Measuring Jugs

We normally copytype the Class Reporter's submissions, but this scientific report from 3GM is so beautifully written that it's shown in it's original format.

Science demonstration

This week's Coffee Morning was led by Mrs Latheron, Head of Science. Her Laboratory Assistants, dressed in Red White and Blue for the 90th birthday celebrations,y entertained the crowds.

Mrs Latheron's team of scientists

YR4 student Mitchell demonstrated how a flame uses oxygen.

Jack demonstrated what happens if you mix a mint with cola (watch carefully at 0:14 & 0:45 seconds):

Ruby demonstrated how cornflower and water can be both liquid and solid to some younger siblings. She'll be halfway through her secondary school career before they're in the Juniors.

Never too young for science 

Isabella's experiment demonstrated the properties of water - however, the practical demonstration involved some audience participation - and they all got rather wet!

The PA team watch the experiments

UJS appreciate the tireless support of the Parents' Association. Many thanks to all who came to the event, hosted by the PA in aid of the Essex Air Ambulance.

Well Done to Year 6

Well done to all of our Year 6 children who have now finished their SATs. They have all worked extremely hard and should be incredibly proud whatever the outcome - I am sure they have done their absolute best.

Thank you to all the staff, too, for their efforts preparing our current Year 6 for the next stage in their education and especially to our Year 6 team who have supported the children in their final year. 

Mr Woodford

London Youth Games - boys' football

On Wednesday 9th March the UJS boys' football team went to Crystal Palace to play in the London Youth Games football tournament. The boys were representing the borough as Havering Hurricanes.

UJS boys represent Havering

We were put into a group of four teams. In our first match we drew 1-1. Then in our second match we played Kingston and drew that match 0-0. Finally, we played Chelsea, and won that 3-0. In our group we finished joint first, but came second on goal difference.

We went through to the next round and were put into another gruop of four teams. In our first match in the group we lost 2-0. We drew the next march, and lost the last one.

Michael Tarbuck - 6R


The team were supported by staff, parents and Governors. Mr Fitzgerald, in a dual role of Governor and Grandad said: 'the boys played as a team, kept their shape and were aware of their own and others' positions. They played all of their games with a great team spirit, but made one or two errors which cost them overall. It was a wonderful day out for the boys, they were a pleasure to be with. The team were well behaved, respectful and polite, and coped very well with the chaos on public transport that day.'

On The Ning Nang Nong

Class 3GM perform Spike Milligan's poem as part of the UJS Poetry Week.

At the River

Performance poetry with Val Bloom

Poetry Week @ UJS

Poet Val Bloom is in school today as part of our Poetry Week.

We've all learnt some Jamaican Patois, and performed some of Val's work with her.

Year 5 & 6 then moved into the library for smaller group workshops.

More information about Val can be found on her website: http://valeriebloom.co.uk/about/bio/


Come back to this page for regular updates during the week.

Rotary shoebox gifts

Before Christmas we filled shoeboxes of gifts for children and families in need around the world.

Mr Ansell launched the shoebox appeal with an assembly.

Shoebox Assembly

Rotarians George Larkey and Geoff Furzland attended the Christmas Concert and thanked everyone for making the gifts.

Presenting the gifts

The boxes are filled with many useful items and toys which Rotary will send to children in need  from different parts of the world.

Mr Larkey returned with his colleagues Terry Monk and Colin Davies to start the 80+ boxes on their journey. The boxes containing gifts, toys and useful items are being shipped overseas.

Gifts to the world from UJS

Mr Woodford, aided by representatives from Year 6, handed the boxes over to the local Rotarians who will forward them to the team that ships them overseas. The President and members of the Rotary Club of Hornchurch and Upminster said 'we would like to thank all the UJS children and families for supporting the scheme and spreading joy around the world.'

Tag rugby champions

Upminster Junior School had a Six Nations rugby competiton. We played as England. Our first match was against Oakfields - it was six to them and six to us. Then we played three other schools and won them all.

UJS Tag Rugby team 2016

There was some excellent opposition, overall we won with 21 points. This is the third time that UJS have won this tournament. We are delighted to keep the trophy for another year.

Robbie Lee-Weedon - Year 6

Quicksticks Hockey tournament

On Wednesday the 10th February, three girls & three boys from Years 5&6 went to Coopers' to play in a Quicksticks hockey tournament against other schools in Havering.

Schools were split into four groups. Our UJS team was in 'group 3', and we played against St Edwards, Pyrgo, Mead, Parsonage Farm and Branfil. Our first game was against St Edwards, which we won 2-0. Next we played against Pyrgo and we won 4-0. Out third game was against Mead, which again ended in a 2-0 victory. After that we played Parsonage Farm and this was a game that we unfortunately lost 2-1. Still determined, we finally went on to play the last match of the group against Branfil, which we knew would be hard. Although they scored early on we pushed through and successfully won 2-1. The winners of each group then made it into the semi-finals.

When the results were announced three teams in our group had only lost one game, so it came down to goal difference. Despite us beating them earlier on, Branfil made it through to the next round, so unluckily that was the end of the tournament for us. We were, however, one of three schools to receive a 'passion' school value card. This award proves to us that we worked well together and during the tournament supported each other.

The team and I would like to thank Mr Stanley for his coaching and hard work.

Kira McFaull - 6R

Play area is open

 The whole school gathered on a gloomy Monday morning for a very special event.

Mr Woodford made a speech welcoming everyone to the special moment in the school's history. More than just an opening of the play area, it was a celebration of the years of hard work and dedication to the school by the Parents' Association.

He explained how the play area was a fine example of the school values in action. He thanked the School Council for their plans.

Mrs Wright

Mr Woodford thanked the PA team for their hard work, especially Mrs Wright (Chair for the last four years) & her family. Mrs Wright was presented with a bouquet as a token of the school's gratitude. Mr Wright, who is also a Governor, has looked after and managed the funds in his role as PA treasurer. The cheque for £50,000 was presented to the school by Rebecca Wright, now a Coopers' pupil, on behalf of the Parents' Association.

Other staff members were thanked - especially Mr Brown, Mr Fitzgerald & Mr Rowden for moving a ton (literally!) of leaves, moving benches and preparing the area. Mrs Wyer has put together a lunchtime plan to enable all children to be able to use the play area on a regular basis. 

Mr Woodford then handed over to the Mayor of Havering to conduct the official opening. There was a countdown...

... and the playground was open! The School Council and representatives from each class needed no encouragement - they were off to play! A few members of staff were also spotted 'testing' the equipment.

 

The official photograph

Mr Woodford feels on top of the world

Governors inspect the equipment

Mrs Wright 'tests' the equipment

Each class were given a chance in turn to play on the equipment on opening day. They will now have the opportunity to use the area, which includes a trim trail, stage and benches, during their lunch breaks. For more information and photographs please click here to read Creative Play's case study

Children in Need - Can Knockdown and Can Pong

Plans are in progress for Children in Need next week. Two YR4 pupils asked Mr Woodford to display a poster for their event:

Mr Woodford was also impressed with the covering letter, detailing a highly planned activity:

As requested by our two fundraisers, we will supply a table on Thursday and Friday, and the poster will be emailed to all parents later this morning. We hope they will be well supported by their schoolfriends. We'll let you know how they got on!

Nepal Earthquake non-uniform fundraising

We raised £318.94 for the Red Cross last Thursday. This report was written by Year 4 reporter Eloise and her friend Ella:

Non-uniform Day
On Thursday 4th June 2015 Upminster Juniors all bought in a pound and dressed down in aid of the Nepal earthquake. 

Over hundreds of people were made homeless with entire villages flattened, across many districts of the country. Most charities have been given tents and clean water to pilots, so they can fly them over to Nepal and give the now homeless people what they need. 

The earthquake is called the Gorkha earthquake.

Did you know if we raise £55.00 it will enable 5 families to have fresh, clean water to last them. 

Year 6 buggy project

Year 6 buggy project!

 by RH, 6D

Here is a blog about the year six Buggy project we did. The dates and progress have been taken from class 6D.

Tuesday 17th of March: On the 17th we started our project, Are teacher showed us an instruction sheet that labeled what we had to do. First we had to gather all of our equipment- A   ruler,pencil,saw,wooden vice, 58-60cm long sticks (we all had different sizes!) and finally an iPad. We started by measuring how long our piece of wood was; you had to use your maths skills to get 2 short pieces and 2 long pieces so the frame would be a rectangle. For example if your frame piece of wood was 60 cm you would need 2x20 cm sticks and 2x10 cm sticks. After we made notes where we needed to saw and then labeled them with our initials and how long the piece of wood would be, then we sawed all of our wood. To make the frame straight and smooth we used sandpaper and simply rubbed it across the ends of our wooden sticks. Next we glued the frame into place and held each corner for 20 seconds. After they were all held into place we glued on card triangles to give it extra support. During the activity if our group members had any spacetime they filmed or took photos of what we were doing. This was all we managed to do today.

Wednesday 18th March: On the 18th we finished the model of our car. First we got given a massive piece of corriflute to share between the 4 members on our tables. Then we had to either draw round our frame or use the template and draw round. After we had the frames marked on the corriflute we began to cut it out, it was extremely hard as the correlate was a thick material. We eventually  cut them out and if we was ready for the next step. Now we had to stick the frame onto the corriflute, we simply did that by putting glue on the frame and holding it down on the corriflute. We waited roughly 20 minutes for them to try. Next we glued 2 pairs of parallel triangle (with holes at the top) to the frame. After that we had to cut out 2x14cm on cylindrical shaped wood. after the triangles had dried we place the axles through the hole. We the placed the wheels on and an elastic band from the front wheel to the back wheel. we left it there for today and let our cars dry overnight.

Thursday 19th of March: We started of the lesson by watching a demonstration from Miss Diamond on how to make our car move and how to make the electrics work. First we had to put wheel bearings on all four wheels. Next we had put an elastic band on one wheel. Now we had to connect our battery (x4) into the holder, then clipped a pair of wires to the end of the holder. Now we connected crocodile clips (x2) to the end of the wire leading to the motor. We had to position the motor just right so the elastic band could be connected (to the motor) and the wheels would move;it was a test of trial and error. Once it was in the correct position we used masking tape to stick the wires, motor and battery holder down onto the buggy. If we had any spare time we could decorate our wheels with writing or patterns or take photos and film videos.

Friday 20th of March: Today our challenge was to create a switch for the electric motor. We were give a paper fastener,paper clip, an extra crocodile clip and a piece of card. We had to experiment lots of different ways on how to do it.Here are some of the examples of the with: Connecting the paper fastener to the crocodile clip and the motor or stick the card onto the buggy then pierce the paper fastener through the card and attach the paper clip onto the round side of the paper fastener. We didn't have a lot of time today so we only had a short activity.

Tuesday 24 of March: So far we had everything completed except from the lid design. We were given a sheet of A4 card and the resources in the classroom such as: felt, netting, colouring pencils, colouring pens, coloured paper scissors, scrap paper, glue and lots more. There was various designs of what people did, there were sports cars with a convertible roofs, a bus, box cars, jeeps and buggies. As well as decorating it we had to make space to turn the motor on and off. If we completed the tasks that we did that day our buggys would be complete. If we were finished and did know what to do we could add extra features. A majority finished our buggies today!

Blood-Hound SSC

On 21^st-23^rd of February Year 6 had a talk with a man called Mr Cook; he spoke to us about Blood-Hound SSC. Blood-Hound is designed to be the world’s fastest car going at a top speed of 1,050 mph; this can cover 4 football pitches in 2 seconds! In 2016 it will be tested for a World Land Speed record.

Mr Cook spoke to us about how maths and science are involved in the Blood-Hound project. We learnt this by using one of Newton’s laws: mass x acceleration=force. Also we looked the amazing features of Blood-Hound and all of the different types of Land Speed Record cars and how they are different.

He presented for about 45 minutes before we went down to the hall and got into groups of three or four. We were told to make a cardboard model of the Blood-Hound using a pack we got with instructions and resources. We made them by folding the cardboard into shape, then sticking the wooden axles down for wheels the finally putting the straw into the balloon and sticking it down. This took us around ten minutes to do. If our car was to be fast it would need to be aero-dynamic like the Blood-Hound, we had to try to improve it. There were lots of ways people done this like sticking a straw at the front or folding the front over to make it pointy.

One of Newton’s laws is a force must act on another force to make it move. Using that rule our cars worked by blowing a straw which blew up the balloon, then the air from the balloon deflated and came out the straw to make the car move. After our cars were complete and had a test run, we had a big race. We had to nominate one member of our team to race our model.

Everyone had a brilliant afternoon!

          

                By RH 6D

World Book Day

On Thursday the 5th March 2015 Upminster Junior School all dressed up a a character from a book that they are familiar with. This was in aid of World Book Day. They all thoroughly enjoyed the day, and looked absolutely Brilliant.

Written by ES, Year 4 4C/4H