Dont forget our important sporting day tomorrow. In the morning we have our Swimming Gala. Every child will take part. Parents are welcome to attend. We will start at 10am and finish at about 11.30. In the afternoon we have our tennis final. Jack Smyth and Jake May V Georgia Davies and Alex Ampleford (an all J8 final). Strawberries and cream will be served while Cliff Richard serenades us. Apologies to the neighbours! There will then be a grudge match between Mr Williams and Mr Workman V Mr Roberts and Mrs Gardner.

Transition Project

We had a fantastic day today. Miss Clarke from Y Pant gave us the challenge to generate ideas for an enterprise project. We had to design a product that could be used in the school, and also leave a permanent legacy of Y6 2009.

Firstly we were put into groups. Group A had to interview people.

This helped develop research and planning skills.

Group B had to devise a name for our product.

This encouraged innovation and the generation of ideas.

Group C had to devise an advertising strategy.

This encouraged us to think creatively.

Group D had to create the product.

This meant that we had to carry out and complete a task using a range of organisation skills.

Group E had to come up with an effective 'pitch'.

This provided us with the opportunity to work together to solve problems and develop innovative solutions.

Before play, we discussed our products and came up with some ideas. Then we played a game of entrepreneurial bingo. The winning bingo group won some book vouchers.

In the next session we met two real life entrepreneurs. Mr Mark Roche and Ms Jayne Brown talked to us about their enterprises and told us how they achieved their dreams through perseverence and hard work. They told us how to grasp every opportunity life offers, as you can see through these pictures. The children took the opportunity to dress up in silly costumes, while Jack was given the chance to dance in front of all of us.

Nice moves Jack!!

In the afternoon we continued with our task.

We used THINKING SKILLS, COMMUNICATION SKILLS and I.T. SKILLS.



J7's project is to produce 'THE LEGACY LEGEND'. This will be a flag pole holding a flag with our school motto on one side and the school logo on the other. The children on the bridge will represent the equal opportunities the school offers. The bridge will represent forging friendships, while the river represents the children flowing through the school. At the end of each term, or after a whole school event such as sports day, the winning house flag will also be raised. The flag pole will be decorated by J7, while the concrete base will be decorated with the names of J7 children.

J8's project is to produce two decorative learning aids for the school yard. The first is called 'FOOTSTEPS THROUGH TIME'. This is a time line made out of J8 footprints painted on the yard. At appropriate intervals along the line there will be painted important dates in Welsh and British history. This will provide both teachers and children with SCALE and CHRONOLOGY in the topics they are studying. The second is called 'HANDS AROUND THE WORLD'. This would consist of a globe painted on the yard. Leading from this would be the points of the compass made from paintings of J8 hands. At every point we would paint some local features to be found in that direction. As every class studies some aspect of local geography, we feel that this would be an important tool in picturing the local area.

Next week we must present our 'pitch' to a den of 'Dragons' at Y Pant. We will be in competition with classes from other feeder schools. The winning idea will be presented with £100 to produce their idea. Both classes think that their ideas are so good that they should be completed anyway. What do you think?

Today was the BIG RACE between J7 and J8.

The crowds gathered in excitement. Forget Wimbledon. Pontyclun Primary School Hall was transformed into Brands Hatch.

Congratulations to the winners, Josef and Peter. In second place were Amelia, Megan and Morgan. In third place were Laith, Dylan, Sufi and Kingsley.

Our next step is to have our designs marked and scored by some independent judges (our teachers can't be trusted!).

We will then evauate our designs and match them to our success criteria.

Our History Role Play

The Final Race!

Today J8 finished their electric cars.

Again, we used lots of Communication, Maths and Thinking Skills.

Here are our finished cars.
















Our 'Race Off' was like Wacky Races, as so many of our cars actually worked. Take note J7!!!!




There were a couple of Penelope Pitstops and even one Dick Dastardly. You know who you are!!!










Here were our ultimate winners. Tomorrow we challenge J7 to a race. Look at the Blog to find out the Year 6 winners. Come on J8! Not that I'm biased! Or like exclamation marks!!!!!!!

J7 Race Off

This afternoon J7 finished their electric cars.

It was a much harder challenge than any of us imagined.

Here are some of our finished models.

Watch our race to discover the J7 winner.

This photo may give it away! J8 will make theirs later. The winners will then have a 'race off'.

Check the blog for the results.

Electric Cars

Today we went to the D.T. Room. We began to make our electric cars.

Working in pairs or threes we had to select our materials, with on emphasis on keeping the cost down.

We talked about Health and Safety. We had to demonstrate :-

• safe cutting with the use of a bench hook
• safe use of a glue gun
• safe joining

Then we had to carefully assemble the chassis. We had to take into account axle alignment, strenght and how the car is actually going to move using the low voltage circuit.

There was lots of assembling and then disassembling as sometimes our first plan was not effective.

We were forced to think very hard indeed!!!!

NEVER MIND RACING THEM. LET'S GET THEM MOVING FIRST!

A fantastic day which gave the children a golden opportunity to develop a variety of important skills.

Yr 6 Transition Project

Today, Mr Sweet from Y Pant, gave us an investigative task. This was to;

Develop our research and thinking skills.

To gain an understanding of the methods used by historians.
Understand how ordinary people were affected by events.
Apply what we learned in an empathy activity.

Our task was to find out about Edward Clement and what happened to him.

We worked in groups to piece together the story of Edward Clement from several documents.

In our groups we recorded facts from the documents on 'post-it' notes, and then arranged them in chronological order.

The whole class then used their 'post-it' notes to tell the whole story of Edward Clement.

We then completed individual empathy tasks about his story and what happened to him.

We found out that Edward Clement was born in 1895 in Swansea. He worked as a clark in an office untill he was called up th join the British Army in January 1916. He did his basic training at Kinmel Bay Camp, before being sent to France. He fought and died in the Battle of Mametz Wood. He is buried in France.

Listen to some music and watch some dance moves from the 40s

Mr. Williams tells us about transport in the 40s

Mrs. Williams talks about bathrooms!

Watch us enjoying antique games!

Our Interviews

Today we had some visitors to the school. Mr and Mrs Williams (Mrs Davies's parents) came to talk to us about life in the 1940s and 1970s. Mr Williams was born in 1933 and Mrs Williams was born in 1936. We asked them lots of questions about the comparisons and contrasts in these two decades. Mr and Mrs Williams brought in lots of artefacts and photos from the 40s and 70s for us to look at, much to the embarrassment of Mrs Davies whose photos from the 1970s caused much amusement!

Mr Williams hasn't changed much from his photo, but Mrs Williams looks a lot different from the baby in the pram. They talked about the HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION of the 1940s. Most of us think about the 40s in black and white, as many of our SOURCES suggest this. They explained that most of their clothes were grey, black or brown, but of course, everything else was more colourful!! They had fewer clothes than children in the 1970s, due to rationing restrictions and lack of money.

We looked at some coins from the 1940s. Mr Williams's mother was a widow, and only recieved 10 shillings (50p) a week. Half of this went on rent. The rest of the money had to buy food for the remainder of the week.

We talked about entertainment in the 1940s. Neither Mr, nor Mrs Williams had electricity in their homes until the late 40s. This meant no T.V.!!!! Mr Williams brought in some original records from the 1940s. He described his wind up gramaphone player. A lot different from the 1970s, when record players were common, and powered by electricity.

Mrs Williams told us that her home was the first in her street to have hot and cold running water and an indoor toilet and bathroom, and described how all the neighbours came to bathe!

In the 1970s disco became popular. In the 1940s, dance halls were all the rage, where people danced to popular songs of the day, provided by a live band.

What a change in fashion by the 1970s. Clothes were brighter and more varied materials were available. Check out this velvet jacket and the gold satin dress!

Foreign travel was more common. The war years between 1939 and 1945 meant that most foreign travel was out of the question (unless you were serving in the armed forces). By the 70s the package holidays were the norm.

In the 1940s few people owned their own car, but by the 1970s most families had one.



Nice party dress and pink bow, Mrs Davies!

Mrs Willams described her favourite childhood toys. Simply a doll and a skipping rope. Mr Williams remembered his toy doy Bonzo as being a particular favourite. He described how his Mum and Grandad saved for ages to buy him a Meccano set as a reward for passing his 11 plus.

Both described how they were caned in school in the 1940s. Mrs Williams was a teacher in the 1970s and remembers giving some children the cane (Mr Foster, Mrs Dunstan-Jones, do you have any memory of her giving you the cane????).


Mr Williams brought in lots of original games from the 1970s. They were all in their original boxes with instructions included! Do any parents remember Crazy Daisies, Frustration, Don't Let The Leaves Fall, Battling Tops, Buccaneer, Totopoly, Ker-plunk, Downfall and Sorry!?

The children played with them for ages. Forget expensive, electrical toys for their next birthdays, these 'antiques' were a huge success!! They were literally fighting over 'Don't Let The Leaves Fall' and 'Battling Tops'!