We went on a phonics hunt this morning using our skills to read and write cvc words🕵️ we also had a lovely visit from Rachel who told us the story of Jesus washing his disciples feet 💛 what a great day of learning 😀

Dosbarth Chwech – Compassion Project: Helping the Homeless

On Tuesday 24th March, Dosbarth Chwech arrived at St Mary’s Church with one big aim in mind: to bring our community together and play our part in supporting some of the most vulnerable people living in and around our area – our Cynefin.

And honestly, we were overwhelmed by the response. The generosity, kindness and community spirit shown was incredible. We are truly fortunate to live in such a supportive area, surrounded by families, businesses and organisations who care so deeply.

St Mary’s Church was filled to the brim with people from all corners of our community – families, local councillors, parishioners, charities, shelter workers, businesses, housing organisations and many more.

The children took the lead, with representatives from Chepstow Methodist Church (Hilary Collins), Street Life from Bristol City Church (Richard Townsend) and BillyChip (Meg Hope) offering powerful and thought‑provoking presentations.

They invited everyone to contribute small donations, whether that was items for self‑care packages the children will be creating for people experiencing homelessness, or financial support to help these charities continue their vital work. The response so far has been amazing, and we are still collecting donations to keep supporting these brilliant organisations.

If you’re reading this and would like to get involved, we would love to hear from you. Please contact: clementk17@hwbcymru.net

Dosbarth Chwech – Our Visit to Big Pit

Our trip to Big Pit, shared with Dosbarth Pedwar, was a brilliant opportunity to dive deeper into our Welsh heritage. We learned so much about what life was like for the families who lived and worked around the coal mines, and it really helped us appreciate the important role mining played in shaping our communities.

We listened to fascinating stories about the men who worked underground, the women who kept everything running above the surface, and even the children and horses who were part of daily life at the mine. These real-life accounts helped us understand just how hard people worked to earn a living and support their families.

We also linked what we saw to our class learning about renewable and non‑renewable energy sources. Seeing the mine up close made it clear why coal was once such a vital resource for Wales, and it helped us think about how energy use has changed over time.

Dosbarth Melyn have been exploring and investigating.  They used their coding skills to program the Lego Spike and investigating, ‘What happens when we mix different materials with water?’

A powerful workshop about Anti-racism for Year 6- Our journey toward ACTIVE anti-racism. 
 

Learning to stand up, speak out and create change!

Lego Spike - Time for Dosbarth Fioled to become Lego engineers!

Using our STEM and coding skills to become ambitious and capable thinkers and learners.

Critical thinking skills were tested and here we are building and coding our own Lego wind turbines, following our learning on renewable and non-renewable energy sources.

A musical Friday afternoon for Dosbarth Chwech, 

A huge thank you to ISing Pop for teaching us some new songs and dance moves!

What better way to learn a new concept in science than investigating and experiencing the concept ourself!?

Dosbarth Chwech, developed a great understanding of static electricity and its impact with balloon’s and tissue paper. Some even generated enough static energy to stick a balloon to the wall and window!

Dosbarth Chwech have been very busy!

Both Eisteddfod and World Book Day this week

We have been focusing on our Eisteddfod writing, Welsh art using palette knives, in the style of Shani Rhys-James and other creative activities linked to World book Day. 
 

We had so much fun in Dosbarth Coch! We dressed up as our favourite characters and went on our very own bear hunt. 🐻

The children loved exploring with their senses – especially taking their shoes off to feel the cold water and the squelchy mud between their toes! What a fantastic adventure we had together.

🐻🕵️

Dosbarth Oren enjoyed celebrating the Eisteddfod. Check out our winners and artwork!

 Dosbarth Indigo had a fantastic time during our visit to Techniquest! We experienced hurricane force winds and even braved an earthquake simulator! The children loved solving puzzles, exploring musical instruments, launching rockets and walking with dinosaurs. The slide was definitely a highlight — and yes, even the grown ups couldn’t resist joining in the fun!

Dosbarth Gwyrdd were delighted to welcome Meadow  and her mum Leah back to our Roots of Empathy session this week. We have really missed them and we enjoyed seeing how she has grown and hearing about the new skills that she has now.

Dosbarth Coch had a fantastic morning welcoming Jo from the Shine Theatre Company. They enjoyed exploring the story of Santes Dwynwen, bringing it to life by stepping into the roles of different characters through drama and performance. Their enthusiasm, creativity and confidence were outstanding throughout the session. A memorable experience for everyone involved!

To start our gymnastics block this term, Dosbarth Aur started with ‘point and patch’ balances, exploring what positions we can hold stable and strong for 5 seconds. 

Dosbarth Indigo had a wonderfully busy end to the Autumn term, especially with our DT project where the children designed, created and evaluated their own felt decorations. They showed brilliant creativity and attention to detail throughout the whole process. We also enjoyed a festive treat by making hand‑and‑foot reindeers, which brought plenty of smiles and a lovely seasonal finish to our learning! 

We had a lovely time learning about Christingle and the meaning behind each of the symbols in class yesterday. Today, we enjoyed a visit to the church for a Christingle service, which was a very special and memorable experience 😊

Dosbarth Chwech 

Designing and making light up Christmas cards to sell at our Christmas Fayre. 
Making a complete circuit to switch on our light bulbs.

Such amazing collaborative and disciplined skills shown today :)

Dosbarth Indigo- STEM Day 

Dosbarth Indigo had a fantastic time taking part in the Road to RIAT STEM Day where we put our engineering skills to the test by designing and building our own gliders. We worked brilliantly as a team, experimenting with shapes and materials to create the most efficient designs. Our enthusiasm, creativity and teamwork shone through as we tested our gliders and refined our ideas. It was an exciting, hands-on experience that brought STEM learning to life!

Dosbarth Melyn have had a busy week outdoors. We practised our photography and editing skills, built our own islands and directed others to find treasure, we also created our own orienteering maps with a key and hid clues for other teams to find. Finally, we made i movies to show everyone our learning. 

Dosbarth Melyn

After finding out about Guy Fawkes, Dosbarth Melyn decided to create portraits of him using natural materials. 

Dosbarth Coch have had an amazing time exploring the pumpkins from Farmer Sian! After reading The Roll-Away Pumpkin, we decided to carry out our own pumpkin experiment. First, we made predictions about which pumpkin would roll the best and which type of ramp would make it go the fastest. Using our oracy skills, we discussed why the bumpy pumpkins didn’t roll as smoothly as the round ones. It was such a fun and exciting learning experience in our outdoor classroom!

Next, we carefully cut open one of the small pumpkins to take a closer look at the seeds inside. We placed it in a jar with soil and made predictions about what might happen over time. The jar is now sitting on our windowsill, and we are so excited to watch and see what happens next!

A Special Visit from Farmer Sian

We were very lucky to welcome farmer Sian to our school this week! As a former pupil of ARW, she brought along some of her amazing pumpkins for us to explore. Farmer Sian shared fascinating stories about her hard work—from sowing the pumpkin seeds and hand-weeding the fields to explaining how pumpkins grow on vines from flowers right on the ground. It was truly inspiring and gave us a wonderful insight into farming. We can’t wait to discover even more about pumpkins in the days ahead!

Dosbarth Coch enjoyed a wonderful sensory walk around our school grounds, exploring the sights, sounds, and textures of Autumn all around us. Using their senses, they listened carefully, observed closely, and described what they could hear, see, and feel. Along the way, they collected a variety of Autumn treasures and had a great time sorting the leaves by size. 

Harvest Soup Fun with the Little Red Hen!

We were  so excited to receive a special parcel from the Little Red Hen, filled with everything we needed to create our very own Harvest Soup! Everyone pitched in to help make the soup, just like farmers work together to grow the food we enjoy every day.

We learned about how much effort and time it takes to grow vegetables—it's not as easy as it looks! After all the hard work, we tasted our delicious soup and held a fun vote to see if everyone liked it. We had mixed reviews, but lots of happy faces. 

Dosbarth Indigo's Tudor Food Hunt!

We went outside for an orienteering challenge and used a map of our school to hunt for picture clues. Each time we found one, there was a riddle to solve that told us something about Tudor food.  It was fun running around, finding clues and discovering tasty (and not so tasty!) Tudor facts.

We’ve begun our Tudor topic with curiosity and enthusiasm in Dosbarth Indigo.

We loved our trip to Raglan Castle, exploring the history around us and learning all about Henry Tudor! We have enjoyed creating our very own Tudor portraits. What an exciting beginning to our new topic!

We’ve had a brilliant start to Year 5 in Dosbarth Indigo!
On Values Day, we explored the idea of courage and thought about times when we can be brave. We worked together to make a colourful display based on a Bible story (David and Goliath) and we’re really proud of what we created as a team. 

A wonderful day altogether for our Leavers 2025, last ever ARW trip ….

Dosbarth Aur Careers Fair a pyrnhawn Gemau Cymraeg

Prynhawn da gyda’n teulu a ffrindiau!

Dosbarth Fioled

Year 5 had a wonderful morning visiting the local care home, where they spent time getting to know the residents. The children loved sharing something special to them and hearing the residents’ stories in return. It was a heartwarming experience filled with laughter, curiosity, and meaningful conversations. They learned so much about one another and truly enjoyed the connection. We’re already looking forward to our next visit next week!

Dosbarth Aur

Planning our Careers Fair and an afternoon of Welsh games with our families

SHINE is a very important charity to one of our families. They increase awareness of spina bifida and hydrocephalus. We loved going yellow for SHINE today :)

Learning happens in many different ways - iRock bands, you were amazing! 

Dosbarth Melyn

We enjoyed a visit from beekeeper Matt who came to talk to us about bees in preparation for when we build our bee hotels 🐝

Dosbarth Aur

After completing their orienteering task, following their residential trip to Weymouth, the children decided to create their own websites about Chesil Beach … it is amazing how much we have learnt and how it has linked to our WWII topic. 
Today we spent time presenting our websites to each other and then evaluating them using the s2s that we created as a whole class. 
 

Dosbarth Chwech

Summer Art Project has started with help from Mrs Penna 

We will be creating our own Lino printing artwork in the style of Andy Warhol. 
To complete this project, skills used will include: photography, sketching, colouring, water painting, digital pop art and all while using a variety of tools and equipment to execute our final Lino printing designs.

Our final painted WWII clay medals with chosen ribbons … final touches have brought them to life.

Celebrations for VE Day 

Dosbarth Chwech - Outdoor Learning.

Orienteering using mapping and compass skills

Year 6 Residential - Osmington Bay 

A truly wonderful week with glorious weather - Our children did themselves, their families and our school proud!

One of our very clever Year 6 parents wrote about the children’s experiences beautifully … to paraphrase their words ….

“We overcame fears, learnt new skills, coped on our own and even coped overnight. We played in the sand, on the beach and in the sea, feeling safe and free. We learnt how to sail, kayak, climb and problem solve. How grateful we are for the experiences and memories made”

These photos are a tiny snap shot of these brilliant children and their amazing memories that they made with their friends.

Dosbarth Aur

We have spent time researching and learning about WWII and following VE Day we decided that we wanted to design our own medals for the soldiers that fought during these times. 
Today we have been making our designs come to life using clay, thinking about the best tools to use to include the detail we required.

We have been so excited and patient watching our caterpillars 🐛 go through the process of becoming butterflies 🦋. After letting them get strong over a couple of days, it was time to release them. We were so happy to see them fly away and find a new home 🦋. 

Dosbarth Melyn had a great trip to the Bristol Zoo Project to find out about their conservation work with endangered animals. Now we are ready to think about the power that we have to ‘make a change’ to help look after our planet. 

Dosbarth Melyn have been finding out about castles, Caldicot Castle and our local area. Lots of teamwork, discussion and questioning. We even followed instructions to make ‘peasant bread’ ~ it wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be!

Dosbarth Fioled. 
This week, the children had a fantastic time during their outdoor learning task, where they explored ideas connected to the 4 Compass Points of Life. They focused on the North (their dream job), East (what matters most to them), South (what they’ll need to reach their dreams), and West (a moment when they showed bravery). As part of the activity, the children learned how to use a compass and worked together to follow clues around the school, leading them to each station. It was a fun and engaging way for the children to reflect on their personal goals and values while building teamwork and navigation skills.

Blwyddyn Pump. 
What an insightful afternoon! A big thank you to our guest, Angela, for showing us that everyone has a voice and there are countless ways to express it. We also loved wrapping up our spring river topic with a thoughtful discussion on pollution

. 

Dosbarth Aur

Summer: Week 1

This week Rev Tim joined Year 6 to discuss Eucharist and Jesus’ resurrection, with a focus on the big question:

What difference does the resurrection make for Christians? 
 

Knowing that Jesus died for us to live life to its fullest, we then spent time outside thinking and discussing our dreams and goals (RSE).

Spending time meditating and developing our own spiritual development - calming our minds and focusing on what we are grateful for. 
 

Finally, we discussed global issues and how everyone’s goals and dreams are different and how we can respect different views, feelings and lifestyles. 

Such lovely weather to be outside and enjoy these times and discussions together 🌞 

Blwyddyn Chwech WWII Debate:

Should Rose Blanche have gone back to the concentration camp? 
 

Following our work on WWII and the story of Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti and Ian McEwan, 

we took our learning outside and had our whole class debate, on whether Rose should have gone back to the concentration camp or not and why? 
 

The children had spent time writing their for/against suggestions using P.E.E. (point, evidence, explain) and effectively delivered this when debating as partners, small groups and a whole class. 
 

To say it was a heated debate, in the glorious sunshine was an understatement- many pupils had strong viewpoints, ideas and supporting evidence! 
 

Dosbarth Coch had a busy week in the lead up to half term! Easter crafts, learning about the Easter Story and taking their phonics session outside on their CVC word egg hunt! 🌞🐣💕 

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy! Pasg Hapus Pawb! 

Ising Pop Workshop i Blywddyn chwech heddiw!

New songs and actions learnt for our Year Six leavers 🎵🎤🕺🎶

This half term, Year 4 have been visited by lots of our family members. They have been talking to us about their jobs and career paths; we have been so inspired. Here is just a few of our visitors so far ...

What a lovely afternoon for Dosbarth Coch! We invited our families to help start planting ARW’s forest of the future 🌳 we had so much fun exploring, planting and playing in the sun ☀️ 

Finding the leaf families and making their homes was super exciting for everyone too! 🌱🌿🌱

The old man from our story "The Enormous Leek" left us lots of seeds to plant. Here we are planting our very own leeks! Next, we will be planting carrots; it has been so much fun taking our learning outside in the sun  Hapus iawn!

CAREERS WEEK

YEAR 6

This week we have started thinking about our own skills and strengths: Discussing what we are good at!

We have discussed further education, apprenticeship's and work experience.

Our first career researched was that of a teacher, where we learnt about problem solving, resilience, transferable skills etc 

We would very much like to invite our parents in to talk about their journey into the world of work and look forward to exploring different careers.

We have also had a visit from HMRC, who taught us about Tax and why taxes are so important. Thank you to Hazel and Elizabeth from HMRC for their time today.

Year 6 Spring Bulb Planting continues …

Our daffodil and crocus plants have been loving the sunshine as much as us!

Some of our plants have had as much as 5cm growth over half term 🌞🌦️

St. David’s Day Celebrations 

Year 6 

CONGRATULATIONSto our School Bard: Phoebe 

Handwriting: Sosban Fach 

1st Theo

2nd Phoebe

3rd Alexandria

Best Effort: Keelan

Creative Writing: The Legend Branwen 

1st Phoebe

2nd Evan

3rd Amber

Art Competition: In the style of Andrew Macara ( Winter Hill )

1st Sum-Yee 

2nd Joshua 

3rd Rose

Fantastic character profiles for Lilly and Billie the school tortoise by Elodie (Rcp) and Felix (Y3).