Yesterday, Year 1 visited the Butterfly Farm in Stratford-Upon-Avon! We saw a variety of beautifully coloured butterflies, some of which even landed on us. We learned about the amazing life cycle of a butterfly and saw some of the world's largest and most camouflaged caterpillars, giant silk moths and their cocoons. When we visited the casing, we could see a butterfly beginning to hatch from its pupa! We had a fantastic time strolling through the wonderful world of the tropical, rainforest environment, with beautiful flowers, different animals, splashing waterfalls and fish filled pools. The children had a fantastic time exploring, playing and learning about lots of different creatures and minibeasts!

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Our overall attendance this week was 93.8%

Year 2 were transported to Florence Nightingale’s hospital for a day of exciting learning. We were amazed by the incredible array of nurses and doctors who arrived ready for hospital school. Pupils loved making their own Fanoos lantern, before conducting a hospital inspection and making their own medals to celebrate the incredible work of Florence Nightingale. We were impressed to hear the links that pupils made between our own school values and nursing values. This was a great opportunity for us to discuss the importance of the British Value of respect. A fantastic day was had by all!

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Last night, Smith's Woods very own junior artists from, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, took on the House Art competition, the children had a fantastic time competing to produce a 'school values tree' that represents their house and our school values! Well done to the SPIDER HOUSE for coming 1^st place!

The children in Year 1 have gone back in time learning about the past. We have travelled through time, learning about castles in the Middle Ages, making split-pin knights, and practising Medieval dancing; learning about Victorian toys and building a paper boat that we tested on water; learning about dinosaurs and creating playdough dinosaurs; learning about volcanoes and conducting an experiment; and learning about Egypt and creating our very own Tutankhamun mask to take home.

Finally, we learned about the history of chocolate and produced our very own chocolate bar wrapper! Then, we ate some chocolate as well as drank some chocolatey milk. What a wonderful time we had, and as quoted by Evie "I don't want this club to end!"

Smith’s Wood once again cemented their legacy as the home of rowing. Yesterday Smith’s Woods most elite rowers took centre stage at the Regional School Games Regatta! The greatest performers from all around the region put their best oar forward in a chance to gain immortal glory in the halls of the rowing gods! Words cannot begin to describe the immense pride we as a school feel for our super talented pupils. During the competition all Smith’s Wood pupils showed momentous amounts of perseverance and determination, in pursuit of a Gold medal, every pupil shattered their personal bests and can hold their head high with pride that they could not have done any more!

In the face of fierce competition, our boys team secured a mightily impressive 4^th place victory out of a staggering 14 elite teams. Later in the day, our year 5 team blew the competition out of the water with their rapid changeovers to secure a well-deserved 1^st place Gold medal! Coming in like a speedboat, our girls team put in a polished and professional performance utilising the perfect trio of technique, power and fitness to generate an insurmountable lead securing another 1^st place Gold medal.

A special mention to Smith’s Woods own rowing goddess Joeliyn who rowed an incredible 395M in 90 seconds making her the highest performing rower at the entire event!

Huge congratulations and a big thank you to all teams, who have dedicated themselves to intensive training and maintained a positive mental attitude throughout the whole process. Come rain or shine, inside or outdoors our fantastic rowers have put in the work and have reaped the rewards.

For more pictures from the competition, please see our gallery