Pupils' Eye extracts
March 2010
The Sound of Music
By Laura Leadbitter
Since the beginning of the school year, the school band has been practising a variety of music to play to different schools around the area, and possibly at the forthcoming Seahouses Summer Festival.
Two Year 5 pupils, who came in September, have joined the band and a replaying extremely well: Jack Leadbitter and Lois Donaldson. They both play the Steel Pans; Lois plays the seconds and Jack plays the guitars. They are really enjoying the band.
Lois commented “I like the different songs we play, and I’m ecxcited about playing in front of other schools.”
Jack remarked, “I like playing the guitars, but I’m keen to play the trumpet. I hope to be able to play it in band in Year 6”.
Lunchtime band practice
In the band we have a wide variety of instruments and some very talented musicians playing them.
On the tenor steel pans we have Emma Holohan, Lauren Wilkin and Bronwen Stout. Yasmin Williams, who keeps the beat in every song, plays the bases. Megan Reid and Andrew Wright play the seconds, with Holly Jackman on guitars.
To add some depth to the band, we have Matthew Stephenson and Andrew Davidson playing the drums.
Laura Leadbitter plays the soprano saxophone, Abbie Donaldson plays the alto saxophone and Rachel Locke plays the clarinet. Gui de Paz Oliviero who plays the electric guitar and Matthew Smith who plays the trumpet, are both talented Year 6 pupils adding to the mix!
We mustn’t forget Mrs Adamson, who organises band and writes out all the music for the different instruments, which must be an incredibly hard job to do!
A lot of children in the band have music lessons and the opportunity of playing in the band helps them to play their instruments even better.
When Year 8 go to high school in September there won’t be many people left in the band, as the majority of band members are Year 8s, so if you play an instrument or you enjoy playing the steel pans, speak to Mrs Adamson – I’m sure she’ll be delighted to hear from you!
Never Forget Tour — one we’ll never forget!
By Abbie Donaldson
On 2nd February all of the cast, band and teachers involved in the school pantomime, were lucky enough to be taken to the Never Forget Tour, a musical in Newcastle.
About a Take That tribute band, the musical featured many of Take That’s most popular songs.
‘Never Forget - The Musical’ is all about the journey of the hero Ash. He finds himself caught between fame and friendship.
Ash is a wannabe singer - songwriter trying to make money to save his mum’s ‘struggling for money’ pub and to pay for his wedding to Chloe.
Jake, his best friend and Chloe's brother, hears about a Take That tribute band.
He manages to get Ash interested and they both audition for a place in the band.
Also there, is Adrian Banks, a bank manager; ‘Dirty Harry,’ a silly character, who is trying to turn his life around as he is currently a male stripper; and Jose, who is Spanish and has a very frightening mother.
They all make it through and the musical is all about them becoming famous.
As well as real life stories like being unfaithful to your girlfriend or boyfriend, Ash has to make a decision whether to go it alone and maybe make it to the top, or stay with his mates and keep the band together.
Everyone who went to the performance really enjoyed the music, the jokes and the whole experience. It was very funny and I’m sure everyone who was there would agree with me.
March 2009
Doing something funny for money?
By Stuart Hyde
Red Nose Day - what is it all about, celebration, remembrance or suffering?
A lot of people all around the country try to celebrate Red Nose Day in aid of Comic Relief, which helps charities in the UK and Africa.
Some people are not as fortunate as us: people who live in Africa, who have to scrimp and scrape just to survive.
For us, buying a red nose or red nose top, coming in non-uniform or buying a biscuit or cake and hot chocolate, will hopefully make a big difference to their lives.
At school we have done all of these things, together with holding a Joke and Fancy Dress Competition.
The winners of the Fancy Dress Competition were: Euan Dawson in Year 5, Thomas Thompson in Year 6, Lauren De’Lay In Year 7 and Chloe Openshaw and Nadine Cavener and in Year 8.
The winner of the Joke Competition was Stuart Hyde.
The school also held a Netball match where the Year 8 girls took on the teachers of Seahouses Middle, (with Mr. Robson at the side line making sure they were all hydrated with an over-sized water pistol!)
The match ended with the final score of 4-2 to the teachers.
I’m sure they all had fun.
A big thank you to everyone’s generosity with buying and making cakes. We had an amazing array of cakes and biscuits, (thank you to all who did bring them in).
Miss Harris gets ready to pass the ball in the Red Nose Day staff versus Year 8 netball match.
Anna Darcy from Year 8 even made a special Red Nose cake!
Thanks to everyone who decided to raise money for Red Nose Day. We made a fantastic £296.20!
Peer Mentoring to prevent bullying
By Emily Hanvey
Over the past few weeks, School Council representatives have decided to set up a Peer Mentoring system that will allow pupils to talk to a person of their choice, and discuss any situation that is troubling them.
We think bullying is one such situation.
It happens in and out of schools and we want to be able to tackle bullying issues promptly and efficiently.
Bullying can be both verbal and physical.
We also think that bullying includes questions like: Why do people bully? Who bullies? Where do people get bullied?
We think the reason for bullying is because the bully may be going through problems themselves or they may be jealous of the person they are bullying.
The main point here is that it is possible for a person to get bullied throughout the school day and a Peer Mentor would try to prevent this from happening.
Pupils in school were invited to apply for the Peer Mentor role and interviews were held where pupils answered questions about the skills, attitudes and roles they would have to take on if they were to be a Peer Mentor.
As many people applied for the roles on offer, not all were successful.
Only the people who gave the most specific and accurate answers, were the ones to be chosen to be official Peer Mentors.
After successfully making it through the interview, pupils underwent training which gave ideas and suggestions of what to do and what to look out for if someone was being bullied.
All Peer Mentors wear an identification badge and now own a pass that will allow them to enter the school at any time of the day if they need a private place to discuss issues.
A Problems’ Post Box is located beside the water fountain, where pupils can put their problems down on paper, which will be opened by a chosen Peer Mentor, to deal with the situation.
Posters are in place around various areas in school which advertise what the scheme is aiming to do, which is to prevent any case of bullying in school.
All Peer Mentors are hoping for the scheme to be successful, as they want to feel as though they can be accepted by anyone who is in need.
Peer Mentors have been selected from a variety of different year groups so that hopefully, there is someone everyone can comfortably talk to throughout any time within the school day.
Peer Mentors are:
Stuart Hyde, Jordan Shiel, Nadine Cavener, Chloe Openshaw, Anna Darcy, Emily Hanvey, Georgia Stephenson, Matilda Cornall, Romney Gwynn, Natalie Rogerson, Jason Rogerson & Angus Atkin.
Working with a real life author
By Nadine Cavener
Ever wondered what it would be like to meet a real author – as well as working with them?
Well, here at Seahouses Middle, a few of us from each year group actually did!
We got to meet a real life author who has written and published books throughout the world and even written episodes for the TV soap, ’The Bill’.
As well as meeting Ann Coburn, we also got the chance to work with her.
She showed us particularly how to write plays, but also showed us some of her books, gave us tips, answered questions and talked to us about things we were curious about.
Firstly she introduced herself and showed us a series of books she had written for young children called ‘The Dream Team.’ She even showed us a copy of it that had been translated into Japanese!
After that she showed us another book she had written called ‘Glint.’ The book had two different types to it: one was the English version and one was an American version. The two books had different front covers and looked like they were targeted towards different audiences, as the American one seemed for an older reader whereas the English book looked like an entertaining fantasy book for a younger reader.
Author Ann Coburn works with four Year 7 pupils on writing a playscript
The next stage of the activity was to try and get into the mind of a writer.
Ann Coburn talked a lot about what kind of questions a reader would ask; mainly about how two certain characters interacted with each other as they progressed through the book.
Some of these were: What do the two characters want from each other? How are they going to get this? Why do they want it? Do they actually succeed?
We discussed these points and had a chance to give our own views about this as well.
Ann thought some of these ideas were different and had been thought ‘outside of the box’.
Ann found it interesting to hear views from readers of a young age as well as writers of a young age.
Once we had talked about all the ins and outs of writing plays, it was time to put what we had learnt into practise.
We were given a task of writing our own play; however the play had to have two completely different characters who wanted two completely different outcomes from the conversation.
Still keeping to the questions we had previously discussed, we wrote our play and talked to Ann individually about what we had chosen and why we had chosen it.
Some of the ideas we came up with were: a small child and a parent trying to get the child to say thank you; a teacher whose pupil kept making excuses for late homework; and siblings fighting and blaming each other for various things.
So what did we do with this work? Writing up our plays was fairly hard but we then had to perform them to each other, as well as to Miss Harris.
Despite our few nerves of what the others would think, the plays all turned out really well, and we could all identify in each of the small plays, what was wanted from the two characters.
Here are a few quotes from the Year 8’s who took part in this experience:
Katie Dawson said, ‘I really enjoyed the day and will take on the experience!’
Grace Jackman added, ‘I hope that Ann enjoyed the day as much as I did, especially doing the play at the end’
Jordan Shiel said, ‘It really helped me with my play writing skills and I will use what I’ve learnt.’
Emily Hanvey commented, ‘It was very interesting learning about the writing skills.’
Overall, the day as a whole was a great learning process that we all will take and use to improve our play writing.
It goes without saying the fact that meeting a real life author was amazing!
Bamburgh Castle Inn Cooks up a Treat ... With the help of 10 pupils!
By Grace Jackman
As you may know, in Years 7 & 8 we do Food Technology and everyone seems to enjoy it.
Recently, Mrs Monnelly was given the chance to take ten Year 8 pupils, who enjoy cooking, to the Bamburgh Castle Inn in Seahouses.
These pupils were: Grace Jackman, Nadine Cavener, Katie Dawson, Anna Darcy, Emily Hanvey, Callum Gwynn, Charlie Hindmarsh, Jason Hyde, Jack Shell and Lee White.
Year 8 pupils outside The Bamburgh Castle Inn with David Barella, head chef.
We travelled to the Bamburgh Castle Inn in our new minibus and were there for the whole afternoon, doing a lot of listening and cooking.
We were taught how to cook pasta with meatballs and tomato sauce and how to make a salmon roulade as a starter.
We made the salmon roulade by mixing cream cheese and herbs together, and then placed it on the salmon which was laid out on a piece of clingfilm.
We then put olives in the middle of the mixture and carefully rolled the salmon up so that it was wrapped in cling film in a sausage shape, ready for cutting; we finally put it in the fridge to chill.
To cook the meatballs, David showed us how to do it first, and then we did it ourselves.
We mixed the sausage meat with: eggs, Dijon mustard, herbs, flour, onions and tomato sauce.
Then we rolled the meatballs into ball shapes and cooked them in the oven for about 20 minutes.
We were taught this by Head Chef, David Barella.
At the end of the afternoon we had our photograph taken with David, for the Journal and we had more photos taken for the Bamburgh Castle Inn brochure.
The afternoon was excellent because we got the chance to make some things we wouldn’t normally make, i.e. Salmon Roulade.
The standard of cooking was very high, so watch out, there may be some future Jamie Oliver’s or even a new Delia Smith about to hit the TV screen!
Doing something funny for money?
By Stuart Hyde
Red Nose Day - what is it all about, celebration, remembrance or suffering?
A lot of people all around the country try to celebrate Red Nose Day in aid of Comic Relief, which helps charities in the UK and Africa.
Some people are not as fortunate as us: people who live in Africa, who have to scrimp and scrape just to survive.
For us, buying a red nose or red nose top, coming in non-uniform or buying a biscuit or cake and hot chocolate, will hopefully make a big difference to their lives.
At school we have done all of these things, together with holding a Joke and Fancy Dress Competition.
The winners of the Fancy Dress Competition were: Euan Dawson in Year 5, Thomas Thompson in Year 6, Lauren De’Lay In Year 7 and Chloe Openshaw and Nadine Cavener and in Year 8.
The winner of the Joke Competition was Stuart Hyde.
The school also held a Netball match where the Year 8 girls took on the teachers of Seahouses Middle, (with Mr. Robson at the side line making sure they were all hydrated with an over-sized water pistol!)
The match ended with the final score of 4-2 to the teachers.
I’m sure they all had fun.
A big thank you to everyone’s generosity with buying and making cakes. We had an amazing array of cakes and biscuits, (thank you to all who did bring them in).
Miss Harris gets ready to pass the ball in the Red Nose Day staff versus Year 8 netball match.
Anna Darcy from Year 8 even made a special Red Nose cake!
Thanks to everyone who decided to raise money for Red Nose Day. We made a fantastic £296.20!
Peer Mentoring to prevent bullying
By Emily Hanvey
Over the past few weeks, School Council representatives have decided to set up a Peer Mentoring system that will allow pupils to talk to a person of their choice, and discuss any situation that is troubling them.
We think bullying is one such situation.
It happens in and out of schools and we want to be able to tackle bullying issues promptly and efficiently.
Bullying can be both verbal and physical.
We also think that bullying includes questions like: Why do people bully? Who bullies? Where do people get bullied?
We think the reason for bullying is because the bully may be going through problems themselves or they may be jealous of the person they are bullying.
The main point here is that it is possible for a person to get bullied throughout the school day and a Peer Mentor would try to prevent this from happening.
Pupils in school were invited to apply for the Peer Mentor role and interviews were held where pupils answered questions about the skills, attitudes and roles they would have to take on if they were to be a Peer Mentor.
As many people applied for the roles on offer, not all were successful.
Only the people who gave the most specific and accurate answers, were the ones to be chosen to be official Peer Mentors.
After successfully making it through the interview, pupils underwent training which gave ideas and suggestions of what to do and what to look out for if someone was being bullied.
All Peer Mentors wear an identification badge and now own a pass that will allow them to enter the school at any time of the day if they need a private place to discuss issues.
A Problems’ Post Box is located beside the water fountain, where pupils can put their problems down on paper, which will be opened by a chosen Peer Mentor, to deal with the situation.
Posters are in place around various areas in school which advertise what the scheme is aiming to do, which is to prevent any case of bullying in school.
All Peer Mentors are hoping for the scheme to be successful, as they want to feel as though they can be accepted by anyone who is in need.
Peer Mentors have been selected from a variety of different year groups so that hopefully, there is someone everyone can comfortably talk to throughout any time within the school day.
Peer Mentors are:
Stuart Hyde, Jordan Shiel, Nadine Cavener, Chloe Openshaw, Anna Darcy, Emily Hanvey, Georgia Stephenson, Matilda Cornall, Romney Gwynn, Natalie Rogerson, Jason Rogerson & Angus Atkin.
