Year 4 Tennis Team & The Wimbledon Champion!

Road to Eastbourne Aegon Tennis Tournament

During the summer term, the year 4 tennis team have competed and won two qualifying rounds, of the LTA’s ‘Road to Eastbourne tournament.’  This Saturday they travelled to Eastbourne to compete in the grand final, against 8 other winning schools from other regions. 

Our team shone in the skills tests and tennis matches and finished as bronze medal winners overall. Over 100 schools had competed in this tournament, so to finish in 3^rd place was a great achievement.

Many congratulations to all of you  who competed in the initial rounds, as well as the final.

The children received medals, certificates and a goodie bag of LTA treats. They then went with their families to the Aegon International tennis tournament, to watch the professional players in action. However, the excitement did not end there!

The LTA arranged for the current Wimbledon Ladies Champion, Petra Kvitová, 

 to meet the children and pose for some pictures with the winning teams.

Check out the cheesy grins below of: Kian, Louis, Daniel, Charlie, Kiyra, Sienna, Caitlin and Matilda.

One lucky member of the Vale team was chosen to return to the Aegon Championships on Monday, to meet with Petra again to conduct an interview. You will be able to see more pictures and a write up of her day on the blog soon, plus her pictures will appear in the British Tennis Magazine next month.

Congratulations Sienna!

It has been a pleasure to play tennis with you all this term and see you apply your new skills in this fantastic tournament. Well done. Mrs C :) 

Rounders Tournament

On Monday 15th June, 13 children from year 4 competed in a rounders tournament at TAB middle school. Throughout the afternoon the children played 4 games. After practising hard and winning each of their games, the overall winners of the tournament were Vale! Well done to: Charlie, Daniel, Jude, Ellis, Aime-Lou, Halle, Rachel, Erin, Sam, Max, Finlay, George and Jack. 

Awesome work!

Miss Parker 

4TC Matilda Assembly

Congratulations to you all 4TC!

Such a wonderful final assembly of the year. You impressed me so much with all your hard work and effort. Well done to all. Naughty school children, back stage ninjas, tech team, dancers, choreographers, narrators, Trunchbulls, Matildas, Mr & Mrs Wormwood, Miss Honey, Amanda Thripp, Lavender, Michael, Bruce Bogtrotter, Jack & Jill, Cinderella & fairy godmother, Romeo and Juliet. 

 I'm very proud of you all! Mrs C :)

Road to Eastbourne Tennis Tournament

On Tuesday 19th May, eight children from year 4 competed in the 2nd round of the Road to Eastbourne Tennis tournament at West Worthing Tennis Club. In the first round, they all competed in activities which were designed to develop their tennis skills. In the second round they split into 2 teams, then either played tennis matches or more skills games on the beautiful mini grass courts. There were 7 other local schools competing and there was some tough competition. However,  the eventual winners were...The Vale First & Middle School!
Congratulations to: Kian, Charlie, Daniel, Louis, Sienna, Matilda, Caitlin and Kyira. Thanks and congratulations also need to go to Olivia and Haydn who competed in the first round of this tournament and have made a great contribution to the success of the team.

The year 4 team will now compete in the grand final on Saturday 20th June. This will be held on the opening day of play, at the International Aegon tennis tournament in Eastbourne.
http://www.visiteastbourne.com/events/tennis.aspx

Wonderful tennis and great sportsmanship year 4!
Well done
Mrs C :)

Sussex County Tennis Tournament Year 4

Today, two teams of children from year 4 competed in the under 9 tournament for the Sussex County Schools Tennis Championships.

Boys’ Team: Kian Taylor Goss, Louis Hutchence, Haydn Le Manquais, Charlie Mills and Daniel Mills.

Girls’ Team: Olivia, Kyira, Caitlin, Matilda and Sienna.

The boys had a difficult first few games against the home side, Bedes A team. However, they played with tenacity in high winds and won several matches against Lancing Prep and St Andrews School. All the children had the opportunity to play both singles and doubles matches against several different schools.

The girls had a wonderful day of tennis. On their way to the final they beat: Moira House A team, Lancing Prep at Hove A team and St Andrews A team. The final was a closely fought battle between our girls and St Bedes A team. There were some excellent rallies and the final scores were very close. Although St Bedes were the eventual winners, our team were very proud to finish as 'runners up' of the Sussex County under 9 tournament; it was great achievement.

Thank you to all the children who represented our school so well with: politeness, good etiquette and sportsmanship throughout. Also, a big ‘thank you’ to the parents and grandparents who came to support and especially to those who volunteered to umpire some matches.

Mrs Casey :) 

The girls team celebrating in the hospitality tent. Congratulations year 4!

InterHouse Spelling Bee

Well done to all the children in Year 4 today for taking part in the InterHouse spelling bee.


A special well done to our 12 finalists.

RESULTS:
1st Place - Sapphire
2nd Place - Amber
3rd Place - Ruby
4th Place - Emerald

Sapphire: Harry, Elliot, Daisy

Emerald: Sam, Jack, Lily

Amber: Rachel, Libby, Finlay

Ruby: Matilda, Charlie, George 

Roman Mysteries Author Visit

On Thursday 26^th February, Caroline Lawrence the author of Roman Mystery stories came to visit us at the Vale.   She spoke to children in years 4-7, about how she writes her books and where she got the inspiration for her 4 main characters: Flavia, Jonathan, Nubia and Lupus. 

She explained to the children, that she was inspired to write these stories after studying Latin, Greek and Ancient Civilisations at Cambridge University. Many of her stories follow the pattern of ancient myths and include accurate historical information. She described her method for story writing, which involved following 7 plot beats.

Can you remember what they were? 

5 House-points are up for grabs for the first person who can name all 7 plot beats.

Over the past term we have been writing our own Roman mystery stories, using Caroline Lawrence's books and TV series as inspiration. Not only did Caroline judge a competition to reward the best stories, she also gave children detailed feedback on how they might improve their work.

All the children in year 4 were treated to one of the Roman Mystery books, signed by the author!

Congratulations to the winners of the story writing competition: Billy, Matilda and Rachel. 

Congratulations to 3 of the runners up: Elliot, Luke and Henry.

4TC Peter and the Wolf- Interhouse Arts Challenge

The children in year 4 had a special arts day recently, to introduce them to a wonderful piece of classical music. Peter and the Wolf, by Prokofiev is a favourite with children and adults alike. Different musical instruments and sections of the orchestra are used to create signature sounds for each of the main characters in the story: Peter, Sonia the duck, Ivan the cat, Sacha the bird, grandpa, the hunters and the wolf.

Ask your child if they can remember which instrument was used for each character.

The children were asked to respond to this piece of music, by creating a home learning task in their favourite ‘arts’ medium. I have received some astonishing results, some of which are shown below. I would like to thank all of our parents for supporting their children in creating this wonderful variety of work.

This afternoon Mr Garrat came to see a display of every childs work and was very impressed with the results.We also allowed children to peer assess each others work and leave comments on post it notes, to give feedback and praise.

Well done Kian. This A1 picture of the wolf scene using: fur, glitter, feather and a pop ups showed an imaginative use of textures.

Congratulations Amelia-Mae and Susannah, you both created an outstanding shadow puppet theatre and treated us to a great show today.

 Your lolly stick house was a creative masterpiece. It must have taken hours for you to complete. A great interpretation of the task Teagan. Well done.

Miss Hillier and I enjoyed your story on a pop up display Hollie. Well done.

This is fantastic Jude! A lovely puppet theatre with scenery and movable characters.

So much care went into your shadow puppet theatre Katie, well done. 

I loved your use of ruby red curtains in your A3 stage/title poster. Great job Ruby!

I like that you chose your favourite characters to create your colourful A4 felt picture. Well done Olivia.

Beautifully presented, as usual Libby. Congratulations on your written version of the story with illustrations.

Henry and Liam- Peter and wolf based Rap song. We all enjoyed hearing this is class today. Well done.

Original piano composition. Written on a stave and recorded/posted on Edmodo. I am astonished at your creativity Caitlin. Well done.

Mr Garratt agreed this was a detailed and meticulously crafted piece. You not only used Minecraft to recreate each scene, but you also rewrote the story and set it to music. Bravo!

 Your textured picture of Sonia the duck using cotton wool and sweetie wrappers was delightful. Well done Lily.

Well done Stanley for your A4 hand drawn and coloured picture. We particularly liked your wolf!

Thank you for your 'capturing the wolf' scene. Well done Marcus.

Well done Jack for your A4 hand drawn and coloured picture. I love the bold and beautiful bird, Sacha.

Your watercolour sunset with black cut out silhouette characters was beautiful Patrick. It was an imaginative and creative response to this piece. Well done.

Congratulations Sofia, yours was one of the first moving parts puppet theatres to arrive into school. You inspired others to be creative, well done.

 This was an outstanding homework learning task Luke combining: a poem, paper mache tree and wolf scene. I can see how much time and effort you spent to create this. Wow!

We all hugely enjoyed your puppet theatre Carys, with it's hand drawn scenery and characters. Well done!

Your eye catching A3 picture highlighted the heart of this piece Dylan. Namely, the different instruments for each of the characters. 

Well done Matilda,  on your eye catching painting and re-telling of the story. A lot of care went into this task, 

Your MP4 of your puppet theatre, set to a story and then voice recorded by you was a masterpiece. Congratulations Haydn! 

And finally to Louis, we all enjoyed hearing you reading your poem aloud in class today.

Thank you again, it has been a pleasure to see how much the children enjoyed this challenge and to see their creative responses. Well done. Mrs C J

Whizz Kid Challenge: 5hps are up for grabs for the first person to tell me the name of the Shakespeare play that inspired Prokofiev to write another iconic musical masterpiece. 

Inter-House Times Tables

Last Friday, we held our Inter-House Times Tables Challenge, with all children completing a times-tables grid of 1-12 in the quickest possible time.  We found the quickest person in each house in each class before the fastest person from each house across the year group.  Our final 5 (one house had two people competing due to equal times) completed a much harder random grid to decide who would be our top four.  The results were as follows:

1) Joe (Sapphire)

2) Jack (Ruby)

3) Jude (Amber)

4) Haydn (Emerald)

Congratulations to all 4 finalists! 

FVRA Spirit of Christmas Late Night Shopping

Over the last month, we have been making crafts to sell at the FVRA Spirit of Christmas Late Night Shopping event in Findon Valley.  We made snowflakes, reindeer and wreaths from puzzle pieces and decorated some wooden discs.  Here are some photos of our crafts and the event.  Aadi led a team in selling the items after school in the week following the sale and in total Year 4 raised £365 for Chestnut Tree House Children's Hospice! 

Year 4 Hour of Code

Today the classes in year 4 followed in the footsetps of Bill Gates and all our children spent an hour using 'code.' The activities were based around two seperate games: Frozen and Angry Birds. The children were able to give instruction in code to move their characters around the screen; it started off with easy instructions and ended with complicated code which stretched even our most confident digital leaders!

It was wonderful to see the children helping each other and several new 'unoffical' digitial leaders emerged in each classroom.

Congratulations to all in year 4 and thank you to our helpful students for making it such a success.

Mrs C :)