This week Year One have been thinking about healthy minds for wellbeing week. We did Some meditation in the hall called 'The Secret Garden.' This linked with the exciting book we have looked at this week, 'The Magic Garden.' We really enjoyed meditating!

Year 1 - Yoga

Wednesday saw Year 1 participate in Squish the Fish’s children’s yoga in the Infant Hall. Followed by some meditation, all the children really enjoyed their time doing the yoga and learning the new moves from the instructor on the board.

Braintree Museum - Year 6

On Tuesday, year 6 spent an eventful and educational day at the Braintree Museum. Dressed for the occasion, we re-lived the experience of wartime evacuees and discovered the hardships of life during World War II. The children were 'treated' to an authentic classroom session with a very strict teacher, where they improved their handwriting, solved calculations using 'old' money and practised reacting promptly in an air-raid drill. An object handling workshop allowed the children the opportunity to try on original wartime uniforms and examine a wide variety of World War II artefacts including ration books, pieces of bombs, a parachute, tinned dried eggs and even 1940's toilet paper!


It was a very busy day, where everybody developed their historical understanding and had a lot of fun too.

Golden Mile

Monday saw the start of Well-being Week here at Hilldene Primary, a week designed to learn and help towards healthy bodies, healthy minds and ultimately a healthy lifestyle!

First up for the children was the chance to participate in the Golden Mile. The children were allocated a time to run or walk for around the golden cones to see how far they could run in that time. Although the challenge was an individual one it was good to see some teamwork by many of the children in motivating fellow pupils to finish.

Maths of the Day - Y5

Year 5 have recently completed the Maths of the Day challenge at Hilldene. The day saw the children participating in a wide-range of timed activities, whilst also having the elements of challenge and competition throughout the day.

This gave the children the opportunity to work within a practical and active environment, whilst also collaborating with children from other maths sets and sharing their knowledge and expertise of the subject to other children.

Reception - Barleylands Trip

Reception's trip to Barleylands on Tuesday 20th June

On Tuesday Reception went on a trip to Barleylands Farm Museum near Billericay. The children were very excited to be going to Barleylands on a coach and found this a completely new experience to being in a car. The first item of the day was to bake and decorate some delicious gingerbread men, followed by the amazing bird of prey show which the children really enjoyed.

The busy day continued and up next was a visit to the reptile and minibeast house. This gave the children a chance to be up-close to these amazing creatures, whilst being told interesting information about each one too. Whilst the animals were the main point of interest there was also a chance to look at old farming equipment – some of which you could tell hadn’t been used for a very long time!

After learning about the animals and farm equipment it was time to go and see the leaves and herbs inside the polytunnel, whilst also smelling some of the leaves and herbs (some were nicer than others). 

Next was one of the most exciting parts of the trip with everyone getting and tractor ride and being taken through the fields of the farm – not something you get to do every day!

To conclude what was a really good trip, all the children went into the barn to feed the cows, sheep and goats.

RD's Amazing Attendance

RD have filled in all the letters on their Amazing Attendance sheet for the third time this year, and have been looking after the Attendance Bear this week.

Mrs Dudziec is very proud of all the children and their parents for coming to school every day!

Tea Tots For Hilldene

Tea Tots For Children Starting Reception In September 2017

On Friday 21st July Tea Tots will be hosting a Meet and Greet for children starting Reception at Hilldene Primary in September 2017. This is an opportunity for your children to meet their future class mates and for adults to meet other parents who have children starting at the school in September.

You can find details of the event by looking at the images in this newsfeed or by going to the Tea Tots Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/TeaTotsUK