Monday 29 February 2016

Year 3 make Iron Age hill forts

After learning about Iron Age culture and farming community, Year 3 had to design their own hill fort! They worked in groups and created some fantastic work using a variety of materials. 


Tuesday 9 February 2016

Pupils got down to work during Safer Internet Day. Many thanks to those few parents who attended the event.







Safer Internet Day 2016 -please read our latest E-safety report.

Shortstown Primary School

Pupil E-Safety Report 2015-16


Dear Parents/Carers,
KS1.
Over 60% of pupils have access to tablets at home with ds devices a close second. Around 25-30% have mobile phones. The majority of pupils feel safe using the internet at home and at school. Cyberbullying is not something many of them have encountered. Pupils enjoy playing a variety of games online as detailed in the table below.
KS2
All but one pupils in Y3-6 access the internet at home. Devices ranged from xbox/Playstation/wii to tablets and laptops with tablets being the most popular. On average 32% of Y3-6 have smartphones. A quarter of pupils in Year 5 spend 4 hours or more per day on the internet at weekends! A lot of pupils access social networking sites such as Facetime, Skype, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat, and YouTube is very popular with the majority of pupils. 45% of Year 6 pupils play games with PEGI rating 12 and over.
The majority of pupils knew who to speak to regarding being upset by anything that happened online at school.
Internet rules and internet safety is a very important part of parent-child communication including setting internet rules. This does not always happen, however, and the results showed quite a wide variation in the number of parents who discuss E-safety and set rules with their children. 36% or less in Year 4 and one Year 3 class.  Only around 20-30% of Y3-6 knew how to use privacy and security settings on social networks and less than half knew how to report or block content.  This is something that it is important for you as a parent to discuss with them and support them with when they have an issue.
The Safer Internet Centre has a wealth of resources for parents and carers to access, including easy to follow guidance on parental controls and social network safety tools. http://www.saferinternet.org.uk/advice-and-resources/parents-and-carers
Please just take a few minutes of your time to access this website and follow the advice to ensure that your child stays as safe as possible online.
Below is a table of some of the games that pupils play on the internet. The highlighted ones have a higher PEGI rating than the child’s age.  We understand that older siblings may have games with higher PEGI ratings at home and this is something that you need to discuss with your children when setting internet and E-safety rules.

I hope that you find this report both interesting and helpful.
Thank you to our E-Team for writing the surveys and carrying them out across the school.

C.G. McFarlane

E-safety Coordinator

Year group
Online games played.
1
Games, cbeebies, Transformers, Angrybirds, Star Wars, Peppa Pig, Lego Movie.
2
Cbbc, YouTube, Easimaths, BugClub, Firefox, Siri, Coolmaths, Netflix, Tinypop.
3
Halo, Animal King, Minecraft, GTA, SIMS, COD, MSP, Minion Rush, Destiny, Roblox, Capture the Crown.
4
Minecraft, cbbc, Monster legends, Exo zombies, Pacman, Plants vs Zombies, msp, cool maths games, Sumdog, Bug Club, Fifa, Messimaths, Makewaves, Minion Paradise, Lego marvel, COD, Mymaths, Subway surfer, Battlefield.
5
COD, Black Ops 3, MSP, Sumdog, Minecraft, Happy wheels, HayDay, BugClub, Coolmaths, Minion Rush, Animal Jam, Ninja, Bin weevils, Alien, Peppa Pig,
6
Coolmaths, Sumdog, Minecraft, RUA2, Uphill rush, Starwars, Terraria, Makewaves, COD, WWE2K, GTA, JetPack, YouTube





Wednesday 3 February 2016

Year 2 walk around Shortstown

Year 2 went on a lovely walk to observe human and physical features in Shortstown yesterday. We will use this to compare Shortstown to a village in South Africa- will they be similar?









Monday 1 February 2016

Year 2 get a visit from the firemen!

Year 2 enjoyed a safety talk and demonstration from the firemen today. They learnt the rhymes, "stop, drop and roll!", "lighters, matches, never touch; they can hurt you very much", and "get out, stay out and call the fire brigade out!" After the session the children all had a go at firing the engine's hose. Thank you to Kempston Fire Service for the opportunity.