Crookhill fencing team wowed spectators at the first ever Gateshead Mini Fencing Festival. The team showed off their fantastic footwork and terrific talent and out of 14 teams came 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Look at the video on the Gateshead SSP showing the whole festival. I could not have been more proud of you all. Well Done. http://www.gatesheadssp.org.uk/news/article/nid/68
On Thursday Key Stage 1 were visited by the music workshop. We sang lots of songs about holidays.
Who are those children?! We all looked fantastic in our glamorous dresses and smart suits.
It didn't take us long to settle into party mode.
During the Award Ceremony we each got a special mention for an individual characteristic and we received a lovely gift (thank you to Mrs Dance from Crookhill News for organising these).
Then all of us, including the teachers, had a really good dance. The conga around the Golf Club was fantastic! A big thank you to Mr Bennett, one of our parent Governors, for DJ-ing for us. 
Our behaviour was fantastic and we all had a wonderful time. Thank you to all the parents and staff that made this such a memorable night that we will remember for a long, long time.
WOW! Our children have been very busy since the world cup kicked off! We have been creating this giant scarf to send to the Prime Minister. Each stripe has our signature on, that's 158 signatures!!!!! I think you'll agree it is the longest scarf you've seen!
This scarf is a reminder to all the world leaders of their promise to have education for all children by 2015. One pretty big reminder from Crookhill !
As part of the forest school training Miss Brown and Mrs Murray have had to prepare and cook a meal on the campfire for the staff of Crookhill. The requirements were, we could cook what we liked but there had to be 3 courses involved.
Our menu...
Starter
Chappati and dips
Main
Vege kebabs and toasties
Dessert
Bananas stuffed with sugar and chocolate
and
Toasted marshmallow sandwiches.
We also had to train the staff how to use a Bow saw and a bill hook. Mrs Bainbridge was very adventurous and used her new skills to make a mallet.
Take a look in the gallery at the rest of our snaps.
England Flag Pizza
The children have been trying hard to improve their table manners. They all want to be invited to The Captain's Table.
Next week it is 'Frank Lampard's Football Fiesta.'
Hot Shot Hot Dog in a Finger Bun
with Tomato Sauce
3 Lions Baked Beans
Free State Stadium Potato fries
Frankie's Football Biscuit
and Fruit Juice.
It's almost the end of the school year. Can you believe it? Over the past few weeks we have invited parents of new Reception children into school to support them with this new phase of their child's life.
Parents have been invited into school to talk about any concerns, worries, thoughts they may have about school and to make some things for their child to bring to school on their transition days.
The first thing we made was a 'thought bag'. The idea of the thought bag is for children to talk about any worries they have about starting school. I think it is fair to say that the parents really enjoyed making the bags out of our fabulous Crookhill T - towels.
The second session was about sharing the interests of our children. Miss Brown has learned lots about the children's favourite foods, toys, songs and games. We made boxes for our children for them to put in their favourite things.
We would like to say a big thank you to all the parents who attended. See you next Monday for the final meeting.
We were lucky enough today to have a theatre company visit us to put on a production all about Stranger Danger and how to keep safe.
The production was all about a quiz show where contestants had to answer questions about what they would do in certain situations. Britney Brown was terrible and got all the answers wrong. We at Crookhill are all going to try to be like Chanelle Smith the other contestant who knows what to do in lots of tricky situations.
We learned what to do if a stranger approaches. Do you "say no or say nothing?" We know that we say nothing and walk away. We learned about the dangers of the internet and how we can protect ourselves by not giving out our personal information such as where we live and what school we go to.
At the end of the producation some brave volunteers came up to the front to take part in the quiz so we could see how much we had learned.
They were impressed at how much we knew. We all now know how to keep ourselves and each other safe.
Football fever has taken Crookhill by storm this week. Every Friday for the next month we will be having a special World Cup lunch. As part of the football fever we have added a Captains table to our newly built dining room. Children who show they are polite and have lovely table manners throughout the week are chosen to eat on at the Captains table where they are waited on by Mrs Dixon and the other dinner staff.
These are the lucky children who were chosen to dine at the Captain's table first.
It wasn't just the children at the Captain's table who enjoyed the football fever though, the whole of the dining room was decorated with England flags so we could all enjoy it.
This week Class Six went on their residential trip to Gibside! We left school on Wednesday morning and headed to Whickham Thorns for an adventure packed day including high ropes, snow tubing, archery and an assault course.
Everyone was really brave for having a go on the high ropes course - it took lots of determination to get right to the top.
Snow tubing was great fun! We experimented with different ways of coming down the slope, including 'fast and furious', 'big spinning circle' and 'backwards in pairs'.
Archery was great fun - we had a competition to see who had the best aim - watch out Robin Hood!
The rain didn't put us off too much, but there were some very muddy shoes after the assault course!
After Whickham Thorns we traveled up to Gibside. We unpacked and settled into our dormitories. Some of use were already quite tired and had a little rest before tea!
We enjoyed a delicious Shepherd's Pie and fruit and ice cream before heading out on a Nature Walk around the beautiful Gibside estate.
We returned to The Stables for hot chocolate and then headed to best after an exhausting day. Some of us even got some sleep!
See the Gallery for more photographs.
On Monday afternoon, Year 6 organised a fabulous afternoon full of fun football activities. They planned and ran lots of different football based skills activities for the whole school to join in with.
We had a competition between each class to see how fast we could kick the football into the goal. There was a special speed radar camera placed behind the goal measuring the speed of the ball. Some of us had absolutely fantastic scores. The winner from each class was presented with a special medal.
Take a look in the gallery for some pictures of us showing off our fab football skills.
Watch out South Africa, Crookhill has a football team to rival any of those at the World Cup!
On Tuesday night our team played Emmaville. The first goal was scored by Bethany - the first girl to score a goal in the league! This was followed by two goals from Liam, then one from Bradley and James made it five.
It was a really exciting match with end to end action, Emmaville played well but Crookhill were victorious scoring 5 goals to 4. Well done to everyone involved. It was a fabulous team effort. A special well done to all the goal scorers and to James, who was our man of the match!
The sunshine arrived at Crookhill today so we celebrated with a beach party disco. Everyone dressed up in their best beach wear. Take a look at some of the fabulous outfits.
We spent the afternoon eating hot dogs, dancing and cooling down with a nice glass of juice and an ice-cream.
After all that eating and dancing some of us needed a nice rest in our beach.
We ended our disco with the conga. We all had a great time!
Tonight, our school football team played against Blaydon West. Our hard work put us one goal ahead but unfortunately this lead was lost and ended up being 5-1 down. But with magnificent saves from our new keeper and man of the match, Daniel, it could have been even more! Suddenly there was a turn of luck and with a lot of skill and determination we managed to finish the game 5-4 instead.
Not a win but I'm sure if there had been a few minutes of extra time we could have made it level! Well done footballers, a fantastic performance, we're very proud!
The children had examples of their drawings, a non-fiction fact file they had made and Rohan read out his acrostic poem about a rat. "Runs fast and eats trash."
Some children were dressed up as Goldilocks and the 3 bears and others were dressed up as the 3 Little Pigs. We made houses out of straw, sticks and bricks throughout the term. We had lots of fun. 
We also told our parents how we have been planting trees in the school field. We will be helping to protect the local wildlife who live in our grounds when the trees are fully grown.
The tables were covered with table cloths. KS1 made rabbit hats.
The jam tarts and cheshire cat biscuits were placed on a separate table and were presented on a variety of cake stands.
Here are the Cheshire Cat biscuits.
The Queen of Hearts made some jam tarts.
The next themed dinner is to be about Shrek.
Congratulations to all of the dancers who put in a Stunning Street Style performance yesterday at the Gateshead Dance Festival at the Sage. The dancers stole the show with their street dance and Bollywood fusion choreography. Perhaps we have some stars for the furure!
Well done to everyone. You should all be very proud of yourself!! We are!!
To all Reception parents - Please remember it is our trip to the farm tomorrow lunch time. Children do not need to wear their uniform. They need to be dressed appropriately for the weather and have wellies with them. All children need a packed lunch which we will eat before we leave school.
See you tomorrow
Miss Brown.
Behind the scenes! Getting ready is always an exciting time.
Our dancing troupe got the show going.
B
Beware of council workers knocking on your door!
William the Wolf is a real Crookhiller as he loves to read books.
The "Bad Wolf" arrives along with his apprentice.
Red Riding Hood meets the Bad Wolf but is not afraid of him.
Red Riding Hood's worried parents.
More photos and feedback to follow!
Today KS1 have enjoyed their music workshop. They have been learning about different types of music. We learned how to make echos in music singing the story of the fish who could wish.
We sang Old McDonald had a farm to show how we can add parts our music. We had fun holding the puppets and pretending to be the animals.
We also got to build building blocks to show how we can all sing something different to enhance the song. We enjoyed playing the different instruments in our different blocks.
Have a look in the gallery for the rest of the photographs.
Today our building work really got started with the demolition of our outside classroom where GAP used to be. Gladly GAP are now safely in the library. It was freezing cold but we all really enjoyed watching them pull apart the whole building!
'Once In Royal David's City' started the KS2 Nativity Service. The first verse was sung by a group of children.
Mary is told by the Angel that she is going to have a special baby.
Mary and Joseph try to find a room for the night. 'Sorry no vacancies' said one of the Inn Keepers.
King Herod asks his Chief Priest about the census.
The shepherds did not have anything to give Jesus, but they brought Him, peace, hope, friendship, love and faith.
The 3 Wisemen brought Jesus presents.
The Nativity Tableau. Reverend Jamieson praised everyone for their performances. He thanked Miss Cowley and Mrs Kirkland for the imaginative way the story of the birth of Jesus was told.
The light show during 'It Was On A Starry Night' was a triumph using LED lights and torches.
What a busy day Key Stage 1 have had. First the Nativity this morning and then our Christmas party. There was some amazing outfits.
We started our party playing traditional party games like musical statues,
musical bumps,
and of course, corners.
We really enjoyed showing off our dance moves in the best dancer competition. We had 4 winners, a boy and a girl from each class. Well Done Rohan and Chloe from Reception and Ellie and Jake from Class 2. Miss Brown and Miss Malley may steal your dance moves!
Half way through the party we were tired from all our dancing so we ate the yummy food that we brought in.
There was so much food left we will be eating it for the rest of the week.
We ended our party with the traditional Conga. We did the conga through all the classrooms - it was working great until some of the girls lost their shoes.
Today Key Stage 1 showed off their amazing acting and singing skills in the Nativity 'a Christmas Recipe.' We now know all the important ingredients we need to make Christmas special. Our nativity featured Father Christmas and his elves, some presents and some festive birds (robins), some snowflakes and the traditional shepherds, sheep, angels, Christmas stars and Wisemen.
Miss Brown and Miss Malley would like to say a big thank you to Jessie - the cook who made our fabulous Christmas Recipe and David and Amy for being fantastic narrators. You all worked so hard to learn all your lines.
A special thank you to Connie for stepping in as Mary at the very last minute.
You all did amazingly well and made us very proud.
Look out for the Video of the Nativity which should be posted on the website this week (fingers crossed).
If you would like to buy a DVD of the Nativity they will be on sale in school from Thursday (fingers crossed again) for £1.50.
Thank you to all the parents and Grandparents who came and showed their support. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
We are the Pollution Police! We had a great time in Creativity Week, especially on 'Mix Up' afternoon. We created 'Gerry' the giraffe and his little babies! But Mrs Bainbridge's classroom ended up as a tip!!!
Today KS1 have had a magical day. We went to Houghton-Le-Spring to visit Santa at the farm.
We met William the Farmer when we arrived and he reminded us about how important it is to keep our hands clean when we are at the farm and not to touch our faces or mouths. We were all very good and kept washing our hands and using the anti-bacterial gel.
Some of us got to go and see Santa first. We had to write a Christmas list before we went to see him so he could remember all the toys that we would like from him for Christmas.
Some of us were a little scared of Santa but we all were brave and went up to see him. We were very pleased we did!
We told Santa all the toys we would like for Christmas and he told us he would try his best to get us some of them but maybe not all of them!!!
If was really fun when we got to have a ride in Santa's sleigh.
When we had visited Santa we got to put on our very own Nativity. We got to wear costumes and we sang Away in a Manger.
We had a surprise visit from one of Santa's very special reindeer. She was called Twinkle and she was so soft. Most of us wanted to stroke Twinkle but we had to do it gently and not altogether because we did not want to frighten her.
When we had finished in the barn we got to play outside on the tractors. We had an amazing ride on the bullet train. William drove us around the farm on the tractor pulling along all our carriages. Even the staff got to have their very own ride. It was such good fun.
Take a look in the gallery on page 3 to see some other pictures.
This afternoon we've had lots of fun in our mix up afternoon. Miss Malley changed from class 2's teacher to the Climate Change Cherub Gang. Our task was to build something out of all the junk you've been bringing in all week. We decided to build a robot.
We started with his feet and worked our way up.
Aaron was in charge of the arms and hands and had a great idea to use gloves.
Jade and Emily worked together wrapping the boxes for the body.
Then Jade and Joe put all the boxes together to make the body.
Jordan and Luke made great team mates making the face for the robot.
Jake tried to keep the classroom tidy and pick up all the rubbish. We'll be making sure it gets recycled.
Finally our robot was finished. We were all very pleased with the final model.
What a performance!
Keystage 2 rocked their morning away with sounds of Abba, Mika and even U2!
We have a visit from one of Gateshead's great Music Teams and they taught us all the ingredients to make music.
I don't know about you but Mamma Mia has been running around my head all day!
Last week, we went to the Hancock Museum and it was fantastic! We had a chance to look at all sorts of Egyptian artefacts. We saw a real mummy!
Watch our fantastic photo stories that will tell you all about our lovely day!
Today children and staff came to school in their pyjamas! We raised over £150 for Children in Need and had a rather 'sleepy' day! Well done everyone!
The whole school stood in the hall and watched the church service from Westminster Abbey until 11 0'clock. Then we stood in silence for 2 minutes.
Mrs Walker came dressed in her British Legion uniform. She lowered the standard during the 2 minutes silence.
After school on Thursday 25th October, Crookhill was a very scary place. Our normally angelic pupils were replaced by a whole host of witches, vampires and ghouls!
We all really enjoyed dressing up and doing the 'Monster Mash'.
There were lots of stalls to get something to eat and we all liked the 'Tombola of Doom'! Some of us had our faces painted.
A big thank you to all the Staff and Parents who helped out.
Check out the Gallery for more photos!
On Wednesday grandparents and parents were welcomed into school to watch the fabulous harvest festival put on by the children. Each class put on a little show showing a different kind of harvest.
David sang the first verse of cauliflowers fluffy in a beautiful solo. Look out X Factor!
Reception picked apples and baked a yummy apple crumble. They sang two beatutiful songs for us.
Class 2 were the harvest of fruits from different countries. Did you know Pineapples come from Brazil?
Class 3 were the harvest of talent in our school and performed a spectacular dance. I bet you all the the Rhythm of Life stuck in your heads all day!
Class 4 were the harvest of the sea. A beautiful mermaid told us all about the damage we cause by fishing too much.
Class 5 were the Harvest of natural resources of the Earth. Captain Climate told us all about how we are starting to use wind and solar power more as these are renewable energy sources.
Class 6 were the harvest of recycling. Recycle Man told us all how to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle our waste.
In addition to all the parents and grandparents watching the show, the Mayor of Gateshead was there having a fabulous time. The Mayor was there to present the school with our Arts Mark Gold certificate. An award we are very proud of.
On Tuesday 13th October, parents and carers were invited into school to have some fun with maths! During the open afternoon, the children played the maths homework games which they will shortly be taking home. The games are a fun way to develop and use maths skills.
Thank you to all the parents who attended, it seems like everyone had fun - see the comments below....
'It was a really good afternoon.'
'An excellent way to allow parents to share in the experience.'
'Had a lovely afternoon, all the games we played were fun and easy to learn. Look forward to doing it again.'
'A really good way to learn maths. I enjoyed the games, they're definitely worth using for homework.'
See the Gallery for more photos from this afternoon!
After a long wait they're finally here......
See the Gallery for more photos of the social event of the year!
Some real life dragons from Ryton Comprehensive visited Class 5 recently to judge some of our ideas for a new logo. Class 5 had the task of designing a logo for the Ryton Cluster of schools and then presenting to the 'dragons' in true 'Dragons Den' style. The dragons were quite nice really - not as scary as the ones on TV!!
Working in groups to create a stunning logo - some dragons were quite helpful.
Hi everyone. I promise the photos will be on soon. I have given the disk to the CLC and they are sorting them out for us. They will be worth waiting for I promise. Enjoy the rest of your holidays.
Miss Brown.
Hi everyone,
Just a reminder that Thursday is the last day of the book fair so if you haven't visited us yet you still have one more day. For every book you buy you get another one free.
Remember to bring your pocket money to school to buy the last of the funky stationary.
See you tomorrow
This term, classes five and six have really enjoyed learning about World War Two. On Monday, we all came to school dressed as evacuees!!
We all lined up in the hall - some of us had even brought our teddies for the long journey that lay ahead...
We were 'chosen' by local villagers (who looked suspiciously like our teachers but in rather odd clothing....!)
We had fun making Anderson Shelters....
...and following a war-time recipe for Vinegar cake! It actually tasted quite nice!
We designed posters to help with the war effort. Remember Class Six - careless talk costs lives!
We were really fortunate that Liam's Grandparents were able to come along and tell us about their experiences of being evacuated. It was really interesting to hear a first hand account of what happened to them during the war.
Everyone had a great day! A big thank you to everyone who was involved! Remember to take a look in the gallery for more evacuee photos!
Hi everyone.
Please remember it is the school book fair this week. For every full price book you buy you will be able to choose another book completely free from the stickered range. The more books you buy, the more books we get for school.
Hope to see you all there.
This week in art club we have been weaving coloured paper to make interesting pictures and patterns. We put our patterns into a frame to finish them off. We decorated our frames. Take a look at our fab designs!
On Wednesday our year 6 children took part in the Kwik Cricket tournament. We took along our Ace A team and our Brill B team, as well as some fantastic supporters!
The morning commenced with 3 rounds of games against other local schools, including Rowlands Gill, St Agnes and Winlaton.
Our A team did really well, winning 2 out of their 3 games. Have a look at some of the action below!
The Ace A team!!
The Brill B team!!
Unfortunately we did not win, however we managed a respectable 5th, which was not bad as the winners, St Agnes, proved formidable rivals!!
We all had a fabulous time and enjoyed the experience of playing against other schools some of which could be our new friends when we leave Crookhill and join Ryton!
As part of a tournament organised by the learning mentors at Ryton Comprehensive, Crookhill's Football Team played against Ryton Juniors FC this week. Our team looked very smart as they headed out from school (thanks to Mrs Willoughby!)
Lots of mums and dads headed down to cheer the team on and they were all very impressed.
Unfortunately the score line wasn't in Crookhill's favour but the whole team played their socks off! Fingers crossed for our next fixture in a couple of weeks time!
After working very hard towards their SATs, Class Six were working hard in a different way; making all sorts of things to sell at our annual Enterprise Fair!
They had to enter 'The Dragon's Den' (Mrs Easton's office!) and persuade her that their ideas were a sound investment.They were then given a 'start-up fund' and had to use this to buy materials to create goods to sell at a profit.
They made all sorts of goods! Necklaces, bracelets, cakes, bookmarks and Go-Go pouches, to name a few items. 'Beat the Goalie', 'Rugby King' and 'Splat the Celebrity' were also popular activities!
Watch this space to find out our overall profit!!
Today Class 1 went to Bill Quay Farm. Our topic this term has been looking at different animals and how we look after them. We went to the farm to see how they look after the animals there. We saw lots of different animals. Suzanne showed us around the farm and told us about the rare animals they have there like the rare type of hen and goat.
We went to see Bella the pig and we got to feed her. She was very hungry and wanted to eat lots and lots of food.
We were so pleased that the sun shone all day and the rain stayed away. Have a look in the gallery for the rest of our photos. Make sure to take a look at the videos of our trip too. You'll find them in the multimedia section of the website.
What a magical morning we have had today! 4 musical wizards appeared in our community room today and we helped them make lots of musical, magical spells. We found lots of ingredients to put into the magic pot. Some of us were a little bit frightened of the spider.
We sang lots of magical songs and learned how to cast spells with our invisible magic wands. Have a look in the gallery to see us having lots of fun.
We would like to thank Mrs.Kirkland for organising our excellent Science Week. We had laboratory technicians from Shasun in Dudley showing us lots of fascinating experiments - Dr. Mark making loud noises and squirting water - Nigel Wild telling us all about food and Zoo Lab brought in some fascinating creatures!
Dr. Mark spraying the pupils with water.
Nigel Wild (Chef) telling us all about the science of food.
Investigating a slippery customer.
Being charmed by a snake? These brave girls were.
Watch this closely.
Wow!
The yummy chocolate was melted until runny on the hob (don't you just wish we had smellivision) ha ha!!
We filled our cases with the mixture and put the eggs on top, we got to lick our fingers yum yum!
What a tremendous turnout. The children managed to take 4 Easter nests home and even Mrs Wannop and Mrs Grant got to take one home too - and they were scrummy.
Here are just a few of the delicious recipes that the children who attended the cookery club have made over the past 8 weeks.
Chocolate Crispies
Pizza
Cheese Scones
Cherry Heart shaped biscuits
Chocolate chip buns
Easter Nests
You can find all you need to know about the recipes in our cookery club recipe book.
Well done Megan you did not spill a single piece of cheese Ms Bee will be proud of you!!!
We needed to crack 2 eggs to make our Cheese scones but remember don't put all your eggs in one basket.
The final product was delicious we are making our first batch which will be delivered to M&S this week.
Last week was another exciting creativity week in Crookhill. This time the theme was Science and we took part in lots of different science based activities. Throughout the week we were lucky enough to have lots of visitors into school. Make sure you take a look in the gallery to see some fantastic photographs from this exciting week!!
Mrs Kirkland, Mr Swan and Miss Cowley would like to thank everyone involved in the Drama Club Pantomime for brilliant performances. You have all worked hard to learn your lines. So go on - SLAP YOUR THIGHS!!!!!!!!
Everyone at Crookhill Primary School recognises the importance of not only supporting Fair Trade but also teaching our children about it. Therefore we have decided to work towards our fair trade status this term. W/c 26th January was Fair Trade week in our school. All classes were involved - finding out about farmers and workers in developing countries. Poor market access and unfair trade rules often mean that the price they get for their crops does not cover the cost of production.Fair trade simply means workers in poorer countries get a fair deal for their goods. Children developed their geography skills by finding out where a wide range of countries were located. They found about what different crops were grown under the Fair Trade guarantee and the impact this had on the farmers their families and their local communities.The children were very engaged and inquisitive developing not only their personal and social skills but also their citizenship understanding.
A launch to parents was held on 3/2/09. Mr Les Milne - Development and Enterprise Officer for Gateshead Council informed everyone about the positive impact that Fair Trade has on many poor farmers and their communities. He thanked Crookhill Primary School for its involvement and their work so far.A huge thank you must go to Abi Marrs, Lucy Cook, Daniel Chambers, Kayleigh Metcalf, Callum Cook and Ellise Adams who presented their work to the group.
We had a great time at Crookhill this evening! We wore our best outfits and dancing shoes to our school disco. Lots of us enjoyed dancing to the music and playing a few games.
The hotdogs and sweets were popular too!
There were some excellent moves on the dance floor to the Macarena...Mrs Bainbridge will be so proud!
It all got a bit too much for some of the year five boys....
We hope that everyone had a lovely time!
Look in the Gallery for even more photos....can you spot yourself?
We hope you enjoy this year's Nativity production - Wriggly Nativity.
Our Key Stage 1 children were simply wonderful! Well done everyone!
This is the audio version, recorded at this morning's performance.
The video version will follow later.
On Wednesday 10th December, we held our annual Carol Service at Holy Cross Church in Ryton. We were joined by parents and grandparents who enjoyed listening to our retelling of the nativity story accompanied by beautiful singing.
Last week we had another one of our fabulous creativity weeks!
This time our focus was 'Awesome Authors.' We kicked off the week with a visit from Eric Maddern who visited each class. On Tuesday, we swapped classes for the afternoon and worked with children from all different classes and teachers!
We had a chance to meet another author, Chris Bostock, who told us entertaining stories.
On Friday, we shared all our work with the rest of the school. It was a very busy week, but we had lots of fun!
On Monday 20th October we had a very special visitor in assembly ... the Newcastle and England Legend, Peter Beardsley! He came to pick winners for our attendance competition. The lucky winners won tickets to a Newcastle match. We also had the opportunity to ask him some questions. Mrs Bainbridge could have stayed there all day!
