Queen's College children taking learning outdoors

Queen's is so lucky to be surrounded by Bellver forest and lessons are planned to make full use of this beautiful countryside.

Year 2 have been reading Owl Babies by Martin Waddell; the book, published in 1992, describes how three owlets wake up one night to find their mother gone, The babies worry about her absence and are overjoyed when she returns from her night flight.

The children loved the story and were inspired by the wonderful illustrations. They talked about their worries and then decided to write their own "owl baby" stories and visit the forest to make nests for the owlets.

The children worked in teams to build cosy nests where the baby owls could cuddle together and keep warm. They loved layering their nests with leaves, fine twigs and feathers. They then talked about their designs and compared them with those of other groups.

Back in the classroom the experience made their stories so much more exciting as they included vibrant describing words relating to all their five senses.

Their resulting artwork was far more detailed portraying the natural colours they had observed in the woods.

Year 6 House Captains

Each year the Year 6 students elect their house captains for the first half of the year. The pupils prepared speeches for their colleagues and teachers explaining why they felt that they would make excellent house captains. Notes were made and the voting began.

The elected captains - Leia, Joan, Issie, Hugo, Blanca, Dani, Cassidy and Heath, were delighted with the outcome. They set to work straight away helping teachers to organise playtime activities and a daily rota for departmental messages. One of the highlights of the week are the house matches; the house captains help out with selections and the organisation of the weekly event. In celebration of the success of the Lionesses and the female Spanish world champions, the first matches were the girls' football ones!