Computing buddies 12th Mar 2025
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More photos from our weekly computing club with digital leaders and year 2 children.

Safer Internet Day 2025 12th Mar 2025
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The whole school enjoyed celebrating safer internet day again this year based on the theme of scams. Our digital leaders even held assemblies.

Year 5 Pizza demonstration 5th Mar 2025
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Chef Paul - Pizza making demonstration for Year 5. He taught the children about the key ingredients needed to make pizza dough, demonstrated how to make pizza dough and then spoke about to dos and don'ts of making Pizza.

Mental Health Week-"Our Voice Matters" 5th Mar 2025
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Science club-Snap circuits 5th Mar 2025
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Today in Science Club, students used Snap Circuit kits to recall and extend their knowledge of electrical circuits. The children initially followed diagrammatic instructions to build circuits using a range of components before trialling their own circuits. As you can tell by the photos, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

Year 6 photography workshop 4th Mar 2025
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30 children from Downside were invited to take part in a photography workshop on the Ridgeway trail, as part of its 50th anniversary. The workshop took place close to Ivinghoe and was led by Lillian from Sharp Shots Photography club. All children learnt to use a digital camera and tried their best to record a section of the Ridgeway - although the fog was pretty thick! Some of the children's photos will be shown in an exhibition later in the year. More details can be found here: https://sharpshotsphotoclub.co.uk/ridgeway-50-photos-project/

Rockhopper and Humboldt visit to Wardown Park Museum 4th Mar 2025
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Year 3 have been visiting Wardown Park as part of their Local area work. As part of History, they attended a workshop at Wardown museum learning about the history of hat making. As part of their Geography fieldwork, they then looked at physical and human features of the park.

Year 5 & 6 Athletics County finals success 4th Mar 2025
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The Year 5 & 6 indoor athletics finished 3rd overall at the COUNTY finals on Friday 28th Feb 2025. We are so proud of their determination, perserverance and skill. Well done to all the children and for those in Year 6 we look forward to seeing you continue your athletic journey at high school.

Year 3 & 4 County finals Bronze success 27th Feb 2025
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On Wednesday 26th Feb 2025 the Year 3 & 4 Indoor Athletics competed against the top 12 teams in the COUNTY and finished a very impressive 3rd place overall.

Is yeast alive? 25th Feb 2025
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Quentin Blake drawing 13th Feb 2025
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This half term in Art lessons we created our own character in the style of Quentin Blake.

Year 2 Charity Bake Sale 12th Feb 2025
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As part of our RE unit, we raised money for charity by holding a bake sale for our parents and other children. We learnt that all religions can give to charity and show that they care.

RE - Caring assembly 7th Feb 2025
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We performed an assembly to our parents to show how different religions care for each other.

Year 4 science club 28th Jan 2025
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In Science Club today, Year 4 were busy investigating the density of different liquids to see whether it affected an object’s ability to float.

Rockhopper cook up delicious samosas! 28th Jan 2025
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Rockhooper having been busy in the kitchen this week, chopping, mixing and cooking some amazing samosas. They were given 10 out of 10 from Mr Martin.

Year R - Computing - Information Technology 23rd Jan 2025
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In our computing lessons this week we have been learning how to use an app to create a piece of artwork.

'Computing Buddies' - Beebots 21st Jan 2025
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This week in the digital leader's computing club, they helped the year 2 children to program bee-bots. They had competitions and attempted to program the bee-bots to move around obstacles!

'Computing buddies' - Scratch Jr 14th Jan 2025
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This week in the digital leader's computing club, they have been helping the year 2 children to program simple animations on scratch junior.

Winter walk 13th Jan 2025
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This term we are learning about winter and have been on our winter walk to see how the tree has changed in this season. We learnt that the leaves have all died and trees are bare in winter.

Healthy living workshop 13th Jan 2025
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We took part in a healthy living workshop with our chief Paul. We had 3 stations where we got to taste and smell fruit and vegetables , look and feel vegetables and cut and grate them.

Great Fire of London Day 2024 13th Dec 2024
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Year 2 children had a fantastic Great Fire of London Day, hosted by an external company called History Off the Page. The event allowed them to reinforce their understanding of the Great Fire of London, their current history topic, through a range of enjoyable and engaging hands-on activities.

School council conference 10th Dec 2024
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On the 9th December, 6 of our school councillors attended the School Council Conference, along with 34 other Luton primary schools. We had the opportunity to share Downside's views about what makes Luton great and what we can do to make Luton even better, to members of Luton Borough Council. This is to help the council with their goal of making Luton a 'child-friendly town' by the year 2040. It's amazing to know that the children of Luton can make an impact, and that Downside have been able to play their part in shaping the future of Luton!

Year 2 - Burning houses 6th Dec 2024
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This week we burnt our houses that were made in the style of those from the Great Fire of London. This showed us how quickly the fire was able to spread due to the fact that the houses were extremely close together and made from flammable materials. All of this helped us with our information report writing.

Year 3 Rockhopper Church Visit 2nd Dec 2024
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Rockhopper visited St Mary’s church as part of their learning about the features of a Church in RE. All the children were given the opportunity to make a Christingle. Thanks to everyone at St marys.

Year 1 Family Learning 1st Dec 2024
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In our final Family Learning session with Year 1, the children made healthy couscous salad

Year author meeting with Peter Brown 30th Nov 2024
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Year 3 enjoyed a Q & A session with Peter Brown, author of the Wild Robot. The children also followed a step by step drawing tutorial to create the Wild Robot!

Science Club- Rocket Balloon 28th Nov 2024
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Balloons, tape, rockets and lots of investigation (and fun)

Parliament Week- Visit from our MP. 27th Nov 2024
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As part of parliament week it was a pleasure to welcome Luton MP Sarah Owen MP to Downside.

Year 3 Church Visit 27th Nov 2024
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King class visited St Mary's church on Monday 25th November 2024. The children explored the church and listened to an informative talk led by the church volunteers.

Year 6 Aviation Careers Workshop 20th Nov 2024
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Year 6 students took part in an incredibly inspiring virtual workshop all about careers in aviation! We heard from a pilot, an engineer and an air traffic controller about their day-to-day roles at work and the skills needed for their jobs. The pilot was particularly impressed by our classes being named after aircraft!

Year R - Information Technology 18th Nov 2024
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In our Computing (Information Technology) lesson we have learnt how to take a picture on the tablets. We know to keep the camera steady so it doesn't go blurry and to always hold the tablets with two hands.

Year R - Antibullying week 18th Nov 2024
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We took part in Anti bullying week and learnt how to treat others with respect. We all signed an agreement as a class that we would treat others how we wish to be treated.

Year R - Autumn walk 18th Nov 2024
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We have been learning about the seasons and focusing on Autumn. We have looked at what happens to trees during the change of seasons. We enjoyed an Autumn walk on the school field and collected some leaves to make crowns with.

Year R - Exploring materials 18th Nov 2024
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In Science we have been looking at exploring different materials to see which is the best fit for the three little pig houses. We decided that lego was the best material because it was strong and the wolf couldn't blow it down.

Year R - library trip 18th Nov 2024
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We went on a trip to Leagrave library. We learnt how to look after books and how to get a library card. We listened to the librarian reading a story and took a ride in the minibuses.

Science Club-dissolving. 13th Nov 2024
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This week, in Science club, the children investigated the rate of dissolving using M & M's and Smarties.

Year 5 Roman trip to St Albans 13th Nov 2024
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As a part of our History unit of work: Romans, we visited the St. Albans Verulamnim. Throughout the trip, children asked some highly thoughful questions as they interacted with real and replica Roman items. They've had the best start to our topic.

Year 2 - Bread making 13th Nov 2024
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This week Chef Paul taught us how to make bread. We are going to be writing instructions in our next writing topic so it was extremely helpful to watch it being made and create our own shapes. We collected lots of lovely imperative verbs and adverbs to use so that our instructions are clear and can be followed easily.

Year 5 ZSL Whispsnade Sustainability Assembly 11th Nov 2024
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Children found out about deforestation and the problem it will cause in the future. They also learnt about the changes which can be made in order to reduce levels of global warming.

Yr 5 & 6 Athletics Team Crowned Zone Champions 4th Nov 2024
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On Wednesday 23rd October Year 5 & 6 children were crowned indoor athletics zone chamipons and will compete in the Town Finals in January 2025.

Year 2 - Anti bullying week 4th Nov 2024
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This week Year 2 completed anti-bullying lessons based on the theme of respect. We made our own class pledge.

Year 1 - Local area walk 29th Oct 2024
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This week the year 1 children enjoyed a walk around their local area to support their writing as well as their Geography unit.

Year 3 meet author Chrissie Sains 25th Oct 2024
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On Wednesday 24th October 2024, children in Year 3 enjoyed a Q& A session with Chrissie Sains, the author of 'An Alien in the Jam Factory'.

Year 4 & 5 Maths Curriculum Walk 24th Oct 2024
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The maths team had a fantastic time on their curriculum walk around Year 4 & 5 last week. They were impressed with the high quality of work. they saw.

Year R - Digital Literacy 24th Oct 2024
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This half term we learnt the very important rule that if something makes us feel sad or uncomfortable on our devices we T-A-G... Tell a grown up.

Year 3 Art 21st Oct 2024
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After weeks of building our skills up with chalk pastels, we completed our final piece today. We all drew the composition of the fruit bowl and then used chalk pastels to create a 3D effect using shading, smudging, hatching and cross-hatching.

Year 5 Art 21st Oct 2024
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Year 5 children are half way through their sculpture unit. They created an armature of a sea creature using plastic and cardboard, used modroc to cover and secure and finally used sheets of modroc to add texture. We can't wait to see the finished sculptures.

Year 5 reading 21st Oct 2024
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In Year 5, children enjoy using Oxford reading Buddy and reading good old paper copies of books.

Reception SEND Sports day 21st Oct 2024
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Some of the children in reception had an extra awesome sports day in the sunshine. Lots of fun and some amazing skills on show. Well done to everyone who took part.