Bondgate Memorial Service

Posted December 6th, 2018

​The choir was invited to take part in a very special memorial service at Bondgate Church on behalf of the cooperative funeral service. This was a beautiful service and the choir performed two songs whilst the congregation wrote messages of remembrance for their loved ones and lit candles. Children were praised for their performance, behaviour and attitude throughout the event and the staff could not be prouder of how they represented our school. See below for some of the positive comments they received:
 
“The choir made the service for me.”
  
“The service was lovely as always but having the children’s choir made a big difference.”
 
“I’m a governor at Reid Street, it was great to see the children here.”
 
“We only came out in the cold because we knew Reid Street Choir was going to be here.”
 
“We live near the school, we went to Reid Street, our kids went to Reid Street and the choir just made the night for us.”
  
“The children’s choir was a lovely touch, they made it so Christmassy and made me feel emotional.”
 
“Thank you Julie Guest and the lovely kids from Reid Street School, it was a wonderful night.”
 
A huge well done to the choir!
 

The Christmas Journey

Posted November 30th, 2018

This morning, 2B visited St John’s church on Neasham Road to take part in their ‘Christmas Journey’ activity. The children loved learning about the Christmas story by travelling through a series of tents which housed sets including a stable and Mary’s kitchen. Some of the children got to dress up and act out parts of the story.

Carys said “My favourite part was when the animals in the stable were talking about baby Jesus being born.”

2H are now looking forward to their visit, next week.

Bondgate Memorial Service

Posted November 28th, 2018

​The choir was invited to take part in a very special memorial service at Bondgate Church on behalf of the cooperative funeral service. This was a beautiful service and the choir performed two songs whilst the congregation wrote messages of remembrance for their loved ones and lit candles. Children were praised for their performance, behaviour and attitude throughout the event and the staff could not be prouder of how they represented our school. See below for some of the positive comments they received:
 
“The choir made the service for me.”
  
“The service was lovely as always but having the children’s choir made a big difference.”
 
“I’m a governor at Reid Street, it was great to see the children here.”
 
“We only came out in the cold because we knew Reid Street Choir was going to be here.”
 
“We live near the school, we went to Reid Street, our kids went to Reid Street and the choir just made the night for us.”
  
“The children’s choir was a lovely touch, they made it so Christmassy and made me feel emotional.”
 
“Thank you Julie Guest and the lovely kids from Reid Street School, it was a wonderful night.”
 
A huge well done to the choir! 
​READING VOLUNTEERS
 
Come and join our team!
 
We are very lucky to have a dedicated team of reading volunteers who come into school on a weekly basis to listen to pupils read.                                                   

Our volunteers provide valuable one to one support to pupils which benefits their reading massively.  The more pupils read, the more progress they make and the more confident they become.
 
Pupils really enjoy this individual reading time and our volunteers find it hugely rewarding too.  So if you can spare an hour or two once a week please call into the office for more details or e-mail admin@reidstreet.darlington.sch.uk
 
We will be holding a training session for reading volunteers on Monday 10th December from 1.30 – 2.30.  If you are interested in attending please let the office know.
 
If you cannot attend the training, but would like to volunteer as a reader in school, please call in to the office.

St Teresa’s Hospice

Posted November 22nd, 2018

On Thursday 22nd November, Reid Street Primary school were invited to the AGM (Annual General Meeting) for St. Teresa’s Hospice. We were asked to attend to receive a certificate for our charity fundraising and the contribution we made from our PIE challenge winnings.
Heidi (Head Girl) and Liam (Head Boy) attended the important meeting with Mrs Ayto (Head of school) and Mrs Davison (Head of KS2) at the Blackwell Grange Hotel. It was incredible to see how many people were there – I’d estimate about 100 people.
When the rewards part came, we were one of the first to be called out! We raised just over £3000 for the local hospice.
Everyone applauded our fabulous total and the people who worked at St. Teresa’s were thrilled. We listened to a speech about Seven Summit Steve’s work just before we received our wonderful award. The Northern Echo even took our picture with the award before we left.
We are very grateful for the amazing certificate we have received and we will continue to support the local hospice.

​Heidi and Liam 

Science Day

Posted November 20th, 2018

Today, we met Dr Hannah Sykes from Northumbria University. She showed us some amazing experiments and talked about the basic skills needed to be a scientist. We learned about observing and recording what was happening while we were doing experiments. We even got to make our own rocket mice and slime!

Stop the River!

Posted November 20th, 2018

​Today we have used ‘Google Maps’ to track the start of the River Tees from the top of ‘Cross Fell’ to the coastline where the river joins the sea.  The pupils enjoyed watching new streams join the river and were fascinated with the curving path which the river took on its journey.  We looked at the flood defences near the coastline and talked about what they do.

Challenge – Can you create your own flood defences?
The children worked in groups to use different materials to create their own flood defences.  They made predictions about whether they thought their material would be a good material or not.  They talked confidently about it needing to be waterproof to stop the water from getting through but also learnt the new language of water tight.

Science and Art

Posted November 14th, 2018

Over the last half term, children in year 6 have been lucky enough to have additional science and art lessons with teachers from Wyvern Academy. This has been a fantastic experience for the children and has helped prepare them for their transitions to secondary school next year.
 
In art, children have studied various mediums and artists including Turner, Hokusai, Hockney and Monet. Children have been able to learn new skills to create pieces of work including water colours, sketching and observation drawings.
 
In Science, children have been able to experience more complex experiments including using microscopes, prisms and chemicals such as iodine and PH neutralising solution. Children have received a variety of lessons relating to physics, chemistry and biology.
 
All children have thoroughly enjoyed the lessons and they have behaved impeccably. They were a credit to Reid Street and we hope this has helped prepared them for their future education. 

Girls Tag Rugby Competition

Posted November 14th, 2018

Our all girls tag rugby team travelled to Mowden Park Stadium to compete in Darlington’s first ever girls only tag rugby competition. The girls played 7a side on the grass pitches at Mowden Park against multiple Darlington schools.
 
Despite the cold weather, the girls played incredibly well. They won several of their matches and finished in 6th place out of the 12 teams that took part. Over the course of the afternoon, the girls developed not only their confidence, but also their skills. Well done, girls.
 
The three year 5 girls that took part are already looking forward to next year.

The Oriental Museum – Monday 10th December 2018

Posted November 8th, 2018

Today we visited the Oriental Museum in Durham. Whilst we were there, we handled and described different artefacts from Ancient Egypt, discovered interesting facts, cracked Hieroglyphic codes and even dressed up in Egyptian clothing! On the afternoon, we all attended a ‘Weighing of the Hearts Ceremony’. During this, we learnt how to mummify a Pharaoh and played the role of Egyptian Gods to decide the Pharaoh’s fate. We even got to see a real-life sarcophagus and a 2000-year-old mummy!

Indoor Athletics

Posted November 6th, 2018

​On November 6th, 24 children from year 5 and 6 competed in the first of three Indoor Sportshall Athletics cluster competitions. The children took part in events such as relays, obstacle races, javelin, speed bounce and triple jump to name but a few.  The team performed incredibly well and acquired an outstanding points total of 250! We will now compete in the Darlington final at the Dolphin Centre next week.