Tesco have invited pupils from Mount Charles to take part in a story writing competition all about healthy living and eating.

A panel of judges will award prizes to the three most original stories from each age group (2-5, 6-8 and 9-12) that best reflect healthy living or eating, and bring the three Goodness characters – Grace, Archie and Oscar – to life.  Stories should be 200-300 words long.

You will have until 15th April to write your story and then submit it to the Tesco competition.  You will need an adult to complete a consent form and then either post, email or send your entry in through the website.

All other details, terms and conditions and consent forms can be found at http://kidsbookclub.tescomagazine.com/story-competition.html

Have a go at writing the story and you could see your story published in a book, win a trip to be a zoo-keeper for a day with an overnight stay for your family in a hotel and win £500 for the school to spend on books.

Good luck – and don’t forget to let us know if you have had a go at entering the competition!

As promised the end of last term was certainly very hectic what with the Infant Nativity, Junior carol service, Christmas parties, cinema trip, Christmas sing-a-long , Christmas lunch, hat competition and the Reading Challenge Big Christmas Quiz to name but a few.  I know the pupils really enjoyed these events leading up to the Christmas holiday.

Coming back rested after the break, the calendar looks just as full for this term with plenty of activities planned for the coming the weeks.  Already this week Year 6 have been out to Carnglaze Caverns in relation to their work on Macbeth and the Reception classes have both visited the Eden Project to enjoy themselves on the ice.

Yesterday the school council pupils were photographed with the Cornish Olympic flame.  This torch has been designed by St Breock School and is travelling around Cornwall to every one of the 238 schools before the Olympics start.  At the end all the school’s names will be engraved on the torch and a book produced of the photos of its journey along the way.  They are hoping to display it at either Truro Museum or the Eden Project – keep an eye out for it later this year!

2012 promises to be an exciting year, with Olympic flame visiting St Austell in May, national celebrations for the jubilee and of course the Olympics in the summer.  What are you looking forward to this year – let us know by leaving a comment below!

Over 100 pupils from Mount Charles School joined the St Austell torchlight carnival parade through the streets of St Austell holding their lanterns and entertaining the crowds with the infectious samba band beat.  During the week before, pupils worked with a team from Eden to construct and decorate their lanterns with quotes of love.  Miss Sangster had also been working with the samba band to provide the musical entertainment for the parade.  Well done to all who took part.

On a horribly wet and windy Friday night we held our annual Christmas Fair.  Unfortunately the bad weather seemed to put off some people from attending, but those who came had a good time and helped us to raise over £1000 for the PSA, so thank you to Mrs Gray and everyone who worked so hard to put the evening together – the grotto looked absolutely fantastic and the smell of turkey coming out of the kitchen was quite mouth-watering!  During the evening there were three main raffles, tombolas, cakes for sale, toys and games for sale. a brussel sprout tombola and a craft room where children could make crackers, bookmarks and prepare reindeer food to put out on Christmas Eve.

Christmas has now officially started with the first performance of the Infant Nativity ‘Prickly Hay’ having taken place yesterday afternoon.  The children have worked really well on learning the words to all the songs which they sung enthusiastically.  The Juniors enjoyed being invited to the dress rehearsal this week.  The Infants have two more performances left this week.

Then next week, our last week before the holiday, we have a whole host of Christmassy activities going on across the school.  Come back soon and find out what we have been up to.  In the meantime if you would like to leave a comment about anything you have really enjoyed over the last few weeks, why not do so by clicking the link below.

1. Last week Year 3 made their first visit to the woods to see what they look like in autumn.  During the year they will go back and visit them in every season and see how they have changed.  During the year pupils will  be using photographs and videos to put together a presentation which we hope to share with you and the children of Canon Barnett school in London.

2. This week we have been visited by the Inspectors from Ofsted – they came on Monday and Tuesday to see our school in action.  We will share their report with you when it comes in about 2 week’s time.

3. On a very wet and muddy lunchtime a big group of pupils took part in the second cross-country run of the season with some superb results and many pupils beating their personal bests.

4. Yesterday 7 of our girls went to represent the school in the County finals of the Girls’ Football Tournament with some superb games and great results.

5. Over the last few days pupils in Year 5 and from across the school have been busy making lanterns and decorating them with quotes about love.  These will be used in the:

6. St Austell Torchlight carnival which will take place next Saturday night (19th November).

7. We heard in assembly this morning about the group of Year 6 pupils who decided to hold a cake and juice sale a couple of weeks ago and raised over £37 which will go towards Children in Need (See 11.)

8. Pupils from across the school have been working with a local circus group and gave us a performance of their skills this morning with plate spinning, ribbon dancing, juggling and more.

9. Mrs Matthews has been busy setting up the book fair today – every class has been in to see the selection of books today and they will be on sale next week in the evening.  5 pupils each won a £5 voucher after entering a competition to design a new chocolate bar or a new historical character.

10. This weekend sees the swimathon – will the boys team manage to get a blue ribbon on the trophy this year, or will it stay pink for the third year in a row?

11. Next Friday sees the school go spotty for Children in Need.  Look out for information about some of the events going on – there will be shirt painting, sponge throwing, spotty clothes wearing, bingo, guessing the number of sweets in the jar and more!

So, we are at the end of the first half term already – where did that time go?!

This week the school celebrated with their Harvest Festival services.  On Wednesday KS2 went to Mount Charles Methodist church – during the service there were poems, songs, a special Viking recipe, story telling and at the end we all joined in with the performance of Harvest Beat, a song that KS2 had been rehearsing with our new music teacher, Miss Sangster.

The next day the Infants had their Harvest Service in the school hall.  Again, there was a great selection of poems, songs, art work and performances put together by each class.  It was the first time that our new Reception classes joined in an assembly and they did a fantastic job with their song (and even treated us at the end with a performance of The Little Red Hen).

Maybe you could leave a comment below to tell us what your favourite part of the Harvest service was.

Pupils from across the school brought in tins, jars and packet food – a fantastic amount was sitting in the entrance foyer yesterday ready for St Austell Food Bank to come and collect the food.  This charity puts the food together into boxes with enough to feed a family in need for 3 days.  Thank you to everyone who made a contribution to this charity.

I hope you have a good half term holiday and look forward to seeing you for the second half of this Autumn term – already there are plenty of things to look forward to such as Children in Need, a Year 3 trip to the woods, a new reading challenge  and of course all the Christmas fun at the end of the term!

Last week our lunchtime supervisors turned into super sleuths and were on the lookout for pupils from across the school doing the right thing at the right time.  They were keeping a special look out for children being kind to each other, helping out around the school and generally being great pupils!

Like all good detectives, they were armed with a notebook to write down the names of those pupils they spotted during the week.

In assembly on Friday morning, I had the pleasure of reading out all the names of those pupils who had their names recorded in the lunchtime supervisor’s notebooks.  And boy, did it take a long time to read them all out!

Well done to the 133 pupils who were spotted last week.  Don’t forget to put up your 2 house points if your name was read out.

If you were spotted last week, why not leave us a comment below to tell us what you did.

I have been joined this morning by Joe and Cari from Year 5 to tell you all about their visit yesterday from the Vikings! 

We sat down at the beginning and they gave us lots of information about Viking life.  Did you know if you pulled someone’s hat forwards you would get a penalty.  If you pulled their hat backwards you would be banished.  If you pulled their hat off backwards with a strap you would be executed for attempted murder.

We got to touch and hold a selection of Viking items such as axes (which we could swing – some of them were very heavy!), swords, spears and big shields that you could hide behind.  We also tried to blow the Viking horn.  Did you know that carrots in Viking times were multi-coloured.

We also had the chance to put on the armour and then try to charge up and down the field wearing the chain mail and the helmet while holding the shield.

This Raven, Moonin, has some very famous parents – they have been in the Harry Potter films.  He will be on TV himself soon on the One Show!  Lords would use ravens like this for navigation (like an old sat nav!) to find new lands – Greenland was found by a raven. 

We saw some fantastic battles during the day – including the ‘Circle of Honour’.  This is where four battle in a series of different tournaments.  Lord Ethelwolf won and everyone cheered.

It was an AWESOME day!  We learnt a lot – it was like a lesson…but fun!

This morning we had a visit from Will Burt, the organiser for the St Austell Saints Award.  You can read more about the scheme here.

Our School Councillors will be asking classes across the school to discuss their nominations and complete a series of nomination forms over the coming weeks.

It would be great if some of the pupils and staff from Mount Charles were shortlisted to attend the grand prize-giving ceremony, which will take place at the Eden Project.

So, get thinking about who who would like to nominate for one of the Saints Awards.  If you would like to complete a nomination form, you can download a copy here.  You can bring this back to school and Will Burt will come and collect them.

But first, a few highlights from last term:

Year 6 had a wonderful time at their camp in Delaware – the weather was very kind and they had a great time canoeing, rock climbing, mountain biking and squeezing through small gaps on Dartmoor!  The instructors were very complimentary about the way in which the pupils followed the instructions and the positive attitude they all had towards the activities.

We eventually managed to avoid the showers to fit in our sponsored walks – there was a good turn out of pupils and parents to walk around the field, raising and amazing £1,700.

After the disappointment of missing our Summer Fair, we more than made up for it in the last week of term with a fantastic talent show in the afternoon, with a selection of stalls and raffles in the playground after school – raising over £850. 

Year 6 ended the term with their performance of Bugsy Malone – I am still trying to get the custard pie stains off of the sound equipment in the hall! 

On the last day we bid an emotional farewell to Mr Dickinson and wish him every success in the future.

Tuesday of this week saw us start all over again and welcome Mr Willetts as the new Headteacher of Mount Charles School.  We have many exciting events planned for this year – please come back soon and see what we are up to – for example, next week Year 4 are going to Truro Museum as part of their Egyptian topic and Year 5 are going to Heligan.

After the success of last year’s maths day, we were keen to hold another one this year which proved to be even bigger and better!  The Reception children had a full programme of events including designing repeated patterns, getting juice from various fruits, carrying out a bear hunt, fitting teddies onto a train and playing mathematical games and keeping the score.

The Year 1 and 2 classes mixed up for the day and took part in a wide range of activities with each of the teachers including an orienteering course, mathematical challenges with chocolate buttons, timed challenges, maths games and baking biscuits.  The year groups were split into groups named after famous mathematicians from history.

Each junior year group planned an activity around a theme and worked with each of the classes during the day.  Year 3 were investigating time and set the challenge to make sand timers, marble runs and water clocks that would measure exactly 30 seconds.  Quite a challenge, which several groups during the day actually managed!

Year 4 were playing a series of dice games, darts and computer programs during the day.  I don’t think anyone quite managed to score 180, but most people got a better score than me when I tried!

Year 5 explored shape and patterns with Escher inspired designs being completed by the pupils.  After the design the shapes had to be carefully cut out.

Then they were stuck onto a sheet in a repeated pattern and decorated.  There were some interesting designs produced during the day.

Year 6 managed to keep all the pupils fit and their minds agile as they completed two orienteering courses, finding and answering mathematical clues along the way.