We had an assembly from Google Be Internet Legends on Monday. The whole of KS2 became internet legends. The assembly told us how to make the most of the internet, how to make smart decisions.

To become internet legends we had to make the legends pledge after we found out all about Interland and how to stay safe online.

The legends pledge:

Children and parents can access Interland here – https://beinternetlegends.withgoogle.com/en_uk/interland

We will continue to use the pledge and Interland as part of our Online Safety Curriculum in KS2.

Following our excitement at winning third prize at the WASUP exhibition, on Saturday we went on to win first prize for our stunning icy ‘eco-themed’ carnival float! We also won first prize for our walking group thanks to our fabulous team of carnival dancers! This is a fantastic achievement! Thank you so much to all of the children, staff and parents who have helped. We are so proud, well done Team Rushall!!!

On Friday evening representatives from our school attended the launch of the WASUP exhibition at Walsall College. Schools from across the borough took part in the exhibition which promoted the WASUP campaign; “Walsall Against Single Use Plastic”, led by Professor Gatrad. The event was attended by many schools and representatives from local businesses and community groups as well as the Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street. Professor Gatrad explained to us that the campaign has become so successful it will now be known as “World Against Single Use Plastic”!

We were delighted to find that our tree, created with our eco-brick bottles, leaves and messages had won third prize! What an amazing achievement! Here we are proudly holding our trophy. Let’s hope our messages inspire others to stop using single use plastic as we have.

We are so impressed with the range and quality of enrichment homework that has come into school based on our whole school topic; ‘Americas’. From presentations and research projects to models and art work the level of engagement and detail is amazing!

We have learned so much about native Americans; from how their feathers were used as symbols, to how they believed dream catchers could catch the bad dreams and send good ones through the feathers to the children sleeping below.

Most of all we have learned how resourceful they were and how much they respected the earth and nature. We have learned that their messages about the earth and the environment are very pertinent today. Look out for our WASUP ‘Walsall Against Single Use Plastic’ sculpture exhibition entry, coming to the celebration blog soon!

We are delighted to have received the following letter from Timothy Littlehales of West Midlands Police regarding his visit to year 6 on Tuesday. Well done year 6, as Tim says you are a credit to our school and we are extremely proud of you!!

“Just a further note from my visit yesterday. What a pleasure it was to deliver the input to year 6 students. The behaviour was impeccable and the two way dialogue between themselves and myself was great. When we were speaking about the importance of community and what makes a good community and what can make a dangerous community they all had their hands up waiting to give me the answer.

We then moved onto knife crime and their knowledge that they had was very good and the awareness of knife crime incidents on the news and media was excellent. Even when I went on to talk about Joint Enterprise they were aware that they could all be in trouble for a particular offence and not just the person who committed the offence.

When I went on to talk about who can help in the community they were all coming out with Teachers/school, parents and family members, police, good neighbours etc but one young man said WHG ( Walsall Housing Group ) who helped his family to get a house, which was great as social housing organisations are also embedded in local communities and offer help and support and a raft of other initiatives.

If the rest of the students in the surrounding schools around Pelsall, Rushall and Aldridge are anything to go by your year 6 students then I do feel those locations will be in safe hands for the future.

What a credit to your school.

Regards Tim” 

Congratulations to Mollie and Harrison who are celebrating word ‘millionaire’ status! It is wonderful to see this enthusiasm and love for reading permeating through our school. Well done Mollie and Harrison, you are inspiring to us all to love reading and keep reading!

This week we have held our annual sports days. Our children have impressed us so much with their perseverance, tenacity and sportsmanship. We are incredibly proud of each and every one of them – Well done everyone!!

For some events points are collected towards our house teams and our trophy winners were announced in assembly this morning. Congratulations to blue team for winning the Key Stage One trophy, and to red team for winning the trophy for Key Stage Two! Our trophies will be displayed by our sports board in the lower corridor.

On Monday we launched the ‘5 minute walk zone’ here at Rushall. This initiative is to encourage families to park 5 minutes walking distance from school to enable their children to walk to school. We were very pleased that so many families participated and supported our efforts with this – thank you!! More of our children than ever are now walking to school resulting in cleaner air and less traffic on our school site.

We are very proud to announce our latest word millionaire; Dominic from year 6! Dominic received his book voucher, special pin badge and certificate in our ‘Star of the Week’ assembly this morning. Well done Dominic, this is a fabulous achievement!

Congratulations to Grace from year 5 who has completed a 5K Mud Run to raise money for cancer research. Grace successfully negotiated obstacles along the course of the race which ended with a mud slide! She has raised a fantastic £130. Well done Grace, we are very proud of you!