Great Ouseburn Community Primary School

Phoenix class had an excellent class visit to Ryedale Folk Museum. The children enhanced their knowledge of Vikings through workshops on weaving and pottery. They also looked around the historic buildings which really brought home the conditions that our ancestors lived in.

Children from the Griffins Class saw plenty of maths in action at Catterick races. We learnt about weights, measures and patterns in a working environmemnt. Then, we voted for the best turned out horse and we presented the winner's trophy. What a fantastic day!

Well done to all of Key Stage 2 for their excellent performance at the foortball tournament at Boroughbridge High School. All four teams had a fabulous time and tried very hard. Special congratulations go to the girl's team, who made it through to the next round.

Our fantastic Early Years area is now complete after being totally refurbished over the summer holidays.  We now have an outside play area connected to the Early Years classroom which allows the children free flow learning. The Unicorn classroom also had a makeover!

Great Ouseburn gardening club entered the RHS Sow and Grow gardening competition. They recieved a special achievement award for their Sow and Grow diary. They went on to win second prize for their completed garden box. They were presented with their awards at the Great Yorkshire Show, where a fabulous day was had by all.  

Great Ouseburn hosted an Inter Cluster Sports Day that was run by the 27 young leaders of the Sport's Council. The leaders organised a fantastic day of sport for 450 children. The events included rounders, handball and athletics. A massive thank you to all the young leaders and especially to the Ouseburn team for leading the project. 

All the children in the Griffin and Phoenix classes attended an instrumental day at Boroughbridge High School run by professional musicians. The day finished with a concert for all children to display what they had learnt.

The school were invited to take part in a county-wide art project that looked at the work of artist Yinka Shonibare. Inspired by what they learnt, the children produced some stunning pieces of work that were put on display at the Courthouse Gallery in Thirsk.

Children in KS2 ran in excess of 120 miles! An amazing achievement, raising a grand total of £750 for Sport Relief. All in their onesies too!

Great Ouseburn was thrilled to be awarded a grant as part of the GetSet Legacy Awards. This has allowed the school to establish a Sports Council of 27 Young Leaders from 9 local Primary Schools within our cluster. The leaders promote sport for all within their schools and organise events across the cluster. 

As part of children's book week, Conrad Burdekin visited the school and captivated the children by giving creative writing workshops to all the classes. The children then presented what they had learnt in an evening assembly to all the parents and staff at the school.

At the end of the Autumn term we received official notification from the Department of Education that we are ‘amongst the top performing primary schools this year’ due to our excellent rates of progress in our KS2 tests. Mr Law, Minister of State for Schools, went on to congratulate all staff, governors and pupils for their hard work and success. Please click on image above.

We were very proud to receive the news that Great Ouseburn Primary School had the highest rate of attendance in North Yorkshire for 2012 -2013. We know this is due the wonderful support from parents and the fact that we deliver an engaging and exciting curriculum to the children.

There was much squealing and jumping about when the email arrived at school to advise us that eight pupils were to travel to London on the day of the Olympic Opening Ceremony to act as a Guard of Honour for visiting athletes. We were asked to support Liberia who only had three competing athletes.  The children researched much about the country and created a fabulous banner which we took with us to London for the ceremony.   On the day, we met at York Station before travelling to the Olympic Park.  After a fantastic tour of the site we were given tea in the Copperbowl Arena which later became home to Handball and Gaollball during the games.  We were all issued with Guard of Honour T-shirts, along with an opening ceremony programme (which are now treasured possessions).  It was, without doubt an amazing opportunity for the children and they have all been inspired and enthused by the Olympic movement and its values.  Maybe, one day we will see one of our pupils on the gold medal podium! 

Through a generous donation from FOGOS, we were able to invite David Harmer, a nationally renowned poet, to our school.  All the children were inspired by his lively performances and class workshops. So much so, that children now avidly read poems in class to themselves and to each other!

In June, Great Ouseburn Primary School hosted an exciting inter-school sports event, made possible through a grant from the Olympic organisation, Get Set.Six local schools competed in our Pentathlon at Great Ouseburn Village Hall on the 25th June. Sports included archery, athletics, boccia, goalball and fencing and we were delighted when Tom Hildreth a local torchbearer attended and led our opening ceremony.Children from across the cluster were able to have their  picture taken with the torch and received autographs from Jo Ellis (GB hockey) and Caitlin Chang (GB Fencing) who presented medals as the children stood proudly on the podium with their school anthems playing.  The winning KS2 team (some of whom are represented below) came from Great Ouseburn who achieved an amazing four out of five team golds throughout the day.