News

To celebrate this year’s British Science Week theme: Being Curious, Mr Grylls led an inspiring and interactive whole-school assembly that sparked excitement, questions, and wonder across the hall! The children embraced their inner scientists as they explored four fascinating curiosity fuelled challenges: Curious About Static Electricity One volunteer used a balloon to pick up tiny pieces of paper—discovering how static electricity works. Curious About Density Another brave scientist took on the challenge of making an egg float. With careful measuring and a sprinkle of salt, curiosity turned into discovery as the egg slowly rose to the top! Curious About Pressure Mr Grylls tackled the dramatic “stick through a balloon” experiment—pushing a skewer through a balloon without popping it! Curious About Air Pressure Our final volunteer flipped a cup of water upside down… with not a single drop falling out! Here’s to a brilliant British Science Week 2026—let’s keep wondering, exploring, and discovering!

We have had a wonderful day celebrating World Book Day here at White Cliffs Primary and Nursery School! The children looked fantastic in all their costumes — from classic book characters to imaginative modern favourites. A huge thank you to families for putting in so much effort to make the day so special. We are also incredibly grateful to everyone who brought in their shoeboxes. These have been redesigned into brilliant story boxes, and they look absolutely fabulous! It has been lovely to see the creativity and imagination that has gone into each one. Across the whole school, every child has been celebrating all things books and reading. The excitement and enthusiasm for stories has filled our classrooms today, and we are so proud of our young readers and storytellers.

We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Mr Conyers and the amazing team of volunteers from Virgin Media O2 (VMO2). Over the half term, they generously dedicated their time and skills to help us develop our outdoor spaces as part of our OPAL playtimes journey. Thanks to their hard work, we now have: A fantastic role play area in one playground A brand new ball pit frame in another On the field: a wonderful sandpit frame and beautifully crafted wooden tepees These new additions will make a huge difference to our OPAL play provision, giving children even more opportunities for creativity, exploration and imaginative play.

During this weeks Celebration assembly, we had a very exciting celebration all about handwriting! Every class teacher chose two children to receive special awards: *Best Handwriting – for the child whose handwriting is always neat, tidy, and beautifully presented. *Most Improved Handwriting – for the child who has worked super hard and made amazing progress with their handwriting. All the winners came up to the front of the hall and were given a special certificate to take home. They also received a brilliant writing pencil to help them keep practising their wonderful handwriting.  

This week, the children in Pebbles have been busy learning all about the polar regions. They had great fun discovering facts about polar bears and penguins through a range of exciting, hands on activities. The children built igloos using sugar cubes, created fluffy polar animal collages with cotton wool, and enjoyed practising their writing skills as they described what they had learnt about polar bears. Maths and movement were combined as the class counted and danced like penguins, bringing lots of laughter to the room! Their curiosity continued to grow as they explored ice, observing its properties and watching closely as it melted. It has been a wonderful week of creativity, investigation, and imagination in Pebbles. 

This week, Year 4 enjoyed a fantastic walk from school to Barton Path to explore our local area. Along the way, the children spotted road signs, key buildings, and other important features to help them with their map-drawing work back at school. Next term, Year 4 will be learning all about rivers — starting with our very own River Dour. During the trip, the children spent time observing the river and its beautiful wildlife. They were especially excited to spot some adorable moorhens! They also showed great awareness and concern about pollution in and around the river, sparking some thoughtful discussions. What a brilliant start to their geography learning!

Year Three had a very exciting visitor this week — Frances, a local archaeologist. The children took part in an engaging, hands on workshop all about the Bench Street site. They explored different archaeological layers and even had the opportunity to handle real artefacts from the past. It was a fantastic experience that brought their learning to life and inspired lots of curious questions!

As part of their Geography topic on extreme weather, Year 3 designed and made their own windsocks. The children learned how windsocks are used to show both wind direction and strength before testing their creations outdoors. This hands- on activity supported their scientific understanding of weather while encouraging teamwork, problem-solving and creativity.

Fledglings have been drawing inspiration from the Arctic to create some truly impressive artwork. The children explored mixing ‘cold’ colours to paint stunning icy landscapes, before bringing their scenes to life with collage materials, carefully adding icebergs, snow and Arctic animals. Learning about the Northern Lights captured everyone’s imagination, resulting in a collection of beautiful pastel pictures that shine with colour and creativity.