The following articles were written by pupils from Merrydale Primary School

The Merrydale girls football team reached the county finals on Tuesday 29th November at Soar Valley College in Leicester. They did this by not losing a match in all of their games.

The girls, who are all from Year 6, played at the Inspire Together Primary School Football Competition two weeks ago. They will compete against four other teams in the county finals.

In an interview, Mr Herbert, who is the coach for the girls football team, stated that the team played well, considering some have never played football before.

“I feel really happy”, mentioned Naseema, who is a girl from the team, “It was really hard to get to the finals. We had to practise a lot but it was worth it.”

Mrs Mugglestone, who is the headteacher of Merrydale Junior School, said “I am extremely proud of them. They are demonstrating their skills and have worked very hard for this result. Teamwork is one of our school values, as is ‘Be the best you can be’ which they are also showing!”

The finals will take place at Soar Valley College in the new year.

The following articles are made up of excerpts of reports by pupils from Cale Green Primary School.

Cale Green pupils in classes Mulberry and Magnolia travelled to Weaver Hall in Northwich by coach in October. Once they had arrived, they said hello to Margaret, who is a museum volunteer, split into two groups and got going.

The first sight was a skull with an arrow through its head. “It was certainly an interesting first impression” said Harris.

After that, the children had real fun when they were sculpting their own viking figures. We also spoke to Rio, who claimed “The sculpting was really fun, I’d say the cone shape is easier to make than the actual human shape.”

They had lunch during the day and lots of people from class wanted to come back and learn more about their history there.

On Thursday 6 October Cale Green Year 5 and 6 went to Weaver Hall to learn about the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons - their topic for the last seven weeks.

First, they went to a workshop by a real Viking called Olaf. Olaf taught us about the language of Vikings and what instruments they played, for example, the lyre. He also told us about what food they eat like salted fish.

After the talk from Olaf, children got to set up a battle format including archers, a shield wall, a beserker and a chief with his bodyguard. Leon said the saltfish smelled a bit like fish fingers.

The children got to hold real ringmail from Viking times, Lyra stated “I didn’t expect the ringmail to be so heavy. How did they wear this in battle?” Harry got to be a Viking chief and some of the children got to be farmers, soldiers and part of a shield wall.

The children then made mini chess figurines of Vikings out of clay, Mustafa exclaimed “I really struggled to make the chess pieces”. They then went back to their school and painted their chess pieces.

The following articles are made up of excerpts of reports from Bardfield Primary Academy.

A fundraising day at Bardfield Academy where staff and children took part in Pudsey activities all day Friday 18 November 2022.

The staff and the children came to school wearing non-uniform (wearing spots of colourful outfits) to raise money for Children in Need. Many pupils had a smile on their faces either because their outfits were comfy or they were excited.

Then they had a teacher challenge where teachers got to place spots on Pudsey. Everyone gathered in the hall to watch the teachers play. All they had to do was wear glasses and spin then try their best to pin the spot on the Pudsey banner. Miss Landsborough quoted “We cheered and ate sweets all day everyone was excited but I was dizzy from all of the spinning.”

All throughout the school children did different activities such as a times table colouring activity and acrostic.

Before they went for lunch each child got Pudsey cookies, some children got to decorate their Pudsey cookies from the lunch ladies.

The children thought the cookies were yummy!

No uniforms were to be seen in Bardfield on Friday 18th November, instead they were caught wearing colourful socks, spots, dresses, shirts, trousers, shorts, skirts and onesies. Just to raise charity money!

To start their morning children had to solve times table calculations to match the correct covered spots on Pudsey.

After that, people got to score a goal against the Assistant Head Teacher, Mr Archer. He was wearing a football kit and looked very professional. Two lucky winners from Scarlet Class were Zayn and Charlie. Charlie told us “I was nervous I wasn’t going to score, but I put all my force into it and in the end I actually scored”. Zayn told us “I was anxious but I didn’t know where the ball was going and it ended up in the net”.

After talking to an exhausted and bruised Mr Archer, he told us that he let in 5 goals out of a possible 240! He continued by saying that he is very competitive when it comes to sports and was pleased with the amount of money raised for Children in Need.

Later that morning, it was the turn for the TAs and teachers to see if they could place their coloured spot on Pudsey’s bandana. One by one, each class TA or teacher had their representative take a turn to win sweet treats for their class. Many teachers were close but there was one winner who was Miss Landsborough for Sapphire Class.

Bardfield worked really hard this year to break the amount from last year. They all raised as a school £328 pounds! They were pleased and excited to announce that they smashed the target and had beaten the amount from 2021.

To end their exciting day of fundraising, students got one chance only to win a virtual class duck race while eating scrumptious Pudsey cookies. What an amazing day for fundraising.