I thought I would leave this here so you guys can have a chance to comment on it if you would like to.  Miss P :-)

Dear Children,
As you all know, next week you will be sitting your SATs. We would first like to start by telling you all how proud we are of all of your hard work. It isn’t the ideal year to be in year 6 as the changes that have been made to the curriculum have resulted in you having to learn some really difficult concepts, some of which we didn’t do until we were at secondary school or even college.

We have had a struggle on our hands as teachers because the government has changed the way that the SATs will be marked and levelled. Unfortunately, we have been unable to tell you and your parents how we think you will score in your tests as we simply do not know the pass marks. We do know that however you are defined or levelled, you will do your very best and we cannot ask for more from you.

These tests are such a small moment in your lives and they do not define you as people. They do not test your ability to sing, dance or play a sport. A punctuation and grammar test cannot showcase your talents for drawing, gymnastics or computer programming in the same way an arithmetic test cannot measure how kind you are, how helpful you can be or just what an amazing friend you are to those around you.
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This year you have been taught so much more than the National Curriculum. We hope you will look back at your time in Year 6 and see that you were taught about the world you live in, how to be accepting of differences, supportive of those in need and how to treat people with respect. None of these things will be tested next week, as they cannot be measured with a test paper, but they are essential life skills and we are pleased to witness them within you every day.

Whatever the outcome of these tests, please remember this- your scores will be a small snapshot of what you can do in a test environment but they will not measure anything about what makes YOU the fabulous person that YOU are!
So, enjoy your weekend. Get plenty of sleep, spend time with your family and relax.
We’ll see you on Monday ready to get through the week like we have through the year, together as a team.

Good luck. We believe in you!
Miss Patterson, Mrs Park, Mrs Milne, Mr Winn and Mrs Boudari. 

Yesterday was a really early start for Katie, Ella, Eve, Faith, Mrs Adair and myself. After topping the Educate&Celebrate online vote with our 'Make a noise about bullying' cake, we were invited to London to take part in the Edu-cake and Cel-a-bake live Rainbow Bake Off!
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We arrived at the train station at around 7.20 and it wasn't long until we were on the train and on the move.

Fast forward 3 hours and we had arrived in Kings Cross. We didn't have time to spare, we found our taxi and were off to The Urswick School in Hackney. 

At around 12.00 we arrived at the school. We said a quick hello to Elly Barnes (CEO of Educate&Celebrate) then went to get sorted in the baking room. A lot of people commented on how brilliant our 'Team Howletch' T-shirts were. 

We were shown to our work space and the judges introduced themselves. After a few words of encouragement from Elly, it was time to bake! 
We worked amazingly well as a team to get the cakes baked quickly so they had time to cool! 

After the cakes were made, it was time to get messy! We had a fondant rainbow to make but first we had to colour the fondant!. 

At this point, we started to get close to the finishing time so we didn't take many photos. 
We all pulled together to get the final touches on our cake and with about ten minutes to spare we were done. Our 'Non-homophobic Heaven' was complete and we thought it was pretty amazing! 

It was then just a matter of waiting for our turn to be judged...it was tense! There were so many amazing cakes, we didn't know how the judges were going to make a decision. 

Finally, we were the last to explain our concept and cut into our cake. The judges seemed to really enjoy it. They nearly ate the entire piece we had cut for them which we took as a good sign because they had already eaten cake from 11 other schools before us!

After 5 or 10 minutes of deliberation, the judges returned to announce the primary winner, secondary winner and overall winner. 
We were all thrilled to bits to crowned the primary winner! Here are we are with the judges and our prizes!

At the end of the day, we returned to Kings Cross and had enough time to find Platform 9 3/4. We ended the day with such a giggle as Mrs Adair put her full cup of coffee down to take a photo and a station worker swept it up almost instantly! Can you guess which photo was taken as it happened?

 We would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who voted for our 'Anti-bullying week' cake that secured our place in the final and an even bigger thanks to the team at Educate&Celebrate for organising such a fabulous event.
​ Also, a huge thanks to Mrs Adair for all the help yesterday and giving us the opportunity to travel all that way to take part. 
Finally, I can't say thank you enough to Katie, Ella, Eve and Faith for producing such amazing ideas and being the best team ever! I am so proud of you all!
Miss P :-)

Watch the following video to see London Live news footage... we are in it quite a bit. Click on 'Watch on Vimeo' to view it. 
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During anti bullying week, we made a noisy cake as our entry for the Educate and Celebrate 'Great Rainbow Bake Off'!
We now need your help to help reach the final! Please follow the link and make sure you vote for Howletch!

www.educateandcelebrate.org/great-rainbow-bake-off
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        Have a fab Christmas everyone. Miss P :-)

On Friday 20th November Miss Patterson and Mrs Park's class visited the Gateshead College part of the Nissan plant in Sunderland.  We learnt lots about the cars made there and how this process happens.  Sunderland Nissan is one of two Global Training Centres in the world, so we were really lucky to find out what goes on there.  We took part in lots of activities, including making a Lego car on a production line, having a go at some of the skills tests that apprentices work on and testing our reaction speed on the Formula 1 for Schools track. We also saw some robots in action. We had a great day and lots of us would like to work there when we grow up.

We all know that this week has been Anti-Bullying Week and the theme was to make a noise about bullying. The annual Edu-cake and Cel-a-bake competition got underway this week and we all know how much I love to bake so this was one competition that we certainly needed to enter! I invited Ella, Faith, Katie and Eve from Year 6 to help me come up with some ideas for a noisy rainbow cake and they did not disappoint by coming up with ideas such as using popping candy, sparklers and noisy (onomatopoeia)words to decorate a rainbow cake to promote LGBT awareness.
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On Wednesday afternoon, we got to work decorating the rainbow cake that I had pre-baked. The girls were fantastic and worked amazingly well as a team to create something pretty fabulous! The only thing that went a little bit wrong (aside from the missing blue layer that we just won't mention) was the fact that it was far too rainy and windy outside to get our sparklers to light properly making it almost impossible to get a video to show the cake in all of its glory. However everything else, right down to the whistle lollies, made this one of the noisiest cakes I have ever helped to bake!

Our entry has submitted to the competition and we will be looking for people to help us make the final when the voting opens!

Have a look at our fun filled afternoon and the final product which we were really proud of!

A huge thanks once again to my glamorous assistants!  
Miss P :-)

Today in English, we had some very special visitors! A couple of weeks ago, we tweeted the link to our 'Hate Is' poems to Northumbria Police and they were so impressed with us that they asked if they could come and meet us to celebrate our work!
Chief Inspector Deborah Alderson, who is the force lead for hate crime, Detective Sergeant Phil Cleugh and Community Engagement Officer PC Janine Turnbull all visited school today and we got to know more about their roles within the force as they answered any questions we had! 
It was lovely to hear about how impressed they were with the poems we had written...so impressed that they brought us a lovely certificate for our classroom rewarding us for our fantastic work! 

We would like to say a huge thank you to the officers for taking time out of their day to come and visit us! We all had a great time!