On Thursday 22nd March Ethan, Ben and James were part of the team who represented the school in a penalty shoot out reading quiz. Our school competed against other local primary schools in a quiz based on different books that they had read. On the morning of the competition the hall was set out to look like a football pitch with goals to score points and the quiz master was the well known author Tom Palmer. The Maes Yr Haul team which included Ethan, Ben and James in our class and other children in Year 5 and 6 scored goal after goal answering questions based on a variety of different books and different authors. After an exciting game Maes Yr Haul were announced the winners of the penalty shoot out reading quiz and each member of the team received a copy of Tom Palmer's latest book signed by the author. Well done boys!

On the morning of Friday 16th March our class put on their wellies and headed out of the school grounds to help Tidy Towns plant trees in the new orchard at Parc Bronhaul. We were greeted by wheelbarrows, spades, 60 pre dug holes, 60 tree saplings and a team of volunteers from Tidy Towns. After John from Tidy Towns had explained about the different types of fruit tree saplings and how we needed to plant them we couldn't wait to get started! From the moment we arrived until the very last minute everyone in the class worked extremely hard! It was a pleasure for Miss Williams-Jones to see everyone working so well as a team. Children in different groups were all working together, filling up the wheelbarrows, wheeling the compost over to the children who needed it to cover the saplings they were planting and taking the watering cans over once the trees had been planted. Thanks to everyone's hard work and team effort we planted every tree sapling, just over 60 trees in one hour! Councillor Morgan and the people from Tidy Towns were just as impressed with our efforts and hard work as Miss Williams-Jones was. We are looking forward to seeing how the orchard that we helped to plant grows over the years.

During February we were busy getting prepared for our St David's Day celebrations. The theme for the Eisteddfod this year was Wonderful Wales. We all created poems and drew pictures to illustrate what wonderful things you could see if you looked around Wales. Congratulations to Shauna who came first in the poetry writing competition, Daisy who came first in the handwriting writing competition and Rhiannon who came third in the art competition. On St David's no matter what house we were in we all supported our class mates who were performing in the staged events. Well done to Molly who came second in the Welsh poetry recitation and Iwan who came fourth in the instrumental competition playing the the Welsh national anthem. We had a fun-filled and fantastic St David's Day.

PC Stewart visited our class on Wednesday 1st February to talk to us about anti-social behaviour and making the right choices. We watched a video and discussed the impact the behaviour of each of the different characters had on other people in the community. We worked in groups to discuss whether we thought the characters had made the right or wrong choices and decided what we thought the right choices to make in each situation would. PC Stewart was very impressed that we knew what we could do to keep our community a happy and safe place for everyone to be

Christmas began for Class Williams-Jones and many of the Key Stage 2 children and their families when we held our 'Carols in Christmas Hats' outdoor event. The clouds overhead were blown away by the chorus of voices singing our favourite traditional and new carols and we kept the cold at bay with our dance moves to Christmas Shopping Rock. We think you will agree that it was a fantastic way to start the festive season and we hope you enjoyed the carol singing as much as we did. A big thank you to all the children and families and friends who participated.

This term we have been finding out all about World War II and how the events changed everyone who was involved lives. We have been learning about the Blitz and evacuations and have been trying to understand how the children who had to leave their families and homes behind would have felt. On Tuesday 6th December history came alive for us when Mr Ezard a grandparent of children in our school came in to talk to us about his experiences during the war as a child. It was a fantastic opportunity to hear a first hand account of what life was like. We would like to thank Mr Ezard for sharing his stories with us.

On Tuesday 29th Novemeber we had the opportunity to visit the Following The Flame exhibition at Bridgend Recreation Centre and take part in a morning of fitness activities. On arrival we were welcomed by the fitness team and split into groups. Each group participated in 2 fitness activities, the parachute games and the sprint games and played a fitness quiz. During the quiz we found out about what we should be doing to keep fit and healthy. We learnt that we should be active for at least an hour every day and we certainly were that morning. Even Miss Williams-Jones joined in with the activities! We also visited the Olympic exhibition and found out about Welsh Olympic heroes. The morning inspired us to follow our dreams just as these athletes had done and encouraged us to approach all we do with effort and determination. Maybe one day one of us will have our picture in the Olympic hall of fame!

We are looking forward to welcoming you to our class on Wednesday 5th October. You and your child can visit the classroom between 3.40 and 6.00 to share what we have been doing so far this term.

On Thursday 22nd September the Key Stage 2 hall was transformed into a polling station as each class voted for their school council representatives. The excitement was building all day as the candidates wondered whether they would be elected to represent their class. The results were announced in a special assembly after all the votes had been counted and verified. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our candidates for the hard work they put into producing and promoting their manifestoes and congratulate our new school council class representative Cameron Kinley and Harrison Pring who will be representing the Year 1 children on the school council.

On Wednesday 14th September we visited Swansea Museum and Theatre Na Nog to have a taste of what life was like in Wales during World War II. On our arrival at the museum we were greeted by a local historian who told us all about what life was like for Welsh Italians in South Wales and how their lives changed when the war started. We all had the opportunity to have a go at lots of different activities, for example we signalled and decoded messages to and from each other using flags, we examined the evidence in suitcases to answer questions about who the suitcases may have belonged to, we experienced what it was lke to be inside a bomb shelter and we got to dress up in clothes from the era. Even Miss Williams-Jones joined in with the dressing up! After a busy morning full of activities we watched a production of 'The Sinking of the Arandora Star' and had a question and answer session with the cast. The day certainly got us all thinking about what else we want to find out about life during World War II.

We have all settled well into our new class and we already have lots of activities planned for the weeks ahead. Our topic this term is 'The Way We Were', a look at life in Wales during world War II. We have already made a start by visiting Swansea museum and Theatre Na Nog to gives us a taste of what life was like for people in Wales during World War II. We have also selected the aspects of World War II that we are going to research as part of our projects which will provide us with the opportunity to develop our skills of historical enquiry and our ICT skills as we produce PowerPoint presentations to share with the class.

During Sports Week at Maes Yr Haul we all participated in a variety of activities to get us out and about and exercising. On Monday Colin Jackson came to school to talk to us about his career and his commitment to his training and always striving to be the best he can. He encouraged us to always try to achieve and improve on our personal best. We all set ourselves a target either a new skill we wanted to learn, a skill we wanted to develop or a goal we wanted to reach. Everyone had an opportunity to challenge themselves. We developed our ball skills, for example kicking, throwing and catching in coaching sessions and our teamwork by playing a variety of games, including rounders, basketball, football and cricket. We tried new track and field events, including the hurdles, the javelin, the discus and the long jump. On Friday we had wheely good fun in the wheelathon. We set ourselves a challenge of how many laps we wanted to do and everyone exceeded their own expectations. Even Miss Williams-Jones joined in but she was a bit wobbly on the bike!

This half term we have been composing and performing our own musical compositions. We worked with our Talk Partners in our ICT lessons to create our own pieces of music. We selected a background tune and added different instruments. We experimented with rhythm and tone to create our compositions. Once we had created and shared our musical compositions on the interactive whiteboard with the rest of the class we selected percussion instruments to perform our tunes. We enjoyed performing and evaluating our pieces of music.

Poet Francesca Kaye visited our class for a poetry workshop. We introduced ourselves by creating alliterations for our names and to describe our characters. Francesca shared some of her poems with us. Our favourite was 'I Like Eating Mud'. We helped Francesca to create some new verses and actions for the poem. We also created our own poems in the style of her poem 'With My Hands' and performed our poems for the rest of the class.

This term we are going to be looking at the world outside our window and how our actions affect our local and the global environment. We are going to be looking at the impact humans have on the environment and promoting ways we can have a positive impact on the world around us.