A great warm welcome back to school.

Just a reminder that staff are back in school on Wednesday 1st September for training and we’re looking forward to welcoming all the children back to school on Thursday 2nd September. See you all then.

Please like our new Facebook page by following this link:

https://m.facebook.com/Ramshaw-Primary-School-406214379991601/?tn-str=k%2AF

We were delighted to be invited to meet some of our D-Day veterans at The Randolph Centre in June.

It was a huge privilege to share a strawberry tea with members of the Army, Air Force, Medical Corp, Submariners and the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

Some of the stories were just incredible and as you can see, both children and staff were rather open-mouthed at listening to their experiences.

A fabulous day and thank you to Evenwood parish for the invitation.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A million congratulations to Chase, Lily, Clara and Harry for their Sports Awards presented at Staindrop Academy last night.

All four were identified as being determined and resilient competitors who have shown a brilliant sportsmanlike attitude throughout the year.

We’re very proud of our superstars.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Class 2 are taking part in an OASES School of Rocks project to support the children’s understanding of rock formations in our local area

The second session included a short field trip to Cockfield Fell to look at aspects of mining that could still be identified in the local landscape.  A walk along part of the Haggerleas Railway line that lead to Ramshaw could be identified by its straight route and a bridge over the river that the trains used to run across.  Coal and shale were found on the ground and collected by the children.  The remains of a number of coke ovens were also found under the trees near the river, the children noticing the blackened brickwork which was evidence of the burning activity undertaken there.  Once back in the classroom the children compared and contrasted maps of Ramshaw from 1859 and the present, looking for evidence of the mining activity on the old map and contrasting this with the missing features on the new.  Finally, they constructed their own geological map of the Ramshaw area, designing their own colour scheme and corresponding key.

The third session was a full day visit to Killhope Lead Mining Museum.  The children were escorted by a guide around the Mine Office and Blacksmiths shop, finding out about the hard lives of the miners.   They learnt about the many ways in which the lead mined at Killhope was used, including in paint, plumbing products, crystal and toys.  A walk down the mine, through flowing water, to see the conditions miners worked in and the types of jobs that they undertook inside (highlighted by reconstructions and mannequins of the miners) gave the children a valuable insight.  Activities undertaken at ‘The Washing Floor’ allowed the children to understand the process of extracting the lead from the mined ore and find examples of galena as well as fluorspar to take home with them.  Finally, a visit to the water wheel and the mechanised processing facility that was installed when production increased, gave the children an opportunity to understand how the mine had developed.

The fourth session was a visit to Ramshaw Hall to look at the construction of dry stone walls at the property.  Hannah explained the process of carefully selecting appropriate sized and shaped stones to build up the layers and fill the gaps with smaller stones.  The children then had an opportunity to repair some gaps in the tops of the walls around a field on the property.

On Friday, years 4 and 5 from the Level 3 County School Games Event at Durham University’s Maiden Castle Sports Centre as the invited representatives of the Wear Valley and Teasdale Area.  They took part in a carousel of inclusive participation activities during the morning to develop skills in cricket, dodgeball, skipping, football, circuit training and last, but not least, QUIDDITCH!  The afternoon was spent completing personal challenges within an orienteering focused activity around the whole of the sports grounds.  The meeting ended with a closing medal ceremony, involving all competitive and participatory teams.  The invitation to attend gave the children an opportunity to experience a large scale County wide event that can be difficult for them to access from a small school through the competition structure of School Games.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

On Thursday 20^th June our Year 5 and 6 children took part on an over-night Stephen Hawking Foundation Space Camp Project. The aim being to inspire a greater number of young people to have aspirations for careers in scientific fields.

All KS2 children were involved in a range of scientific activities throughout the day linked to the Solar System and the 50^th anniversary of the first moon landing which will be celebrated on 20^th July this year. This included having the opportunity to go into an inflatable Planetarium, kindly provided by Durham University.

At 8 p.m. the Year 5 and 6 children returned to school for a ‘space-over’! Throughout the evening children completed a variety of space related activities including Art, English and Science.

Here are some quotes from our children:-

“Space Camp was a really good experience for all of us. We learnt lots about space while having fun doing the activities.” – Pippa

“It was the best time of my life. We were able to sleep in school and learn so much about the moon landing.” – Libby

“It was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had at school. Learning about space and the history of the moon landing was fun as we did experiments and thanks to our teachers, we were able to stay at school overnight to learn even more. – Joel

“It was ‘space-tacular!” –  Grace

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Congratulations to the football team for coming second in the Teesdale small schools league with 35 points. As always, the boys showed impeccable manners and excellent sportsmanship. Well done!

Last week we had a visit from Scout Leader – Gary Ingham. He delivered an outdoor session to Class 3 which resulted in them making feather sticks, building a fire, cooking sausages and toasting marshmallows. Yum! A big thank you to Gary for spending the morning with us.

Whilst this was going on Mrs Colegrove led a budding team of gardeners in a mission to bring some colour into our playground.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.