Vane Road Primary School

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Community  Page

Welcome to our community page. We regularly update this space so keep looking to view the exciting things that we do to in our school and local community.

18 December 2020 - Design a Christmas Jumper Competition Winners

Mark Solan from the Solan Conner Fawcett Charity held a design a Christmas Jumper Competition for children in school. Charley (Year 4) from the Community Group has written an article to tell you all about this exciting event.

 Vane Road Primary took part in this competition to design a Christmas jumper. Mark Solan was the person who hosted the competition, to help raise awareness about the awful disease cancer and his fabulous charity ‘The Solan Conner Fawcett Charity’. He has Charity shops in Spennymoor and Ferryhill. Mark helps lots of people and their families in the North East, fighting Cancer.

 7 classes took part in the competition from Year 2 to Year 6. A winner was chosen from each class and the prize was a t shirt with their design on and a selection box.

 Charley, Year 4

Article 31: Every child has the right to relax and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

4th September 2019 - Fruit 

Fruit will be back on sale from Monday 9th September for 20p every morning break time. We will continue to sell smoothies and fruit drinks every Wednesday for 50p and Cereal Bars on Fridays for 30p. 

Friday 12th July 2019 - Community Group Visit - Food For Thought Darlington Charity

On Friday 12th July, the children from the community group and Miss Wren visited the Food For Thought Charity in Darlington. They were treated to a lovely lunch cooked by the fabulous volunteers, who help the charity. They had made the children beef burgers and a variety of different salads. For dessert, the children were impressed to taste the banana cake! 

 

The children learned how the charity intercepts surplus food, from supermarkets and other local businesses, and cooks with it. They discovered that they make nutritious meals and serve them through pop-up cafes. This helped the children to understand that some families need some help providing food and other essential items.

 

After lunch, some of the children helped prepare fruit salad whilst other children helped set up the food bank and the pop-up café. It was a lovely visit and the volunteers really helped the children and the adults feel welcome. The children donated £20 from their fruit fund as a small gesture towards the charity. They were delighted to learn that the charity would use the money to help buy the extras that they notice are missing from the food bank and would help a few families!

Wednesday 10th July 2019 - Community Group Assembly - Inspirational People - Mark Solan

On Wednesday 10th July, the children invited Mark to come in to school and held a special assembly to celebrate the work that he does in the community. They showed the children in school the photo's and talked about their visit to Mark's charity shop. At the end of the assembly, the children presented Mark with a cheque for £122 from the money they made selling fruit kebabs. Mark thanked the children personally and the children asked Mark some questions about what he does and how he started. 

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Tuesday 2nd July 2019 - Solan Conner Fawcett Charity Visit

On Tuesday 2nd July 2019, the community group children visited the Solan Conner Fawcett  Charity and met with Mark Solan the founder. They looked at how the charity has developed with the dedication from Mark. The children enjoyed meeting the team of volunteers that help keep the charity running. mark proved a real inspiration to the children and helped them see how they can support their local community.

Tuesday 25th June 2019 - Northern Echo Newspaper Visit

To help the  children in the community group write the school newspaper, they visited the Northern Echo newspaper office in Darlington.  The children had an excellent time. The editor Hannah Chapman, who is the first female editor in the Northern Echo, was really good at explaining to the children how they compile the Northern Echo and was a real inspiration.

During the visit, the staff were all friendly and the children enjoyed talking to them about their different roles. When they arrived, they were taken to the editor's 'special office' and Hannah explained the different areas of the newspaper and the importance of writing for the local people of the North East.  The children were impressed how much the newspaper involves the local community and how they make a difference to other people.

Hannah showed the children the editor's wall and they learned that John Bell was the first editor of the newspaper and the children had a look at the seat he is believed to have sat in and the first ever front page of the Northern Echo newspaper!

After that they looked at a letter John had written whilst travelling on the Titanic.  The children then had a look around and talked to other people who help compile the newspaper. They were then given the opportunity to ask some questions.

The whole experience has helped the children to think about how they can improve the school newspaper and their writing techniques to make it better for the reader. It was also inspiring for the children to see how writing can make a difference to the lives of others. 

 

June 24th June 2019 - June 28th June 2019 Fruit Kebabs

The children have sold fruit kebabs all week to raise money for the Solan Conner Fawcett Cancer Charity.

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June 2019 - Smoothies

 

The community group now sell fruit smoothies and fruit juice on Wednesday morning break times for KS2 children. 

 

May 2019 - Litter

We are delighted that children in class 10 feel so strongly about litter that they have decided to help keep our school clean and tidy and are giving up their play times to collect litter.  Mr Wilson our lovely site manager has given them a special litter picker to help them with their campaign!

 

May 2019 - Our New Books for the Library

The community group are delighted that the new books for the library have arrived and can be enjoyed by all the children in Vane Road Primary. They are particularly special as all classes chose a book and the children from the community group picked a book each. 

 

May 2019 - Smoothies Week

To raise awareness of the importance of how to stay healthy the community group have sold smoothies all week. The children enjoyed them so much that the community group are going to sell them every Wednesday morning break.

 

April 2019 - Tropical Fruit Day

 The community group sold tropical fruits on the healthy fruit stall to celebrate our wider global community. KS2 loved the new fruit and have asked if it can be sold regularly on the healthy fruit stall. Look out for kiwis, melons and pineapples! 

 

February 2019 - Fortune Cookies

To celebrate and respect diversity in our community the community group made their own version of the fortune cookies with positive quotes to celebrate Chinese New Year. All money made will buy books for the new library.

 

September 2018 - New School

It has been an exciting month. The children in the community group are excited to finally move in to the new school. This month the community group released their first school newspaper that was written for the children by the Community Group.

 

Litter Picking - Tuesday 3rd July 2018

The children in the community group have noticed the litter lying around in their local community. To make their environment better they wanted to go out and pick up the rubbish. They were lucky enough to be joined by Steven Cooper, who works for the council. He supplied them with appropriate equipment. 

 

Healthy Snack Bars - Thursday 21st June 2018

The community group have decided to offer a new healthy snack bar in the KS2 healthy tuck shop. They will be selling these for 30p, every Friday morning break time. The children wanted to promote the new snack bars so decided to make a flyer to hand out to all the children in KS2.


 

Sewing Update - Wednesday 20th June 2018

Gloria has helped us again today with our sewing. We are nearly finished and ready to show the rest of KS2 our lovely sewing contribution for the longest stitch! The children are enjoying sewing and some children have had a go at home.

   

 

 

UNICEF Playground Challenge - Friday 15th June 2018

Thank you to all the children who wore a t shirt and donated to the UNICEF fund. The money will be used to make a positive difference to others. The Right's Respecting Team and some additional children, helped design, organise and run a football themed obstacle course. As you can see from the photographs, the children had lots of fun!

 

Recycling - Monday 11th June 2018

The community group feel very strongly about recycling and believe that this should be free to all schools. They decided to write a letter to Councillor Jim Atkinson to voice their opinion. On Monday 11th June, Councillor Jim Atkinson arrived at school and discussed what the children wanted and explained that he  would investigate this issue further and get back to the children. The children were impressed that he had made the effort to visit the school rather than just send a letter!

 

Healthy Fruit Tuck Shop - Monday 11th June 2018

The community group are now providing the children with a good selection of fruit. The  children are hoping to use any additional profit to buy an ice lolly or ice cream for everyone in Vane Road. 

Sewing has commenced! - Wednesday 6th June 2018

The children in Year 4, who are celebrating the Embroiders' Guild Centary by helping to create the World's Longest Embroidery, are now starting to sew. They are lucky to have the support from Gloria Brunning, a retired secondary school teacher, who is a member of the Embroiders' Guild. The children are enjoying the project and look forward to completing the finished article. 

 

International Family Day - Tuesday 22nd May 2018

To raise awareness of the importance of spending time as a family, the community group created a short checklist of activities to do with family members i.e. cooking together, playing a game together. Thank you for those children who took part. The children used some of the community fund to buy sweets for the children who participated in this activity.

British Tomato Week - Monday 21st May 2018

As this week is British tomato week, the healthy tuck shop will be selling British tomatoes.

 

Fair Trade Day - Friday 18th May 2018

To celebrate Fair Trade, the community group, Mrs Cowey and Miss Welsh made crispy cakes using fair trade chocolate. Thank you for your support we raised £22 for the community group fund. 

 

The World's Longest Embroidery - 17th May 2018

The Embroiders' Guild is an educational charity encouraging and promoting embroidery and textile art. To celebrate its Centenary, the Guild has launched the World's Longest Embroidery and some children from Vane Road are lucky enough to take part. Class 9 and Class 10 will be designing and embroidering a piece of material to represent our school. The children have started designing their embroidery on card with Gloria Brenning, a lady who works with the Embroiders' Guild.

 

Healthy Fruit Tuck Shop - May 2018

 The community group are now successfully running the healthy fruit tuck shop independently  alternate play times. They are delighted with the response and the children in KS2 seem to enjoy the fresh  fruit that has been sourced locally. The children involved in the community group are enjoying learning how to run a small business and can now complete a simple weekly profit and loss. As a group, they regularly discuss the supply and demand needed to keep the tuck shop running. Impressively, the children have noticed what fruits are selling and have seen a change in what the children want. As a group, they have made decisions on what fruit is needed for the following week. 

 

Healthy Fruit Tuck Shop - April 2018

The children from the community group have now successfully set up a healthy fruit tuck shop. The children will be selling fruit every morning break for 20p to the children in KS2.

 

Solan Connor Fawcett Charity Easter Competition - April 2018

To thank the children in Vane Road for their support, Mark Solan (founder of the Solan Connor Fawcett Charity) donated some Easter eggs and hats. The competition involved decorating bags to be given out in the charity shop. We were very impressed with the quality and effort that the children in Vane Road put in to decorating the bags.

 

Solan Connor Fawcett Charity Shop Visit - March 2018

To help the children gain an understanding of how charities operate, the children visited the Solan Connor Fawcett Charity shop in Spennymoor. Prior to the visit, year 4 children kindly donated some items to take to the charity shop. On arrival, Mark Solan (the founder of the charity) explained how his charity helps local people in the community who are facing cancer. The children were interested and asked lots of questions. The children were then given a tour of the shop and were impressed to discover it had a treatment, beauty area and wig room! In the shop, the children helped serve the customers and arranged the donated  items. The childrens' response to this visit was very positive and the children felt good that they had helped someone. After the visit, the children reported back to the rest of KS2 in an assembly, which they created their own power point and answered questions from the other KS2 children.

Chinese New Year - February 2018

To celebrate Chinese New Year, the community group children decorated biscuits with a fortune and sold them to the children in school.

 Community Group

We now have a community  group in school, a child from each KS2 class was elected by other class members. The children will be involved with helping in our school and local community. Watch this space for upcoming events.