This week at Gainsborough…

Autumn 1  

Coming up at Gainsborough…

Back History Month

We are celebrated black excellence throughout October. The children have celebrated black excellence to raise awareness of the positive, and varied, influence black culture has had and continues to have on us. Children from Nursery and Reception took part in a range of activities linking to the Caribbean. They performed poems for their families during a hugely successful Family Friday on the 24th October.  Years 1 -6 published, retold and performed a poem by a black author. For more information, videos and poetry by these authors please visit www.clpe.org.uk/poetry

Year 1    Valerie Bloom

Year 2    John Lyons

Year 3   John Agard

Year 4    James Berry

Year 5    Joseph Coelho

Year 6   Benjamin Zephaniah

During our carnival Years 1 -6 wore carnival inspired headdresses, performed a dance linked to that country and enjoyed the spirit of carnival. Well done Gainsborough!  We also enjoyed a fantastic set of workshops from Caribbean sessions, who also performed at our Black History Month celebration event in the evening. During our family event we were given the experience to make Jamaican Patties with Joyce, enjoy a fashion with Ms Lewis, dance with Caribbean Sessions and watch a performance by the Yardlings, inspired by Rosa Parks. We also shared homemade drinks from the Caribbean from our cooking sessions which transported our guests back to Africa and the Caribbean. We are very grateful for everyone’s support, extra efforts and enthusiasm when putting on a full day of family activities. Well done Gainsborough community, we celebrated black excellence in style this year.

Update on Clubs

We have been incredibly lucky over the years to have wonderful partnerships with local services. We have had a very successful working relationship with the Yard Theatre for over 8 years, with incredible facilitators supporting a weekly drama group and the children performing in the theatre. While the Yard goes through a significant period of change the funding for the facilitation has been paused. We are continuing this legacy with a school based dram school led by Miss Lewis, the children will continue to learn drama and acting skills, create plays and perform for us each half term.

We have come to the end of a wonderful partnership with British Cycling. Children from Gainsborough have been learning to ride on site at school, and learning to BMX off site at the BMX track on the Olympic Park, with support from British Cycling. Again, funding reductions have meant this can no longer be facilitated at Gainsborough. To carry on this legacy work we have decided to offer weekly on site cycling as a club for the children, giving them the opportunity to learn to ride on site and to cycle together.

To continue to rich offer of clubs, and linking with external services, we have decided to link with the Hackney Borough Youth Choir. The choir’s rehearsals are on Wednesday from 4.30-5.30pm at Cardinal Pole secondary school. We are inviting children from Years 5 and 6 to audition for the choir and join a group of Gainsborough children travelling to and from the venue each week. Children will leave school at 4pm and return to Gainsborough for 6pm. This is a fantastic opportunity to join a well established choir, who perform all over London, and have a senior choir and other links to opportunities to sing or perform.

Lastly, we also have a new music club offer – Ukele. This is to replace the school choir option as we are now using the opportunities with Hackney Borough Youth Choir to offer a choir option.

For the reasons mentioned above our club offer for years 4, 5, 6 children will change slightly. Children who this affects will be asked to re select their clubs.