Latest News
Latest News
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Red Nose - Cultural Dress Day
Fri 15 Mar 2024On Red Nose Day, children and staff came to school dressed in a wonderful array of clothes, choosing items and outfits that represented their own culture. It was a fantastic celebration of the diversity at Minet Junior School and an opportunity for children to share their cultural identity with others. Children brought in a £1 to donate to the Red Nose Day charity and so far we have raised £125.
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Year 4 Library Visit
Thu 14 Mar 2024Year 4 had an exciting experience visiting Botwell Green Library! We met the librarian, Amy, who explained how to borrow reading books, audio books, and even balls! She then read a captivating Chinese folk tale, illustrating how reading for pleasure can transport us to new worlds. Afterwards, we enjoyed a fun game where we searched for fiction and non-fiction books, learning all about how the library is organised. Finally, we finished off by having some quiet time reading! Many of us are eager to join the library with our parents and looking forward to visiting again!
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Ms H Mason, Professor of Science Visit
Wed 13 Mar 2024As part of our Science week, Ms H Mason, a professor of Science, visited Minet Junior School on Wednesday 13th March. Firstly, the whole school attended an assembly and Ms Mason explained lots of interesting information about the planets, stars and the entire universe. Following this, Ms Mason spent an hour in each of our Year 5 classes. Ms Mason revisited many of the key points she had presented in her assembly and then the pupils made pop-up cards. The children used a variety of medium to record their knowledge about space. After this they took part in a ‘show and tell’ session where they looked at each other’s work and evaluated what they had learnt and enjoyed. Ms Mason also showed pupils how an infra- red camera works whilst they were carrying out their task. As the Year 5 pupils completed a unit in the Autumn Term about ‘Earth and Space’ they already knew a lot about the subject and Ms Mason was very impressed by the amount of information they had retained. The children thoroughly enjoyed the visit and were able to extend their understanding of space.
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Ramadan Assembly
Tue 12 Mar 2024During this week's whole school assembly, Rehana Shah from the Muslim Centre provided an insight into the holy month of Ramadan. She shared its historical significance, the importance of the moon, and the meaning of fasting in the Muslim community. Ramadan Mubarak to all our families observing this special time.
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Year 6 Junior Citizen
Mon 11 Mar 2024The year 6 children had an opportunity to begin their transition activities into high school at the Junior Citizen today. Held at Brunel University, the children were split into 8 different groups and participated in different workshops ranging from internet safety to awareness of knife crime. Children were also informed on how to apply for their Zip oyster cards and how to be model citizens when using public transport. It was a thoroughly informative and useful day for the children.
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Year 3 World Book Day trip to Botwell Library
Thu 07 Mar 2024Today, the children enjoyed a trip to Botwell library. They arrived in their World Book Day outfits and enjoyed showing the librarians their wonderful character costumes. The librarian kindly read them a story The Midnight Library and explained to the children how they could apply for a library card of their own. The children were told about all of the luxuries that the library card brings such as being able to borrow 15 books for up to 3 weeks, attend book clubs and use the computers for their own leisure or homework. The children were shown how to find fiction books in the library by searching for the author’s surname, and they were also shown how to use the subject index to find the numbered code for non-fiction texts.
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The Hobbit
Tue 05 Mar 2024M&M Theatrical Productions visited the school today to perform their version of The Hobbit. The story is about a wizard (Gandalf) who was looking for a hobbit to go on a journey to find treasure. He finds the perfect hobbit in Bilbo Baggins. Our hall was transformed into a magical stage and the whole school were mesmerised by the wonderful costumes and props... especially the spider and the dragon! The show was fantastic and we all really enjoyed it.
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Year 3 Pedestrian Training
Thu 29 Feb 2024This week, the children in year 3 attended pedestrian training. They all put on their high-vis jackets and learnt how to cross the road safety outside of school. The trainers were very impressed with how much they had remembered from their training in the infant school. The children were taught the green high way code. STOP, THINK, LOOK, LISTEN. The children learnt about the different moving vehicles they might see on the road as well as practising crossing the road in pairs.
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The Brilliant Club - Scholars Programme
Thu 29 Feb 2024This year, fourteen of our Year 6 students took part in The Brilliant Club Scholars Programme, partnering with colleges and universities across the UK to learn about different topics such as law, biology and engineering. These children worked with a PhD tutor throughout the Autumn term, focussing on their key question: “How many engineers does it take to make ice cream?”. The children looked at different types of engineers, which included mechanical engineering, biochemical engineering and industrial engineering as well as the engineering design process. This encouraged our young scholars to think both creatively and critically while they improved upon and solved problems in the ice cream making process. Extensive research was conducted throughout the several weeks of the programme, which allowed the children to exhibit resilience and determination while completing their final assignment. This final challenge was marked and moderated using university grades. The students’ exceptional hard work was celebrated with a graduation event held at The University of Reading on Thursday 29th February, with Gulsoom (6E) and Harmanvir (6E) representing Minet Junior School as keynote speakers. Please join me in congratulating the following students: Dusya (6C), Irfa (6S), Harmanvir (6E), Sufyan (6E), Vineet (6S), Alim (6C), Sakish (6S), Shazmiena (6C), Lilac (6S), Izzy (6C), Gulsoom (6E), Nasib (6P), Jamal (6P), Kirishan (6C).
“I thought this was a valuable opportunity as I was able to understand the basics of engineering and how multiple people are involved in the process of making ice cream. Moreover, it gives an insight of life in university. I thoroughly enjoyed it!” – Irfa (6S)
“I feel that this was an amazing opportunity that gave me a rough idea of where I need to improve. I believe it’s an eyeopener to subjects I never would have thought of if it wasn’t for The Brilliant Club.” – Lilac (6S)
"I really enjoyed learning and gaining a better understanding of engineering and I am very grateful for being offered this wonderful opportunity to take part in The Brilliant Club programme" - Vineet (6S)
Excerpts from the speeches:
" When I am older I will hopefully attend university and I want to study medicine there. I look forward to the opportunity and will use what I learnt in the Brilliant Club to help me do so" - Gulsoom (6E)
"In this course, we learnt about engineering and 'how many engineers it takes to make ice-cream'. We also learnt what emulsifiers and stabilizers are and how they are the ingredients needed in ice cream to help make the texture creamy and stop it from going grainy. Another skill we used was maths as you need to add the correct amount of ingredients for ice cream. Maths is what I would like to study as I would like to be an accountant one day and it is an important subject to learn." - Harmanvir (6E)
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Cliff McNish (Author) Visit
Tue 27 Feb 2024Year 6
During Year 6’s writing workshop with Cliff McNish, the children created their own ghosts to link to his book ‘Breathe’. The children were taught how to create a back story for their ghost based on the 5 reasons for death. Once the children had decided how their ghost became a ghost, they then created all the additional characters or links. The children really enjoyed being able to write about ghosts and mysteries. At the end of the workshop, Cliff spoke of how ghosts move and encouraged the children to finish their character’s at home.
Year 5
On Tuesday 27th February, Year 5 pupils attended a writing workshop with the amazing author, Mr Cliff McNish. The session began with Cliff introducing himself and explaining why he wanted to become an author. After that, Cliff talked about some of his books and what inspired him to write.
Next, Cliff showed the children a selection of pictures and asked them to discuss and describe what was happening in groups. Cliff explained that as you look closely at a picture, you are able to use your imagination to decide who the characters are, where they are and what they might be doing.
After this, the children practiced making notes about one of the pictures and Cliff discussed what the ‘gateway’ might be. Cliff used the term ‘gateway’ as a portal into another time or place. Finally, the
children used their ideas to create their own stories and some pupils were able to share their work with the rest of the year group at the end of the session.
Year 4
The children were delighted to have a writing workshop led by the author, Cliff McNish. During the session, they wrote about travelling to an imaginary world through a magical gateway. Cliff inspired them to use their senses in creating vivid descriptions. The session was to be extremely enriching, as the children were captivated by Cliff's enthusiasm and passion for storytelling.
Year 3
This week, the children enjoyed a writing workshop with Cliff McNish. He shared with the children his inspiration for his stories and gave them ideas about how to create their own characters. The children spent the morning creating scary witches of their own just like he had done for the story ‘The Dooms Spell.’ The children were able to buy some of his books which he had kindly signed for them. The children were very enthusiastic about the workshop and were keen to start writing their stories once they returned to class.