspiring video about a glove expanding due to being filled with carbon dioxide, the class were eager to try the experiment. A day later the class heard that they were going to try the experiment.

The method that the class used was simple, they poured vinegar into a cup and added bicarbonate of soda. They then fitted the glove over the cup and watched it inflate .The first glove they had used had developed a hole and the mixture had spewed everywhere! The second glove, however, was successful and the glove filled with carbon dioxide(the gas formed when the two ingredients mixed) and inflated as though it was waving!

Mrs Jefferies commented, “This experiment certainly produced some

making the winning products and sell-ing them in Gosforth at Newcastle on Tuesday 1st April. Also Miss True has decided to make Easter cards for a better profit and a seasonal gift.

great work in our Science books and the children learnt so much about chemical changes. I look forward to doing something like that again with future Y6 classes.”

By Cameron Leonard Science Correspondent

The Beamish Experience When we arrived at the Victorian school, we all stood sensibly and in a single line to meet our teacher, she came out with a cane which was really scary! She was very strict and when we laughed she shouted at us “NO LAUGHING AND NO SPEAKING UNLESS YOU’RE SPOKEN TO!” This made us all quiet and then she split us into lines of girls and boys. The girls led to the class first and boys followed.

We were sat separately in the class, girls to the left and boys to the right.

The wooden benches were really uncomfortable but this kept us awake!

Next we were given a booklet and some blotting paper, we had to use the ink pens and dip them in the ink pot. This wasn’t easy to use as you had to hold the pen perfectly to write nicely. Quickly but neatly we had to write out some sums in arithmetic and copy out sentences. It looked brilliant and we felt like real Victorians.

Unfortunately I was told off for talking and laughing, it wasn’t funny when I was stood up in front of everyone! When we had finished our booklets, the teacher nicely told us a story about Grace Darling who had lived in a lighthouse and when we were sat we had to give our full attention as we were going to have to answer questions at the end!

I’m glad I wasn’t born in the Victorian era because I’d never last 5 minutes without saying a single word and would get into trouble!

By Aaron Richardson

To Mother, With Love It was Mother’s Day on Sunday 30th March. To celebrate, Class 4 made Mother’s Day cards by colouring in a teacup. They thought about what colours and patterns they would use to decorate their teacup. They tried their best to cut around the teacup template and stick it onto a coloured piece of card of their choice. The children helped to pick a poem for the inside of the card. They wrote to their mum’s, signed their names and stuck a teabag inside the card. Here is the poem the children decided to use;

Here's a gift for Mother's Day, With this gift, I’m trying to say Thanks for all you do for me, Relax and have a cup of tea!

We hope the mums really liked the cards. By the children of Class 4.

Pancake Day Celebrations In Reception the children had a fantastic time making and eating pancakes. They talked about Pancake Day; when people use up all the nice yummy treats in their homes ready for the start of Lent. They sequenced the instructions on how to make pancakes; followed these and then cooked them with Miss Bujara and Mrs Whitham. On top of their pancakes they had a choice of lemon juice, sugar, syrup or chocolate sauce. When asked about Pancake Day, Michael Rooney, Class 1, said “It was great. I liked eating the pancakes the best.”

By The Reception Children.

For up to date information on events that have been happening around school please check the ‘Latest News’ section of our school website at:

www.firthmoor.darlington.sch.uk

Brilliant Books! On the 6th March, Firthmoor Primary School celebrated a special event – World Book Day (WBD). This yearly event celebrates the enjoyment of reading and encourages children to pick up a book. Many classes took time out of their busy schedules to look on the official WBD website where authors gave tips on how to make your story more exciting. A special live show was also aired, which was hosted by Richard McCourt and Dominic Wood.

Not only did students get the chance to look at the website, but Class 8 travelled to Waterstones to collect WBD books for the school. While they were there, they took part in many book-related activities. The WBD line-up included: Jack Pepper by Sarah Lean, The Midnight Picnic by Lauren St John, Terrible Trenches by Terry Deary, plus many more exciting titles.

World Book Day at Waterstones

On World Book Day, Class 7 went on a visit to Waterstones Book Shop in town. The children took part in creative workshops, shared story telling experiences, had a guided tour of the store and exchanged their £1.00 vouchers for a book of their choice. The day was a great success. The children were a credit to themselves, their school and their parents. Staff from Waterstones and shoppers in the store complimented them on their lovely manners and superb behaviour.

By Class 7.

Everyone received a one pound token which can be spent on a WBD book or can be redeemed against a book of their choice. All of the children enjoyed the day thoroughly and are currently counting down to the next World Book Day!

By Alyssa Davison

Goodbye Bubbles, Hello Goldie!

In class 2 we have a new fish because our old fish Bubbles died.

We have called him Goldie and he is a golden orange colour.

We feed him three times a day and we take turns to take care of him.

On his first day at school we sent a picture of him to Mrs Coad who is away looking after her new baby. We talked about how the picture of Casey and Goldie went up to the satellite from Mrs Whitham’s phone and sent it down to Mrs Coad’s phone. This helped us to find out and learn more about satellites and space. Space has been a great topic to work on in class.

By Class 2.

You’ve Been Spotted! On Tuesday 11th February 2014 specially selected children from Firthmoor visited the Toby Carvery. The individuals chosen had been spotted by Mrs Dixon displaying impeccable manners in and around our school.

Six of those chosen were from class five. Thomas Wilson, Paige Harnott, Katelyn Savage, Ethan Marshall, Sophie Robson and Travis Read were the lucky pupils to board the bus that day. First they played lots of games about healthy food and found out lots about different fruit and vegetables. Then all the children had a delicious lunch. Travis said he had the biggest Yorkshire pudding ever! All the children said the food was yummy and they had a fantastic time.

Time for Tea This half term, the children in Class 4 have been learning about food and where it comes from. As part of their topic they have read ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch’ by Ronda and David Armitage. In the story Mr Grinling, the lighthouse keeper, has his delicious lunch taken by some greedy seagulls. The children liked the sound of the sandwiches in Mr Grinling’s lunch so they thought of their own sandwich fillings to try. The children made their own sandwiches and tried them. One of the children said that their sandwich was ‘yummy.’ It was decided that on Friday 28th March the class would have an afternoon tea. They made scones and sandwiches to have with the tea. The sandwiches they made were cucumber and egg and cress made with cress the children had grown. It was also Miss Johnson’s birthday on the day of the tea so it was an extra special afternoon tea.

By the children in Class 4.

Safety First For Firthmoor! The Work Place in Newton Aycliffe was granted an amazing day with Firthmoor Primary School Year 6 children as they promoted their safety services.

This great day out was hosted by Durham Fire and Rescue Service. The annual event was attended by schools from every corner of Durham!

The most popular work shop in Firthmoor Primary’s opinion was the ‘fire crisis room’, where every child played a ‘Get Out, Stay Out, Call 999’ game. There were other services represented at the carousel such as: the Royal National Lifeboat Institute; Northern Power Grid; The British Red Cross; the Road Safety Team and even the Police!

Firthmoor Primary is now sharing their safety expertise with many

different people at home and at school. It is thought that the event could prevent many accidents in the future!

By Jakob McWilliam

The Fire Brigade came to Firthmoor School.

On Thursday 13th March classes 3, 4 and 5 were visited by the Fire Brigade outside Firthmoor School. They showed the children all the equipment on the fire engine. It was the old fire engine as they now have a new one. The children were shown all the different sized hoses. They even had a go of squirting one! ‘It was fun!’ said one of the children. They went inside the fire engine and sat on the seats. ‘It was very high inside the fire engine,’ said one child.

World Water Day! Did you know on Saturday 22nd March 2014 it was ‘World Water day’? World water day helps us to think about people in the world who don’t have access to clean water, in countries such as Africa and India.

This situation affects their lives in different ways and makes us realise how lucky we are!

Many children and women travel for miles each day searching for water, which is dirty and dangerous, and causes a lot of illness and death. As a result, children can’t go to school and miss out on an education, and their mothers are unable to spend time with their families or work if wanted

‘The siren was very loud and made us jump!’ said another.

By Class 3.

to! In addition, crops cannot survive or grow because of the lack of water. This means that there is never enough food for people and they struggle to make money.

By 2030, everyone everywhere must have clean water to drink and use during their daily lives. This can happen if we all make a small donation to ‘Water Aid’, a charity which works hard to find clean sources of water and build pumps so that communities have easy access to clean, safe water.

If you want any information go on www.wateraid.co.uk

PLEASE HELP THESE POOR FAMILIES WHO ARE SUFFERING!

By Coban Colley

Class 3 visit Hardwick Park and Tesco.

On Wednesday 26th March Class 3 went on a visit. First they went to Hardwick Park. It was a nice, sunny day but it was cold. They saw the tower and decided it was Rapunzel’s tower. The children shouted “Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your golden hair!” But she did not let it

went on special, secret missions to rescue their friends. Here are Madison and Alisha acting as soldiers, on a mission to help other children. They independently wrote messages to send secretly to receive help during their search. “I like the Army camp its good. I like looking at the maps and going to help my friends.” said Madison.

By Class 1.

Armed Forces in Role Play Class One have changed our role play area into their very own Army Camp. They have been having lots of fun pretending to be soldiers, even Mrs Dannatt turned into Captain Dannatt. There were lots of exciting and new things to do. They built an obstacle course outside, made their own dog tags, dressed up and

down. They thought she must have been in the shower! Class 3 also saw the Gothic Seat. It was huge so they decided it must belong to Daddy Bear! Finally they ran up a big hill to the Temple. The class were very tired at the top. They knocked on the door and there was nobody there. After lunch they went to Tesco in Stockton. A lady called Linda taught them about lots of different fruits and vegetables. She told them that carrots used to be purple until William of Orange said he wanted them to be orange. They looked at the fish counter and even made a fish talk! The children really enjoyed their trip!

By Class 3.

Class 9—The Highwayman

Class 9 have read ‘The Higwayman’ by Alfred Noyes. Here is a newspaper report of the book written by one of the children.

MANY MOURN OVER TRAGIC DEATH!

By Kayley Moore

On the stroke of midnight, early hours this morning, a young lady was found dead in her own inn on the outskirts of York after she was thought to have committed suicide. This occurred because she wanted to help and worn a thief that he was drawing nearer and nearer to his own death.

It was round about four days ago when a Highwayman came riding up to the inn door. Bess, who was in her early twenties, immediately fell in love with this Highwayman after seeing at her casement for the last four-six weeks before. It was on this particular evening (that was last night) that Bess was serving ale at round about 9:15pm

Suddenly the door burst open and a large quantity of red coats came

parading in through the door and manhandled Bess up to her room

Just then,the Highwayman came riding up to her casement, and the red coats stood to their priming , until they heard a bang! Bess was drenched in her own blood to save her lovers life.

After the horrific event we interviewed several eyewitnesses and one stood out from the crowd. He came across as an arrogant man and he said, “I cant believe she took her own life to save his! “

beads – it’s us humans that are responsible, and all to make ourselves look younger! Maybe you can rid yourself of wrinkles, but it’s costing the fish their lives!

So, next time you reach for your favourite tube of face scrub, think about what difference you can make to the environment by NOT using it! Instead, choose a face wash without micro-beads . Remember, you can change the world by just reading the label - say NO to micro-beads!

By Kayleigh Langan

MICRO-DEADLIES! The truth about micro-beads in face scrub

In some of our everyday toiletries, you’ll be shocked to find micro-beads. Most people don’t know what they are – in fact hardly anyone knows what they are, which is of course very concerning! Micro-beads are tiny (well, actually microscopic) pieces of plastic, that you’ll find in many exfoliating facial washes.

Fish living in rivers, lakes, streams etc. are being poisoned in vast numbers every day, by these micro-

Phenomenal Physics! At the end of last week, schools throughout County Durham had an experience to remember when they watched a thrilling Science Road Show at St.Aidan’s Secondary School.

One of the children commented, “It was an amazing experience because we saw cool experiments which involved a special branch of science called Physics!” The children took part in activities such as: optical illusions, explosions, creating gases, and much, much, more! One of the

teachers that accompanied the children (Mrs Kilpatrick) said that it was amazing to watch!

The last activity at the show was a magnificent experiment where Michael (the host) used a large, blue, vortex cannon - this cannon created hoops of white smoke which bellowed out over the audience!

Many teachers have recommended this trip to children in Years 5 and over as it is at their level of understanding.

For more information go to:

WWW.ScienceRoadShow.co.uk

or ring Michael on:

079 6551 4329

By Chloe Ireland.

Teresa St Johns and Firthmoor), the atmosphere in the hall was filled with excitement as we all waited for the show to begin.

The science man invited children to take part (Frankie and a girl from St Johns)… Frankie had to hold a football and the girl held a tennis ball. He asked them to drop them at the same time to find out which would land first, but it didn’t work!! Eventually they succeeded and then the road show got more dangerous… he put a big wooden stick inside a water bottle which had gas inside. He immediately set fire to the end of the stick and placed it next to another water bottle filled with petrol. Suddenly there was a loud bang which made Olivia and Cameron jump out of their seats, it was hilarious! We found out about explosive materials and that we must not be silly with them.

Then he put different liquids inside some cups wrapped in foil. When he lit them each liquid turned different colours, which taught us not to mess around with different liquids – some are dangerous and we should never use them until we are older!!!!

Science Roadshow at St Aidens.

On Friday 16th March, Year 6 went to St Aiden’s to watch a Science Road show! We were excited because we were going to learn new things and hope that there would be some fun activities...

We arrived at St Aiden’s and there was three different schools there (St

We enjoyed watching lots of other experiments and learned that science is fun but also teaches us important facts! An enjoyable morning, which I would recommend to the other children!

By Millie Marshall

Project X takes off! Four lucky children from class five have taken on the CODE challenge. Thomas Wilson, Georgia Ward, Michael Burnside and Marcus Wake are on a mission to improve their reading skills. The children have been introduced to Team X (Max, Cat, Ant and Tiger) who are trying to save Micro World. Along the way the characters need to defeat the BITEs, collect the CODE keys, rescue Macro Marvel and save the world!! These four children are up for the challenge and say that they love the books and can’t wait to find the CODE keys to help save Micro World.

Year 3 Girls Football The Year 3 girls have shown their team spirit this half term in a football game against other schools in Darlington. “It was a close call and we only missed out on one goal!” reported one of the players. All the girls thoroughly enjoyed their afternoon and have said that they can’t wait until next year to do it all again!

|By Year 3 Girls Footballers.

For up to date information on events that have been happening around school please check the ‘Latest News’ section of our school website at:

www.firthmoor.darlington.sch.uk