On Wednesday 4th of October 2017 a group of children were chosen to go on the single greatest trip in the history of Gosforth East Middle school, (in my opinion anyway!). For this trip the children travelled in an awesome minibus (shame we couldn’t travel in the bus lanes) driven by Mr Dowman to the Stadium of Light in Sunderland.
Get your running shorts and trainers on, and get your legs nice and warmed up, because we’re going for a cross-country run, and, yes, as usual, across the whole of England!
Just kidding.
Is cross-country running the most tiring thing that I have ever done? Probably.
But did I actually cross the country? Unfortunately, no. (technically, “hooray!” because I would have died of exhaustion if I had run the KS3 2110m course instead of the KS2 1550m one).
Instead, the racing “track” was set in a medium-sized field with a small hill. Yes, we had to run uphill and downhill as well, just to make the running distance seem twice as long as it actually is, and to tire you out even more.
Despite this, GEMS’s strong squad of over 30 runners, still tried their best, competing against other KS2 and KS3 athletes from the district, and Ethan even managed to come 7th, and Teodora also came 10th and both are through to the County Championships.
After the races, most of us probably had sore legs, and perhaps have felt that we could have done better. But after a while, you look back and think, “Whoa, I never knew I could manage to run all of that course!”, and you feel like you’ve actually achieved something.
By Jessica Year 6
On Friday 29th of September there was a brilliant treat for students, teachers and parents alike!
There was tea, coffee, juice and, very importantly, cakes of all shapes and sizes! Parents showed up and got to enjoy a cake, coffee and a chat!
There were also stalls selling various brilliant crafts some of which were these fantastic mugs (Right).
There was also a gingerbread character making competition with some interesting entries including Dumbledore and an unseasonable Rudolph. The winners were James, Kirsten and Tarika who all won 10 Iris points.
Fourteen pupils from GEMs had the opportunity of visiting GE Oil and Gas. However, these pupils were all females, this is because engineering in general is thought to be a man’s job, but as I and these other girls learnt, it really isn’t! The majority of engineering companies are looking to employ young, ambitious students and more females; especially GE Oil and Gas.
The whole of Year 5 and 6 went to the Theatre Royal to see Michael Rosen perform. Mrs Collister’s class had the good fortune of being in the boxes in the Grand and Upper Circles. Two of the poems he performed were “No Breathing “and “Chocolate Cake”. The event took place on Friday 22nd of September in the Theatre Royal in Newcastle.
On Thursday 5th October, we were greeted into the hall with a lovely song about harvest.
We celebrated that day by exploring the meaning of ‘harvest.’ Harvest obviously refers to the harvesting of crops in autumn but we were encouraged to think more broadly about the EARTH that produces our food, the need to SHARE what we have with the people who have less and to think about and feel compassion from our HEART for the people in other countries and at home who know what it is to STARVE.
On the 21st September, GEMS had very special visitors that came all the way from Uganda, The Pearl of Africa Children’s Choir. In the morning, the phenomenal Pearl of Africa Children’s Choir gave our whole school a taste of Uganda as they performed a stunning singing, dancing and drumming show. During the rest of the day they ran exclusive workshops for sixty lucky pupils. The activities were, singing, dancing and drumming.
In June, the GEMS creator contest in Geometry Dash was launched by a group of Year 7s through The Key. The aims of the contest were:
To test the creativity of the contestants; to help some pupils improve their creator skills; to promote the use of computer skills in school.
On the 23rd of June, 6 Year 8s and 9 Year 6s went on a trip to Heworth Leisure Centre and Better Extreme in Benwell as part of The Key project (which has been explained in previous newsletters).
They left at 9:15, the Key group and the friends they had invited along, and travelled by minibus to Heworth Leisure Centre to go swimming and surfing. The swimming pool was almost completely deserted and the group thoroughly enough the surfing machine-or the Flowrider. The Flowrider is a thrilling surfing simulator that brings all of the fun of surfing without the fear of drowning! No-one stayed on the board for very long, apart from Maizy.
We had lots of fun watching different movies on the 7th of July. Everyone who was in school chose a movie to watch and went to the classroom it was in or went to the hall. For the whole afternoon we watched one movie eating our popcorn and crisps… Some of the movies we got to watch were: Tangled, The secret life of pets, Moana, Lego Batman, Goodnight Mister Tom, Jungle book and Matilda.
Did you know that whenever you buy anything online - from your weekly shop to your annual holiday - you could be collecting free donations for GEMS?
There are over 3,000 shops and sites on board ready to make a donation, including Amazon, John Lewis, Aviva, The Trainline and Sainsbury's - it doesn't cost you a penny extra!
It's as easy as 1,2,3..........
1. Click on the link below and join for free.
2. Every time you shop online, go to easy fundraising first to find the site you want and start shopping.
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There are no catches or hidden charges and we would be so grateful if you could use this fabulous and easy way to help us raise valuable funds for school.
Thank you in anticipation, for your support.
https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/gosfortheastmiddleschool/
