Welcome to the South America Year 6 Class Page. Here, you can find out about everything that we've been doing this year.
Friday 14th May
Over the last few weeks in Science lessons, we have been studying the life cycles of various different organisms, including flowering plants, insects, amphibians, birds and mammals. This week, we compared the gestation (pregnancy) times of a range of mammals, using a scatter-graph. Scientists use scatter-graphs to look for patterns in data, and we used ours to prove our predictions that the larger the animal, the longer the gestation time. Unlike the average scientist, we created a giant graph on the floor first, making decisions about how to scale the x and y axes, as well as placing Post-it note crosses on the carpet to show the positions of each data point. This really helped us to create our own graphs, when we moved on to working independently.
Did the scatter-graphs support our original prediction? There was, in fact, a ‘best-fit’ trend line that did show an increase in the length of gestation as animals get bigger. There were a couple of ‘outliers’ that didn’t fit the pattern though, but we were able to explain these – the kangaroo is a marsupial, and gives birth to a tiny joey after only a few weeks; and the black bear, although a placental mammal like us, gives birth early to cubs that are also under-developed.
Our geographical journey around the World has landed us in the steamy rainforest biome. We have been learning about the diverse range of plants and animals that have adapted to the different parts of this habitat, and with five distinct layers (ground, shrub, under-storey, canopy and emergent layers) there are some very interesting specimens. We worked in groups to research some of the characteristics, plants and animals of each layer, and then practised presenting our information. A little green-screen magic resulted in some great videos, which you can see below. It’s actually very hard to present to camera, but we focused on our performance toolkit (developed in our performance poetry English unit) and tried our best to speak clearly, make eye-contact and use expression in our voices.
Friday 30th April
All the lovey Spring flowers around have inspired our art recently, and to link with our History work about the Shang Dynasty, we have been creating some blossom paintings. In many Asian countries, cherry blossom is a symbol of happiness, hope and love; in China, it is also associated with strength and beauty. We used a variety of different techniques to create the paintings - based on the traditional hanging style - including colour washing to form the sky and ink blowing for the trees, and we even had a go at forming Chinese characters to represent the letters of our names. As you can see from the photos, the final effect is really eye-catching.
As we continue to explore different poets and their poetry in English, our performance skills and confidence have been growing - we have all been able to perform to at least a partner, but there have been many more volunteers this week to read aloud to the whole class. Pace, clarity and expression have all improved. Reading poetry can be also inspire us to write it; following our work on Jamaican patois last week, we looked at our region's own Geordie dialect and how it can be used in poetry. We then wrote our own Geordie poems about a special person, based on Valerie Bloom's 'Granny Is'. You can read a selection of them below.
It’s been a lovely start to the Summer Term, especially with the blue skies and warm sunshine. As a result, we’ve been out on the field every day, which has been wonderful, especially as we’ve enjoyed the first of our Athletics lessons in PE. Our focus was running, in particular improving our pace and stamina.
Strangely enough, both of those have been key aspects of our English lessons this week too, but in a somewhat different way – we have started a unit of Performance Poetry, beginning with the fantastic poems of Valerie Bloom. A Jamaican-born poet who lives in England, Valarie writes poems in many different styles, on a wide variety of themes, sometimes using the language of her childhood - Caribbean patois. After studying her poems and looking at their language, rhymes and rhythms, we then drew up a performer’s toolkit. This included looking our audience in the eyes, using expressive vocal tones and controlling our pace. We were given just a few minutes to practise a poem of our choice for performance, which needed a little stamina, as it was an effort to get the pace and expression right. Even the audience had a job to do though, as they had to pick out at least two positive stars from the toolkit to compliment the performers, and then follow it with a wish to help them improve. As you can see from the videos below, we tried really hard to draw from our performer’s toolkit.
What a lovely end to the term we've had, with lots of activities dedicated to the Easter theme. Our English lessons this week have all been about the Easter story, focusing on the Resurrection of Jesus, particularly what it meant to the early followers of Jesus, as well as its significance to Christians today. This led to a lot of thoughtful questioning and discussion, which helped us to understand the events of Easter Sunday and produced some great writing.
Egg decorating on Tuesday afternoon was a lot of fun - paint, card, feathers and the odd pipe cleaner were put to egg-cellent use to create all sorts of characters and creatures, as you can see from the photos.
There's no better way to round off a job well done, than a good party, and that's certainly what we had on the last day of term. A quiz, Easter Pictionary, a dancing game and several swings at a big silver pinata did the trick nicely. Here's to a well-earned rest and a lovely holiday!
It's been a really productive week in all areas, but particularly in English lessons, now that our brains are fully warmed up, and all our gears and cogs are well-oiled and spinning freely!
We finished our Warning Stories unit on Friday morning, ending with a read-aloud story session that everyone thoroughly enjoyed. We all feel a lot more confident with our sentence and paragraphing abilities now, and it was great to see so many characters come alive from the pages of our books - character feelings and reactions was something we explored with a little role-play; this really helped us to 'show emotions, not tell' in our writing.
Of course, it's not just the written word that has an impact on us - speaking and listening skills are just as vital throughout our lives. As we embark on our school-wide focus on oracy, South America Class made a great start, with a lively debate in our History lesson about the end of the Ancient Chinese Shang Dynasty. Once we had decided on our point of view, we took turns to give our opinion, agree with others, add to points made, or disagree completely. It was an experience to engage with each other in a more formal way; speaking formally is quite a skill, and as we continue to practise, we hope to become even better at discussing, listening and sharing our ideas.
This week sees us back in the swing of things, with a timetable full of busy lessons. It's been quite a while since we all did some writing together , so it was great to get our teeth into some good story-telling. Our English unit at the moment is all about 'warning stories', with an emphasis on creating a realistic setting. Two of our writer's tools for the job are to develop our characters' reactions to the setting and each other, and to use descriptive 'sentences of three'. We still have most of our stories to write, but here are a few examples of the tools being used successfully so far:
Sheer cliffs surrounded a massive hole, trees loomed over and a few graffitied containers were scattered around - Harry G
They set off along the narrow road; crisp packets were pinned to the thorny hedge, the sun illuminated the fly-filled sky and ice cream van music was blaring. - Hollie F
With an alarmed look in her eyes, Isobel ran after Flora, saying, "Flora, I don't think we should go in there - the sign says 'Danger'"
"Don't be such a baby," replied Flora in annoyance. "The woods are right there." Aryana S
Not long after, the found themselves pushing through trees and squelching in the mud. A loud scream came from behind Jessi, but Tiffany had only run into a cobweb.
"Scaredy-cat!" screamed Jessi, as she skipped away. Tiffany stomped her feet and raced after her, growling to herself. - Sarah N
"Come on!" Harry whined, as his friend slowly followed, reading a book. "We only have an hour until we need to go to class again."
"Okay, okay!" Hermione snapped, fed up with his annoying tone. - Jessica D
Friday 12th March 2021
What an amazing week we've had, here in South America class! It's so good to be back in school, enjoying the company and friendship of our fellow classmates. We've done lots of nice activities this week to settle us in, like yoga, mindfulness breathing activities and plenty of discussion about emotions and how we're feeling. One particularly relaxing activity was something called 'Take a Minute', in which we breathe slowly and then count down from 5: five things that we can see; four things we can hear; three that we can touch; two that we can smell; and finally, one thing that we can taste. Just doing this forces our brains to think about the here and now, rather than churn over things that might happen in the future which could make us anxious. As a reminder, we coloured in some 'Take a Minute' bookmarks (another great calming activity), some of which you can see below.
Our Science this term is about life cycles, and this week we began by revising our knowledge of flowering plants. Even though we looked at this in Year 4, there was an awful lot to catch up with! Who knew that flowers were such complex things, and had so many clever parts in them. Once the flowers have been pollinated by insects, birds or small animals, they develop fruit with seeds inside them. We wondered how long a seed could remain dormant ('asleep'|) before it could start to grow when it was planted. Some of us thought a seed would still germinate after a couple of months, while others reckoned seeds would last for up to two years.
Mr Saddington found some old seed packets in his allotment shed - some of them should have been planted a couple of years ago, but one packet of French beans should have been used by 2012! We decided to pop them into plastic cups with a little water to see what happens. We'll let you know how they get on.
What an amazing term! We've worked hard and played hard, and achieved so much. Even in our last week, we've been busy, coming to the end of units of work in Maths, Science and English lessons. Writing has featured quite a lot on our class page, but the final piece from our Highwayman unit this week really deserves the spotlight too. We were challenged to write the poem as a story, using what we have learnt over the term about suspense and flashback. You can see, from the following ordered excerpts, how well we've progressed in our use of figurative language:
Still to this day, we play the scene that occurred two centuries ago. When the ghostly moon sails in the jewelled sky, he comes back, like every year. We meet in the same place; we fall in love. Only some of the living see us. Ruby
I remember that soft moonlight glimmering in the jewelled sky; that bitter mist rippling around, as I saw that horrid criminal riding down the road, riding up to the old inn door. Rhianne
There she was – Bess, the landlord’s daughter. “There you are,” she exclaimed. “The man who rides in the wind, the man whose touch is so soft, he could rob you blind!” Natalie
Unable to reach the window, Bess untied her jet-black hair that went flowing out into the highwayman’s hands. Aryana
“I am off for a prize tonight Bess. If I don’t come back before midnight, I will come at dawn. One kiss is all I ask from you before I go,” he said. Jasmine
A stable boy listened to every breath and word they said to each other. His eyes were like hollows of madness, and he shook his head in disbelief. Sam
Little did they know that someone in the darkness was eves-dropping, someone who had eyes of jealousy, someone who couldn’t believe he was hearing this. But he had a plan. Aliyah
Hollows of madness are his eyes, ragged are his clothes, but his mind is devious and ready to fight back. Evie
All of a sudden, a claret-coated group of gruesome soldiers came marching over the purple moor. They barged through the wooden gate and into the old inn yard. Loading their guns, the men hammered on the door, until the old, scared landlord opened it. Sarah
“Get out! Get out!” shouted the landlord. The soldiers knocked out the landlord and locked him in the cellar. They set up hell at every window and death at hers. Jessica
Tears fall down my face as I stand like a porcelain doll in a window. Ruby
Down in the stable, Tim had jumped for joy, ever since he had spoken to the soldiers, but when Tim looked up into Bess’s window, he saw her shaking there. Tim sat down. What had he done? Athena
In the distant mist, the clatter of horse’s hooves came closer. Suddenly, the noise was so close that even Bess could hear! The redcoats were proud; their plan had worked!
However, Tim was excited because the plan was working and therefore, he closed the wicket and waited for the gunshot. There it was! The beloved gunshot! Harry P
The clock struck midnight, a gunshot echoed through the jewelled sky, as blood drained from the poor girl’s body. In an instant, the highwayman dug his boots into the sides of his horse and turned to the west. Hollie
Bess died. When the highwayman found out that Bess had died, he was crying too. Bobby
It wasn’t till the morning, that he heard. Heard how Bess shot herself las night. He could not believe it. Bess. Gone.
Back he went. Cursing to the sky, he road to the inn. Jessica
The soldiers heard the clattering of hooves and aimed towards the ribbon of moonlight. When the red-coated man appeared over the hill, they primed to shoot. Five gunshots rang clear in the blazing sunlight.
Only one silver bullet sped true. Only one silver bullet hit. Isaac
There have also been plenty of 'unusual' activities going on, as is only to be expected at this time of year; a special 'Well done!" goes to Athena and Sam, who, on Monday, played their parts in Emmaville's Nativity, a socially-distanced, but all-inclusive production. They were brilliant as Mary and Joseph, not only as superb actors, but also as confident donkey-handlers!
Watch the video using the link below, to get yourself into the mood for Christmas. Take care, enjoy the break, and best wishes to all.
We are nearing the end of our first term in Year 6, and some times it really feels like our brains are bursting with all the new ideas and knowledge that we have acquired over the last few months.
We have worked particularly hard in our Maths lessons, and this week, we've been getting to grips with the finer points of fractions. We mastered how to simplify fractions, using our knowledge of times tables (always an important tool); we learnt how to convert denominators to their lowest common multiples for addition and subtraction of fractions; and we were pleasantly surprised at how quickly we were able to multiply and divide fractions. Of course, the really tricky part in all this, is remembering which method is which, when we're solving a mixed bag of problems; we'll be working on that next week!
A big well done, too, to everyone in the class for their part in the performance of 'Teach the Children the Christian Belief of Christmas'. Check out the video using the link below.
Good grief, is it really that time of year already?! A rather exciting announcement, before we share our successes: you may remember that we entered a Christmas card design competition for our local MP, Liz Twist; well, the School Council had the honour of choosing the one entry for Emmaville, and they picked Maisey's stunning painting of angels over the Tyne Bridge. Not only that, but this week, we received an email from the office of Liz Twist, informing us that Maisey was indeed the overall winner! Huge congratulations to our talented artist - we can't wait to see what the finished cards will look like.
What with advent calendars and twinkly lights making their appearance in the classroom, we've needed little encouragement to get into the spirit of things, with some splendid winter poetry. Our friend and school governor, Melanie Cornish, set us all a festive poetry competition, which couldn't have come at a better time, following on the heels of our remembrance poetry and our work on the classic narrative poem The Highwayman. We reminded ourselves of the different types of poetry that we could write, from Japanese haiku and rhyming couplets, to acrostics, shape poems and free verse, before thinking about what inspires us about Winter and Christmas. The result was an amazing range of poems, in all different forms. What was impressive, was not just the quality of figurative language used, but the time taken to edit and re-edit our work, until it sounded just right.
Here are just a handful of the poems; please do take time to read them and appreciate their beauty.
Finally, continuing the poetry theme, here are a couple from our English lessons, based on two of the characters from the Highwayman poem. They explore contrasts between what others think of them and how they feel about themselves. The first is by Aliyah, and explores the character of Tim, the stable boy - a poor soul driven mad by his love for Bess, the landlord's daughter.
Some people may think I'm cold-hearted, a snitch who informs,
But deep down I care - my intentions were true.
Others see me as a madman, with eyes like deathly hallows,
But really, those eyes are of sadness, invisibility.
They see me as needy and jealous,
but I just want to be loved.
They think I am a fool,
But I am just hurt.
They believe I am selfish,
But I do what's best.
They think I am idiotic for what I did,
But in the looking-glass, I see a man who just wants to be loved.
The second poem is by Isaac, and focuses on the ill-fated character of Bess, who sacrificed herself for the Highwayman:
Some see a selfish gold-digger,
But I am really loving and caring,
Yet locals think my greed is the strongest part of me.
People say I'm unintelligent; they only see bad in me.
They are blind to the real me, and instead a monstrous fool replaces my character,
But in the looking-glass, I see a brave and bold girl.
Friday 27th November
Some people think that science is all about rockets and explosions. Actually, this week, it was. We've been investigating forces in our Science lessons, and our force of choice on Wednesday was gas pressure. This is caused when gas particles hit the walls of their container. The more often the particles hit the walls, and the faster they are moving when they do this, the higher the pressure. If the container is one of those little tubs that 35mm film comes in, and the gas is carbon dioxide produced by a fizzing denture tablet in some water, then it isn't long before the pressure in the sealed tub soon builds up enough to cause a small explosion, sending the tub rocketing upwards.
Once we'd recovered our composure, we realised that there were several elements of this exciting chemical reaction that we could investigate: the volume of water in the tub; the amount of tablet; and the temperature of the water. We worked in small groups to plan, predict and then carry out fair tests, recording our results in tables, to spot patterns and hopefully prove our initial hypotheses. Whichever variable we tested, the main result was a lot of fun, as you can see from the photos.
Wow, that was a quick week! Despite time flying, we seem to have fit in so much excellent work: our maths is progressing very well, as we have been getting to grips with fractions of all shapes and sizes. It's all in the times tables, you know, and two of our top TT Rockstars were awarded justly today - Jessica received a very sparkly medal as the runner up in the last TTRS battle, whilst Aliyah was the proud recipient of a stunning glass trophy for her herculean efforts in the same competition. There will be another battle soon, and the running for places will be fiercely contested again, no doubt.
Another writing unit came to a close this week - a flashback fairy-tale that tested our abilities to control tenses, paragraphs and our descriptive language. There are some superbly-creative minds in our class, and our writing has really stepped up a level in recent weeks. Here are a few snippets of poetic prose, lifted from the pages of our stories:
As the sun's rays fade away, I begin to walk across the bridge and all of a sudden, a troll jumps out and doesn't let me pass. He has bone-like arms that are covered in hair and continuously block me from my brothers, who are eating the lovely green grass on the other side. Harry P
The three pigs can see pupils like bullet holes, draining their souls, pearl white teeth ready to kill and a blood-stained muzzle about to bite. The wolf smashes the windows and the lights go out. Jessica
It all started a few hours ago, when that same full moon hit my eyes. I asked to go to my grandma's house, to deliver some warm apple pie before it got even darker. On the way, I picked a bunch of lilies and bluebells that smelt like perfume. I got them to put in a colourful, patterned vase on Grandma's mantle piece next to the fire. Maddie
He walked out of the house and got the cow. It had been tied up with a rope outside of the home. The cow looked sad and didn't want to leave, but it was their only hope, since they weren't like the other families and lived in a shack outside the woods, in the middle of nowhere. Jasmine
Sure enough, the little pig was sat on his dusty straw bed, and a snarl came from outside. He looked out of the window, and there it was: a great, big, amber-eyed wolf. The youngest pig screamed in terror. Charlie
It was dark when I got home; Ma scolded me for taking so long, but when she saw the beans, she was furious. She sent me to bed with two bread crusts! I looked out of the window and my five beans glimmered in the soft moonlight. Maisey
As if that wasn't enough creativity, have a look at our designs for the competition being run by our local MP Liz Twist. She sends out lots of Christmas cards every year, and wants to choose a piece of artwork for this year's cards, created by the children of primary schools in the area. We thought about celebrating our local landmarks in our designs, and there were some fantastic ideas, as you can see.
Wednesday's two minute's silence was preceded by a very moving performance of the Last Post, played by Mrs Lawrence. The notes that drifted down the corridor to our classroom inspired us to think about the sacrifices of those who have fought in wars - sacrifices made so that we can enjoy our freedoms today. As well as the poppy wreath we made last week, we spent time writing remembrance poetry. Our English work on powerful descriptive writing certainly helped, and some of our verses are truly moving. Here are just a few...
Our week ended with the ever-cheerful Joe Wicks, as he completed his 24-hour workout challenge in aid of Children in Need. We joined him live for his last fitness session (some of us in Pudsey-themed clothes and pyjamas) and were amazed to see his final total of over £1.5 million. This will do amazing things for the good causes that the charity supports, and it's good to know that our school will add to that total - South America class contributed over £40 this morning, which is fantastic.
Remaining with the Children in Need theme, we had some mouth-watering entries to the school's baking competition. A 'jolly well done' to those that spent time being creative in the kitchen, but there can only be one winner - and the prize goes to Athena's Pudsey cake. Well done Athena!
Art is good for the soul, so we make no apologies for sharing a little more of our creativity this week. Just before half term, the Co-op in Crawcrook kindly left us with some 'scratch art' pumpkins to decorate for their shop window, with the incentive of a prize (not that we need a prize to motivate us to use our imaginations). You can see the varied and wonderful results in the photos below.
It was with more than a little excitement then, that we greeted Miss Armstrong at the beginning of this week, when she came to the door of our classroom holding a prize bucket of goodies. These went to Maddie for her spooky graveyard scene.
As you can see, however, Maddie has been the fortunate winner of yet another competition! This one was for the design of a Healthy Packed Lunch - after thinking about the important food groups and how these could be combined in a healthy meal, we designed and labelled our own packed lunch that contained representatives from these groups. Maddie was presented today with a rather smart lunch coolbag, specially embossed with our own school logo.
Finally, to commemorate this year's Remembrance Day, we - along with the rest of the classes in the school - have created a poppy wreath for our door. The poppies were assembled from petals which we created individually, to form beautiful flowers that look very life-like. Quite a few skills were practised along the way, including colour-wash painting, cutting, folding, precision sticking and even some paper curling, but we're sure you would agree that the finished wreath is worthy of any memorial.
We had a very creative end to our half term, as we brought our Design and Technology unit to a glittering culmination. To compliment our study of World War One in History lessons, we looked at the cap badges of soldiers who fought on the battlefield and the medals that were awarded to them. After looking at different examples from the Great War and visually 'disassembling' them into their component parts (who knew that the British Army were so fond of mythical creatures?), we decided on our own emblems, animals, shapes and ribbons, and re-assembled them into our very own designs. A lesson in using paper prototypes helped us to decide on our final proposals; this was followed by some tricky cutting of card and assembling into three-dimensional 'decoupage' medals. Some careful metallic painting was followed by a crash-course in sewing (from threading a needle to running stitch and backstitch in one lesson!) so that we could sew a loop into a length of ribbon to finish our medals. As you can see, some serious skills have been demonstrated, and every one of us deserves a medal for our efforts.
Continuing our PE theme, we have been honing our passing and throwing skills, as we have now started our first unit of netball. Again, there has been quite a steep learning journey; our first lesson revealed that we needed to improve our passing and throwing skills, not to mention trying not run with the ball! By our third lesson today, however, we were actually demonstrating some great moves, working together in our teams to pass the ball around the court (without 'travelling'). Honourable mentions go to Aliyah, Rhianne and Maisey who managed to score a few nets between them. Next week, we will be learning the specifics of the different positions.
We finished our athletics unit in PE this week (for the time being), having learnt techniques to improve our sprinting, discus and shot put. It's always nice to see improvements in our performance, so with that in mind, we recorded some initial performances at the start of the term. The most impressive gains were seen in our shot puts, as, after learning how to properly hold the shot (resting on the fingers, not the palm, and throwing arm at right angles to our neck), how to move to create the greatest momentum (start low, facing the ground, then twisting our bodies up and round) and how to finish (high, at an angle of 45 degrees), we all showed huge improvements in distances thrown. Some of us started with throws of around 3 metres, but ended up at more than 6 or 7 metres. Our future Olympian, however, may well be Jessica, with a final put of 11 metres!
Friday 2nd October
Our first English writing unit was focused on the techniques needed for creating suspense, and this week has seen the culmination of all that we have learnt since the start of term. Our lessons have been based around two characters from the fantastic book 'Wolf Brother' by Michelle Paver, with our own writing inspired by a scene in which our main character is terrified by an unknown threat, whilst a secondary character makes its way to help. Today, we had a celebration of our completed stories, with readings aloud to the class. The tense atmosphere was helped when the house lights were dimmed and the spotlight switched on, but as you can see from the chronological series of excerpts under the photos, the quality of writing was enough to send shivers down the spine!
It was late when Bradley made his way to the abandoned desert. The bleak pathway disappeared in the dry sand. The dead trees stared at him from above. Dust whipped him in the face, as he tried to fight through the rocks hidden by the sand, tripping him over into the dust. Sarah N
Kylie roamed around the forest, trying to find an exit, but with all the trees, it was almost impossible to escape or see the sky. She slouched in between two colossal roots. All of a sudden, a monstrous storm rolled in, and a gust of wind sent shivers down her spine. Ruby B
The sky darkened and grey clouds come in. Suddenly, zig-zag lightning flashed through the clouds, leaving holes in the tall grass. Sam T
Vanya heard a deafening scream in the distance, echoing in her mind; her body tensed and her fists clenched. All of a sudden, the leaves started to rustle. Her teeth began to chatter and her hands and feet were getting pins and needles. Aliyah A
Aryanah’s heart was thumping. There it was again, that rustle. Then a boom. The ground shook viciously – she thought an earthquake was coming. Charlie B
A few miles away Momo was in the distance, calling for Rosie. Momo adored the wind. It pushed him closer towards Rosie, as she was swinging from tree to tree, faster and faster. Bobby M
Gracie raced with the storm, danced with the storm; she felt one with the storm. The night sky glittered above her, swirling in beautiful patterns with oranges, blues and purples. Evie B
A colossal lion arose out of the long grass, its were teeth daggers. Its bloodshot eyes gleamed around, picking out the bitter stillness. He heard a small but sharp shriek, and as the lion ran towards the sound, Esmund ran in the opposite direction Harry P
While running, she saw the beady red eyes, the teeth like knives and the black body like the night sky. She ran and ran after the bear. Mia finally had to stop to regain energy, then she could not see it. She hung her head. Then she heard a bark. It was Moon! Jessica D
Friday 25th September
How quickly time passes! It's been a very busy week, what with getting to grips with place value and numbers up to ten million in Maths, writing cracking sentences to show suspense in English, learning about land biomes in Geography and designing some WW1 medals in Design and Technology, amongst other things. This half term's Science has been very practical so far, and we've been working with our learning partners to find out about properties and changes of materials. We've been mixing, sieving, filtering and dissolving with a range of materials, as you can see from the photographs.
What a great start to the new school year! We've all settled back into life at Emmaville with plenty of enthusiasm, albeit with some slightly different routines to get used to. Our first week in South America Class included lots of lively discussion, fun playground games, plenty of art activities, and even some writing and maths activities. It's been so nice to spend time with friends again, and all of us have enjoyed being in the classroom once more.
Say hello to our own strange 'avatars' that will soon be racing around our Accelerated Reading challenge board; a quick flick through the odd assortment of cartoon characters, superheroes and a very strange smattering of princesses and fairies, will give you a flavour of our sense of humour!
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2.6 Session IP addresses are retained to monitor and safeguard against improper usage of our services.
2.7 Content on the platform (added by staff, governors and students) and website content is added directly by School Users. This information is only used for to display on the platform in the way the user intends and is not used for any other purposes by eSchools. At a time when a school ceases to use our services the content is removed within a 14 day period as detailed in our agreement with the school.
2.8 Some of our services require the school to provide access to information they require for use with those services. For example a school using our communication tool, Letters Home, which enables schools to contact parents by email regarding important school information. In this situation a school will provide eSchools with access to the email address(es) they wish to send their communication to. Schools have granular access to ensure only the required data is shared and accessed by eSchools. The data is frequently updated to ensure that eSchools only retains up-to-date data.
3. Using your personal information
3.1. We may use your personal information to:
administer our services
enable your use of our services
troubleshoot and problem solve
send you email notifications that you have specifically requested. You can manage your preferences at anytime through your eSchools dashboard.
keep our services secure, safeguard against improper use of our services and prevent fraud.
3.1.1. For the purposes of providing you access to your eSchools platform and app (ie. forgotten password/login)
3.1.2. By registering for updates, School Staff/Governors are able to subscribe to our regular communications.
3.1.3. We will use any contact details supplied in an online form for the purposes explicitly detailed in said form. For example troubleshooting and problem solving or the provision of live online training as explicitly requested by you, the user.
3.2. We will not, without your express consent, supply your personal information to any third party for the purpose of their or any other third party's direct marketing.
3.3. eSchools understands our obligation to be mindful about the data we process and only process data that is required to fulfil our obligations in providing our services; to a school who enters into an agreement to use our services and you, the user.
3.4. We will not pass your information to third parties; except for the purpose of fulfilling our services to a school who enters into an agreement to use our services and you, the user or where we are required to do so by law.
4. Disclosing personal information
4.1 We may disclose your personal information to any of our employees, officers, insurers, professional advisers, agents, suppliers or subcontractors insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this policy.
4.2 We may disclose your personal information:
to the extent that we are required to do so by law;
in connection with any ongoing or prospective legal proceedings;
in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk);
to any person who we reasonably believe may apply to a court or other competent authority for disclosure of that personal information where, in our reasonable opinion, such court or authority would be reasonably likely to order disclosure of that personal information;
to the school in the case of improper use on the platform by individuals
4.3 Except as provided in this policy, we will not provide your personal information to third parties.
5. International data transfers
5.1. Data directly collected by eSchools may be stored and processed in and transferred between any of the countries in which we operate in order to enable us to use the information in accordance with this policy. Any third party we use is within the EEA or they hold an existing EU SCC, as in line with requirements under the GDPR. No other third party are permitted to access the school’s data.
5.2. Personal information that an individual adds to our websites may be available, via the internet, around the world. We cannot prevent the use or misuse of such information by others.
6. Retaining personal information
6.1. This section sets out our data retention policies and procedures, which are designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations in relation to the retention and deletion of personal information.
6.2. Personal information that we process for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.
6.3. Data collected through analytic cookies will be retained for 26 months. Individual visitors can adapt the data collected through cookie preferences, as mentioned in 2.4.
6.4. Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Section 6, we will retain documents (including electronic documents) containing personal data:
To the extent that we are required to do so by law;
If we believe that the documents may be relevant to any ongoing or prospective legal proceedings; and
In order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk). Data will no longer be kept after the termination of the contract with the school.
7. Security of your personal information
7.1. We will take reasonable technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information.
7.2. We will store all the personal information you provide on our secure (password- and firewall-protected) servers. The web service we employ has a broad range of accreditations and certifications and the data centres used ensure the data stays within the EEA.
7.3. eSchools use a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) which creates a secure connection and uses two keys to encrypt data in transit. Despite this, you acknowledge that the transmission of information over the internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data.
8. Amendments
8.1. We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version on our website.
8.2. You should check this page regularly to ensure you are aware of any changes to this policy.
9. Your rights
9.1. You may instruct us to provide you with any personal information we hold about you.
9.2. We may withhold personal information that you request to the extent permitted by law.
9.3. You may change your cookie preferences at any time as referenced in 2.4.
9.4. School Staff/Governors who subscribe to our Newsletter may manage their preferences at any time through their eSchools dashboard.
10. Third party websites
10.1 Our websites may include hyperlinks to, and details of, third party websites. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, the privacy policies and practices of third parties.
11. Updating information
We will only provide communication about the eSchools platform to school staff/governors who can manage their preferences at any time through their eSchools dashboard.
Part 2: Cookie Policy
Last Edited: 22nd April 2021
This Cookie Policy explains how eSchools use cookies and similar technologies in our Services. It explains what these technologies are and why we use them, as well as your rights to control their use.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small data files that are placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. Cookies are widely used by online service providers in order to (for example) make their websites or services work, or to work more efficiently, as well as to provide reporting information.
Cookies set by the website owner or service provider (in this case, eSchools) are called “first party cookies”. Cookies set by parties other than the website owner are called “third party cookies”. Third party cookies enable third party features or functionality to be provided on or through the website or service you are using (such as advertising, interactive content and analytics). The third parties that set these third party cookies can recognise your computer both when it visits the website or service in question and also when it visits certain other websites or services.
Why do we use cookies and other tracking technologies?
We use first party and third party cookies for several reasons. Some cookies are required for technical reasons in order for our Services to operate, and we refer to these as “essential” cookies. Other cookies enable us and the third parties we work with to track and target the interests of visitors to our Services, and we refer to these as “advertising” or “analytical” cookies. For example, the embedding of YouTube and Vimeo videos, as added by individual schools, will require “advertising” cookies to be enabled in order to successfully play them. Schools that, for example, opt to track visitor data using Google Analytics will require “analytical” cookies to be enabled in order to do so. These third party cookies are used to tailor content and information that we may send or display to you and otherwise personalise your experience while interacting with our Services and to otherwise improve the functionality of the Services we provide. We also enable schools to employ cookies and similar tracking technologies in connection with their use of our Services in order to allow them to track visitors to and interactions with their school website.
How eSchools Uses Cookies
eSchools websites may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us and to enrich your user experience. The cookies differ depending on the information. You can adapt your cookie preferences, although please note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer. We will not, without your express consent, supply your personal information to any third party for the purpose of their or any other third party's direct marketing.
User Embedded Content
Our Services allows schools to embed code which may potentially contain cookies. Please note embedded content, if displayed on one of our websites, has been added by the school and not by eSchools. The embedded content added by the school may require additional cookies or tracking technologies to be enabled in order to function.
How can I control cookies?
You have the right to decide whether to accept or reject cookies. Be aware that cookie preferences are set on a per device basis; therefore you may need to set your preferences on each device you use.
Initial cookie pop-up banner: You can exercise preferences about what cookies are served on our Websites by selecting your preference from this modal which appears upon visiting an eSchools website/login screen and dashboard. You can also change your cookie preferences by clicking on the link on the footer of any page. The banner will reappear annually (August 31st to coincide with the academic year) to confirm your settings.
Browser Controls: You can set or amend your web browser controls to accept or refuse cookies. If you choose to reject cookies, you may still use our Websites though your access to some functionality and areas of our Websites may be restricted. As the means by which you can refuse cookies through your web browser controls vary from browser-to-browser, you should visit your browser’s help menu for more information.
Disabling Most Interest Based Advertising: Most advertising networks offer you a way to opt out of Interest Based Advertising. We will not, without your express consent, supply your personal information to any third party for the purpose of their or any other third party's direct marketing. If you would like to find out more information, please visit aboutads.info/choices or youronlinechoices.com.
Mobile Advertising: You can opt out of having your mobile advertising identifiers used for certain types of Interest Based Advertising, by accessing the settings on your Apple or Android mobile device and following the most recent published instructions. We will not, without your express consent, supply your personal information to any third party for the purpose of their or any other third party's direct marketing.
How often will you update this Cookie Statement?
We may update this Cookie Statement from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to the cookies we use or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons. Please therefore re-visit this Cookie Statement regularly to stay informed about our use of cookies and related technologies. The date at the bottom of this Cookie Statement indicates when it was last updated.
Where can I get further information?
If you have any questions about our use of cookies or other technologies, please email us at support@.eschools.co.uk.