On Friday 16th of March year 6experienced an amazing opportunity to build a bridge out of nuts, bolts, paper and glue.  There challenge was to successfully make a bridge strong enough to support a toy truck. Before we could start the engineers told us about engineering and how to design bridges.  Everybody worked extremely hard and did there best, each person thought of a different idea and all succeeded.  It was hard for the engineers to decide which team had the best design. The awards were given to the team with the strongest structure, the most attractive bridge and the most bizarre bridge!  All of year six enjoyed themself’s.   

I think we have discovered a few potential engineers in year 6!

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Reporter: Sydney Carney

This was the first time that Talavera had attended the Festival of Running, held at Yateley School. The team looked very smart in their new T Shirts, which had been supplied by the Parents’ association (pictured above). Thanks must go to them for supplying these as they looked the smartest school there.
Talavera had 4 runners in the ‘League Fun Run’ and performed extremely well in the two races. In the Championship Races Talavera had two teams of 6 (Boys and Girls). This was a tough race but both teams performed exceptionally well and achieved new heights!
The results were as follows:
League Fun Run:    Girls’ Race:    4th Yasmine Dean
                    21st Ashleigh Spence
            Boys’ Race:    2nd DJ Forrester
                    7th Lewis Sharpe
Championship Race:    Girls’ Race:    3rd Iasbaelle Bate
                    10th Sally Campbell
                    13th Jemma Field
                    18th Ixa Nembang
                    26th Tyla Clinch
                    38th Sian Walker
                    TEAM RESULT – 2nd PLACE
            Boys’ Race:    2nd Shamar Moore
                    4th Troy Baker
                    5th Brandon Spence
                    9th Kye Bowman
                    11th Joshua Lee
                    13th Nathan Riddler
                    TEAM RESULT – 1st PLACE
This was an outstanding set of results and an absolutely wonderful afternoon for Talavera! Well done!
A quote from the organiser:
‘I must say, if you had been allowed a ‘B’ team, I suspect your boys may have come first as well! Not only did your students run well, but their behaviour was excellent!
Mr Ben Bentley

We are delighted to be able to share with you that we have been successful in our application for a grant to build a Community Room from the Community Covenant Grant Scheme with the Minstry of Defense.

This is a really exciting opportunity to have more room space on the Talavera site for children, parents and staff. We hope this means we can introduce a breakfast club, a toddler afternoon and other community activities. We do not expect the room to be ready for use before September and welcome thoughts and ideas of how we can use it.  We will share with you more detail of this existing project as we progress.

Once we had given short performances to our groups we went into the main Globe Theatre and were given a potted history of the site.
“It was a great trip, I particularly enjoyed seeing the top floor of the Theatre” Sean, Year6.

If you have not seen The Globe before, this is what it looks like.  Hope you enjoy my photos. Lucy in Year 6.

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Pupils begin school year with a bang

Children at an Talavera Junior School got their new school year off to a bang last week by taking part in a dragon dancing workshop.

Welcome back to the new school year! We hope you all enjoyed a very good summer holiday and had time to rest and relax. A special welcome to all children who have joined us this term, we hope this is the beginning of a successful home school partnership with us working together to do the best for your child during their time at Talavera. This year we hope to have more opportunity for parents to be involved in school to enable you to find out more about what the children are learning and how you can help at home. We have also planned for year group assemblies that parents will be invited too so that the children can share some of their work and activities through the year.

Dates of all this years events will be on the web-site and in our first newsletter.

We have new staff who have joined us this term. Miss Musgrove is working with 6JM, Miss Barker with 5KB, and Miss Cutforth in 3MC. Mrs Goacher, Mrs Carroll and Mr Bentley will be covering the teacher’s PPA (Planning, Preparation and Assessment time).

Exciting news! We are delighted to share with you that Mrs Furzland has had a baby boy! Baby Edward arrived a little early but both Mother and son are doing very well. Mr Furzland is taking his paternity leave and will be with 4MF in a couple of week’s time. Mrs Gill, a supply teacher well known to the children in 4MF will be working with them until Mr Furzland’s comes back.

All the children have made a very positive start to the new term. I am so very proud of them in their very smart uniform looking absolutely great. All the children returned wearing black school shoes. Thank you. Despite the rainy weather we have all enjoyed a very good day and everyone has shown a determined attitude and much enthusiasm to do their best. Excellent!

A reminder that my door is always open; if you have any worries or concerns or celebrations to  share; do please come and speak with me.

With best wishes,

Helen Barden

Headteacher

We are really delighted to be able to tell you the most wonderful news, Talavera Junior is out of special measures!!

Our recent HMI visit on the 6th and 7th July became a full Ofsted inspection that reviewed many aspects of the schools work and looked in detail at a number of key areas and judged that the ‘school no longer requires special measures because it has a good capacity to continue to move forward.’

We would like to celebrate some of the key phrases written in the report:-

‘The quality of teaching has dramatically improved’
‘behaviour is good’
‘In the last two terms there is a clear difference in the pride pupils are taking in their books’
‘In many lessons pupils concentrate intently on their work’

‘I am so proud of everyone in the school. Each member of the staff has worked truly hard to do the best for the children and the school, and together we are making significant difference. This is an excellent report with 9 judgements of good and many judgements that were considered to be nearly good which we are now determined to secure as good next year.

I tell the children often that Talavera is the best school. Each of your children are very special and bring a richness to the school that is unique by our diversity. I believe that with your help and support, continued commitment by staff and governors we can improve further to make our school the ‘best school in Aldershot’.

In September we plan to really celebrate our achievements and will be planning events and activities that we hope you can join us for to make sure that the reputation of Talavera Junior is changed. With your help we can work together to promote our fantastic children and the excellent achievements happening within the school.

As we come to the end of the year I would like to wish good luck to all our children and families who are moving on to new schools and wish you all an enjoyable summer holiday returning to school on 6th September ready to put Talavera in the news!

With best wishes
Helen Barden
Headteacher

We were divided into three groups. Some went to the maze first, some went to Henry VIII‘s apartments and the others went to the kitchen. The maze was epic but scary at the same time! Following our first tour, we stopped for quick break, and then we swapped around. I loved the kitchen, where we look at what the Tudors ate.

Some people, also, went to the explorers building, that was when we investigated Henry VIII. That was pretty cool! We moved around tables figuring out a conclusion. Then we all had lunch.

Finally we all caught up together and rushed to catch the coach returning us to school, where we all went home after a tiring trip.

Reporters Talitha Fisher & Morgan Rapson