School Events

Black History Month - Proud To Be

Inspirational October 

What an amazing few weeks we have had at Four Swannes! As part of our focus on Black History Month and with this year’s emphasis on ‘Proud to be’, we have been lucky enough to have some wonderful opportunities to meet such inspirational people.

Our first visitors were Kadeen and Sasha Corbin who both play at the highest level of netball for Saracen Mavericks and England. Having watched them in action I can truly appreciate the skill and expertise they need to maintain their positions at such a professional level. Kadeen and Sasha were good enough to share their experiences in our school assembly and spoke about how important it is to work hard to achieve your ambitions in life and the need to be resilient in the face of any challenges. A message that would be repeated throughout the coming days. After showing their medal and giving some great advice, our netball club members were lucky enough to be able to receive some excellent tuition from the professionals which will hopefully be a memory that those children can take as a starting point for an excellent sporting future.

I am going to admit that our next visitor is the person that I was personally looking forward to meeting the most. A young woman that achieves the highest standard in everything that she does and has had to fight through injury and other challenges to ensure that she reaches her goals. Asher Philip is simply a wonderful role model for all young people. A true reflection of what is achievable through hard work and dedication, with a healthy portion of not giving up thrown into the mix as well. Asher has a record that was very inspirational for the children being the first GB woman to achieve a gold medal in the 100 metres at any level of professional competition. As well as that lifetime achievement, she was a junior world champion in trampoline there is also the TWO bronze Olympic medals for the 2016 and 2021 Olympic games. She was able to give the children lots of great advice on how to achieve their dreams even when having to deal with barriers such a racism. Asher’s advice was to drive on through and see these people for who they really are. There is nothing that can stop true determination and hard work. Once we had finished asking our questions, Asher offered to take Years 3 and 4 outside to do their daily mile and helped them warm up as the professionals would. A great experience for some of our children and I hope one that may even tempt some of our children to enter the world of sport at the highest level. Maybe even a future world champion!

And just when you thought that “Wow! Four Swannes have had a great time with those visitors.” I have the absolute pleasure of telling you about our next superstar visit. The one and only Scarlett Douglas came to talk to the children about her career and how she has achieved such great heights. A completely lovely, warm and inspirational woman, Scarlett (or Charlotte as we found out!) was good enough to be more specific with supporting the children in their understanding of facing the adversity of racism when a person is working to do their best. She told the children how tough it was to work her way to the top and gave examples of the people who would stand in her way, who negatively stated that she would ‘never make it’. How wrong they were. Through sheer determination and pride, Scarlett explained to the children how each and every person can achieve the highest heights through their resilience and drive to be the best. Truly inspirational! We were able to watch a video of Scarlet in action in such TV roles as A Place in the Sun, The One Show, MTV and roles in blockbuster films such as Marvel Avengers. Such a wonderful person and an excellent example for our young people. After our assembly, Scarlett held workshops with both our Year 5 and 6 children, giving informative examples of how to present to such a high standard.

Yet still, we are not finished there. As I type, Four Swannes are fortunate enough to have Bill John working with all our children today in the martial art of Karate. Bill is a 5^th Dan which displays the level of work and dedication that he has towards his discipline. Our children will get to experience an aspect of physical education that they may never have come across or may not have had the opportunity to participate in in their lifetime if not experienced today.

It is important to state that none of these visits would have taken place without the introductions and support from our own Mrs Alcock. Each of our esteemed visitors have been heavily influenced in their early lives by Mrs Alcock and may not have reached such heady heights without her inspiration and guidance. All our personalities were in some way connected to the local community, schools and sports. A stunning sample and small representation of how Mrs Alcock has influenced so many young lives. Four Swannes are exceptionally lucky to have their own weekly inspirational person working with us, encouraging  not just the children but the teaching team of the school. And the visits will not stop there. We may have basketball players and ex-England rugby captain visiting the school in the not too distant future. Thank you, Mrs Alcock, from all of us.

Mr Moore

Until you spread your wings, you have no idea how far you can fly.

Super Swannes Sizzling Sports Week

As I am sure all of the Four Swannes community are aware, from Monday 21^st June through to Friday 25^th June, we enjoyed a fun week of sporting excellence and high levels of physical activity.

All staff and children were able to enjoy a full day of fun and exciting activities which included tasks such as boot camp, wall climbing and archery, to name but a few. It was very rewarding to see young people attempting new things whilst being supported by their peers and teaching staff. A fabulous day enjoyed by the whole school, which was a first, since the beginning of the pandemic.

Thursday 22^nd saw a return of the school sports day which had to be a ‘bubble’ based day, rather than a whole school-house event. Regardless of this necessary change, it was a very active day with lots of healthy competition between teams. The points from the day were collated and these would be added together to identify a whole school team winner.  Some great performances from classes and individuals. Well done to all!

Finally, to top it all off, we planned to have an awards ceremony on the 23^rd. However, due to circumstances (weather!), we had to postpone this until the following week. It was worth the wait as we recognised individual effort and identified the winning team in our first whole school sports awards ceremony. Sports Personality of the year awards were given as well as achievement awards. Overall team winner was announced, and all the children applauded and congratulated their peers.

This has been a wonderful precursor to the schools Healthy and Active plans for 2021/22 academic year where healthy eating and physical activity will become a very important part of the school’s ethos. A massive thank you must go to Mrs Alcock as without her support and organisation, none of this would have taken place. Well done to all involved and enjoy the photos.

Mr Moore

10..3.20

Another sporting event attended and another great effort put in from the children who were selected to go. We took 3 teams to this event and they represented the school well, unfortunately no medals this time but some new children attending their first competition was a huge achievement.

5.3.20

Cooking club continued this week with Vegetarian Burritos on the menu. The children showed yet again the can confidently follow the recipe given to them, chop vegetables carefully and were given many compliments from the staff who were still on site as to how amazing the food smelt. 

4.3.20

A huge well done to all the children who represented their school at this years Athletics at Woodson Park. Although we were unlucky to not come away with medals the children gave their all and it was lovely to see some new faces in this years team. The children were so encouraging to each other and I was extremely proud of both their behaviour and their motivation. You did our school proud!

2.3.20

Fun Club

26.2.20

Year 6 started their first week of cooking club making pancakes. Each week they will be put in to groups and given a recipe to follow under adult supervision. The aim is for them to follow the recipe as independently as possible. They showed great team work, followed the instructions perfectly and all enjoyed and reviewed the end result in the cooking journals.

13.2.20

Hertfordshire does The Daily Mile!

Today despite the very wet weather, we found an alternative way to complete our challange. This challange was set across Hertfordshire with the hope as many schools as possible would get involved. Well done to everyone and an even bigger well done to our 3 Sports Leaser Javahnus, Henry and Lara who helped encourage the younger children.

28.1.20

Multi Skills Festival

Today selected children from Year 1 and year 2 attended the multi skills festival at Haileybury Turnford. They took part in a range of activities including Speed Stack, Skipping, aiming and catching, balance and Lego challange. Everyone who took part did so well and really enjoyed trying something new. Feed back from the children below was just a little bit of proof of just how rewarding this job can be.

”Our school is the best, we get to do really fun things.”

Brooke Year 1

”I liked the Lego challange especially when I had to try and do it with my eyes closed.”

Kalin Year 2. 

”I liked the bean bag challange the best, I got to try and collect and balance them with my eyes closed.” 

“ I felt really nervous but I liked it and didn’t feel nervous at the end.”

Ria Year 2

”Speed bounce was the best”

Poppy Year 1

”Bean bag game was the best and I used my weaker hand to throw with.”

Oskar Year 2

”Skipping was the best.”

Kylah Year 2

” Long jump was the best. I was nervous to go but I am happy that I went.”

Mason Year 2

” I liked when we had to run in and out the cones, jump over a hurdle, touch a yellow line and sprint back.”

Oscar Year 2

”I liked throwing the ball against the wall and trying to catch it.”

Tommy Year 2

”I liked skipping and throwing.”

Kai Year 2

22.1.20

With Chinese New Year around the corner we decided to celebrate this with the children preparing and cooking a stir fry. Everyone brought in a vegetable to contribute to this dish and we added Water Chestnuts, Bamboo and Bean Sprouts too.

15.1.20

cooking club continued this week with the children making pizza toast. They chopped up their own fresh tomatoes for their base, grated their own cheese and washed up their chopping boards. 

13.1.20

second week of fun club and the children are really enjoying the games and activities on offer from them to use. The children have been showing great team work when playing games and helping each other when trying to play new games.

8.1.2020

cooking club saw a new group of children of children join and cook a Spaghetti Bolognaise.

18.12.19

Church Christingle Service

5.12.19

Christmas around the world

Today was RE day. Each class learnt about how Christmas is celebrated in a different country and we visited each other’s class to share our knowledge.

26.11.19

Dodgeball Silver Medalists

Today we attended the Dodgeball tournament set up by A10 Partnership. With 12 teams competing it meant the children had a lot of competition. We were split in to 2 groups of 6 an after losing our first group game, came back to win our next 4 games. This saw us play in the final agiainst a very strong school. We came away with silver medals overall coming 2nd out of 12 schools. Such an amazing effort from all the children, who showed such fantastic team work. Well done. you did your school proud!

21.11.19

football

With football being one of my favourite sports to play as a kid, I was keen to change the initial reaction to a football themed session in Multi skills. This was not to everyone’s delight with  the majority of the girls saying that they didn’t like football and it was for boys. We kept the session fun and played games using dribbling skills and target that made a huge difference to the way the perceived the sport. At the end of the session every child said that in fact they quite liked football and they enjoyed it more then they thought. We spoke about how popular the sport has got for women and it is most defiantly, like most sports not just to be enjoyed by boys.

20.11.19

cooking club makes burgers

19.11.19

badminton after school club

14.11.19

Multi-sport (quick cricket)

13.11.19

Cooking Club

This week we made pizza toast. All the children brought in at least one of their favourite pizza toppings and added them with tomatoes and cheese to toast to make their pizzas.

11.11.19

Each child made a Pom Pom poppy for our Remembrance Day assembly.  During the day each class focussed on remembering those who made sacrifices so that we can live in peace. The whole school community observed a 2 minute silence.  We are grateful for the freedom that we have.

7.11.19

This week was the first week of multi sports. We started the club with Tag Rugby. The children practiced passing and catching the rugby ball and then finished with a tag rugby mini game. The children enjoyed dodging the catchers to avoid the catchers from grabbing their tags from their belts.

6.11.19

Today a new group of Year 2 children started their half term at cooking club. We made jam and lemon tarts, where the children all got involved with making the pastry from scratch. 

5.11.19

Today both a netball and football team represented our school in the Intra Primary Cup. Both teams did out school proud who the football team winning 2 of their matches and the netball team, playing for the first time drew half of their games. Despite some of their matches being tough games they showed throughout the whole tournament that they can continue to work as a team and enjoy the competition regardless of the score. Well done to all the children nvolved. You were a credit to the school

On Tuesday 8th October, 10 children were selected from years 3 and 4 to attend the Personal Challange event at Haileybury Turnford. The children took part in a range of personal challenges including skipping, throwing, catching, target, speed stack and this was finished off with a team challange against the other schools there. The children all enjoyed the event and it was great to see the determination they showed when trying out a skill that did not come easy to them, they tried  and didn’t give up. 3 children gave us feed back from attending this event.

I enjoyed seeing the Year 6 who had left our school and now go to Haileybury. I liked the skipping, bean bag aim, bucket challange and the Lego challange.

Jacob Year 4

I liked Tuesday because it made me better at sport skills. My favourite was throwing the ball at the wall to see how many catches we could do in 10 seconds.

Lauren Year 3

i wasn’t looking forward to going because I thought it would be boring, but when I went it was really fun. My favourite activity was speed stacking.

Lexi Year 3

Mini Marines

Another great experience for the school this week with a visit from Elite Commando Survival. The military group came in and put the children through their paces with a military assault course followed by survival skills. The session was finished off with the children roasting marshmallows and taking part in a team building activity.

Sponsored Fitness Circuit

The children thoroughly enjoyed the fitness circuit lead by Gianni Frankis. Gianni represented Great Britain in 2009 at the World Championships in the hurdle event. The children were engaged with both the workshop and the assembly he led and it was very inspiring to hear how hard he continued to work even when he wasn’t winning all his races. The children all learnt a valuable lesson in lie, that if you have ambition and drive you can reach your goal.

Inclusive Disability Day

All children were given the experience of using a wheel chair. They were given the task to use the chairs to manoeuvre around cones. Wheel power were very greatful for the money the children raised and enjoyed coming in to work with the children in their classes

Science Week

Science  week was a huge success across the school last week, with all the children getting involved with hands on experiments. The children were lucky enough to have a visit from a scientist who let the them participate in some science experiments, including the making of slime. As the week continued the children had to investigate a crime scene that had been set up in school, to work out which one of the teachers had damaged the flower. They had to investigate shoe prints, fabrics, pen ink and test how powders reacted with liquids in order to solve the crime. Many experiments continued in the classrooms with Reception enjoying separating liquids, Year 2 looking at friction and Year 6 using microscopes to examine different fabrics. 

Multisports

This week we started multisports club with the children learning some basic football skills. We practiced dribbling with a ball and finding space, finished off with an agility game. The children have picked other sports they would like to try over the next few weeks, starting with netball next week.

Athletics

This week both the Year 3 and 4 Athletics Club and 5 and 6 all attended on Monday, due to

World Market Day being held on Thursday. This week we focused on track events and tried to beat the times which had previously been recorded.

Tennis Club

This week after progressing with the basic skills, the children set up small matches and learnt the rules of a competitive match. The children have improved so much and have really enjoyed learning a new sport.

Rapid Fire Festival

On the 12th February 2019, we took 2 teams of 6 children, to take part in this Cricket style festival. Both teams were amazing, with one team making it to the semi final.

It was really fun because we had to run a lot. It made it even more fun because we played against other schools. I would like to go again.

Tyron

Year 4

The Rapid Fire Festival was a lot of fun because it was really competitive. I felt nervous when we were in the mini bus, but when I went in to the school hall I felt better. Even though we got knocked out in the semi-final, it was one of the best competitions ever.

Carla

Year 4

The Rapid Fire Festival was really exciting because we played cricket and I’ve never played cricket before.

Julia

Year 4

The rapid fire festival was really fun because I’ve never represented the school before. I felt very excited and proud.

Deanna

Year 3

When we walked in I felt nervous, but I felt better when we started playing. I tried my best to hit the ball hard through the cones to get extra points. I tried so hard that I was tired when I went home. It was my first time on a mini bus. I hope I get to go again.

Kacper

Year 3

I felt a little nervous because it looked complicated but I watched the demonstration and I knew how to play it. I tried my best to get the ball through the cones.

Matas

Year 3

Water Sports Festival

On the 5th February 2019, 8 selected children attended the 'Water Sports Festival' at Haileybury, Turnford run by the A10 school partnership.

I loved the water sport because it was AMAZING! For me, my best part for me was when we were dancing.

Oliwia

Year 5

I loved it, but at first it was very scary because so many teenagers were staring at me and my friends. Apart from that I liked it and I loved when we did sitting volleyball.

Alfie

Year 6

At the water sports festival we took part in lots of activities. A partner assault course like a canoe slalom, sitting volleyball, synchronised swimming, a rowing exercise that was fun and then we did another hoop exercise. They were all really fun. Out of 6 teams we came 3^rd with a bronze medal. I felt really proud and exited that we came in the top 3 .

Ellie Mae

Year 6