The Durham Dales Federation is a federation of small rural primary schools, which was formed in September 2023. Staff from all schools work together to share expertise and to plan and deliver the curriculum. Our subject leaders co-ordinate their subjects across all the schools within our federation, which ensures that we can offer the same high-quality experiences to all pupils in our schools.
The Upper Dales schools of Wearhead and St John’s Chapel work together on a regular basis each week. At the start of the week, each school works in their own building and on Thursdays and Fridays, the schools come together on the St John’s Chapel Primary School site. On Federation days, we take advantage of the opportunities to work in larger groups with other children of the same age, and we often arrange visits and visitors for these days so that everyone can participate.
Hamsterley Primary In Forest School this afternoon, Class 1 made bird feeders using sticks, mud and birdseed. Then, we used an information sheet to see if we could identify different types of birds that we could see and hear. We made mud pies, and then toasted and ate marshmallows! Lots of fun was had by all.
View this PostSt John's Chapel & Rookhope This afternoon, we had great fun in Forest School. We cooked hotdogs on the fire and started to weed the planters in the garden.
View this PostHamsterley Primary School Well done to all of our star award winners this week! Henri received the star of the week award for class 2 this week for his outstanding effort in everything he does.
View this PostSt John's Chapel, Rookhope & Wearhead Congratulations to this week's award winners!
View this PostSt John's Chapel, Rookhope & Wearhead This afternoon, the children in KS2 have been practising their tennis skills in PE.
View this PostSt John's Chapel, Rookhope & Wearhead In Science, the children in year 5 and 6 have been learning about animal life cycles. They used PowerPoint to create three life cycles.
View this PostHamsterley Primary School In Science this week, Year 3 and 4 have been looking at classification and the different ways we can classify the animal kingdom. They sorted the animals into vertebrates and invertebrates and then we looked at how we could subdivide the vertebrates further. Year 5 and 6 The children looked at classifying heterogeneous and homogeneous mixtures and then carried out a sieving activity to separate three different mixtures.
View this PostHamsterley Primary School In our Computing lesson, Reception have been learning how to sort and categorise objects and discuss how items can be categorised. Our task was to order ourselves in height , shoe size, eye colour and age.
View this PostWearhead, St. John's Chapel & Rookhope In our French lesson this morning, we have been learning the names of classroom equipment. We had to read each card and match it to a picture of the object.
View this PostWearhead The EYFS children have enjoyed the rock pool activities in school this week. These have linked to 'Sally and the limpet', which is the book that we have been looking at and writing about.
View this PostWearhead Primary School Today, Class 2 have been looking at different types of agricultural land use in the UK. We watched a video, made notes and collated them into a whole class mind map. We then focused on investigating County Durham's distribution of allotments.
View this PostHamsterley Primary School In Science Reception have had a fun afternoon planning a trip to the beach. We have packed our beach suitcase with different items to take to the beach and discussed how to stay safe at the beach and safe from the sun
View this PostHamsterley Primary School Class 2 had a fantastic afternoon in Forest School! The children made bird feed and hung them from the trees, they made their own outdoor tap and had lots of fun in the mud kitchen. To finish off the session, the children toasted marshmallows.
View this PostSt John's Chapel, Rookhope & Wearhead Today, KS2 went to Baldershead Reservoir, to learn about uplands birds. The children used sound recording equipment to listen to and record the sounds around them. They also shared their knowledge about birds.
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