On Thursday 4th March our netball team set off for Cheadle Hulme in Manchester to compete against 7 other schools in the ISA High Five Tournament.

In the weeks leading up to the competition the girls have produced some stunning performances so we were confident they would do well.

Firwood won every game they played and consequently won the tournament. This is an outstanding achievement and we are very proud of the whole team.

Well done girls.

The team set off on Thursday dinnertime with an entourage of parents eager to enjoy the following couple of days of team bonding and great football. It was a pleasant journey down and we really timed the weather well.

On arrival at Cambridge Central, we checked into our rooms and met in the hotel reception, ready for a game of tenpin bowling and very civilised Italian meal. The bowling was extremely enjoyable, with the boys putting the parents to shame. Mr. Richardson was very fortunate to pip Mr. Lengden to victory twice, although an accusation of not being able to handle the pressure was unfairly banded about!

The boys were a pleasure to dine with at the restaurant. They really did show how mature Firwood Manor children are, making all of the parents and myself very proud.

The next morning the boys were up bright and early for the hour drive to Stoke College in Sudbury. It felt like the road to Wembley as we relaxed before the big tournament, listening to music or racing at 300 mph to Super Mario Kart. (Again, Mr. Lengden was an unlucky second)!

On arrival, we took the team photo and did our warm up in readiness for our first match. We drew our first game 1-1 and won the second 2-0, which was a fantastic start. The next three games were a little more difficult though and we were unlucky to lose on more than one occasion.

Our final game was in the quarter final of the Plate competition, losing to a golden goal in extra time to St. Nicholas School. The boys were reminded that it had been a huge achievement in just qualifying for a national tournament and we all agreed that it had been a really enjoyable couple of days.

The trip back up the A1 didn’t seem to take too long and we arrived back at Firwood Manor, very tired, for 8.00pm.

Many thanks to the parents and grandparents for supporting the trip through the sponsored penalty shoot out and coming down with them. It is something they’ll remember for a very long time.

Well done boys!

Mr. Lengden

On Wednesday 10th March, the Year 2 and 3 children visited Foxdenton Hall in Chadderton. We have been studying the history of Chadderton and wanted to find out about this old Manor House. We met a gentleman called Mike Lawson at Foxdenton Park. He was a founder member of the Chadderton Historical Society and knew a lot about the hall.

When we arrived at the park the sun was shining and the hall looked very beautiful. We went inside the building for a presentation on the history of the hall. We looked at lots of pictures of the people who owned the hall and found out about how the building had changed over the years.

The hall was first owned by Elizabeth and Robert Radcliffe who built the first Foxdenton Hall built as their home. William Radcliffe then had the hall rebuilt in 1620 in its current location. Unfortunately, William was killed with his son in a battle in 1642. The hall was then taken over by Alexander Radcliffe who had the hall rebuilt in 1700. Instead of having the whole hall knocked down he decided to take the top floor and roof off and leave the ground floor. He then had soil piled up around the ground floor so it was partially buried. The only thing that could be seen of the ground floor was the top of the windows and the stone block above the door that had WR and 1620 carved into it. This stood for William Radcliffe and the year the hall was built. Alexander had a modern hall built on top of the ground floor of the old hall, which is the Foxdenton Hall we visited. The building felt very old and had wood panelling and beams. The fireplaces were also from the original hall. The room we had the presentation in was full of pictures of the owners of the Hall. There was one portrait of Alexander Radcliffe that made us all feel uneasy. The eyes seemed to follow you wherever you were in the room and Mike told us how some people believed that they had been tapped on the back by him when they were in certain rooms of the hall.

After the presentation we split into groups. The first group went upstairs to look around the rooms whilst the second group went with Mike to investigate the outside of the hall. We were able to crawl underneath the steps of the hall to see the stone block with WR carved on it. We felt like detectives looking for clues. We also climbed on the old mounting block, which the Radcliffe’s used to climb onto their horses. The grounds of the hall were well kept and looked beautiful. Finally, we went and sat by the duck pond to eat our tuck before we came back to school.

We had a lovely morning at Foxdenton Hall and found out lots about its history.

By Years 2 & 3

On Thursday 25th February Year One went to visit Ebenezer Congregational Church in Uppermill. We travelled to the church by coach. During our journey we saw the snow on the hills and felt lucky that we didn't live so high up. We were welcomed by Pastor Wroe who showed us into the church.

We sat in the pews and Pastor Wroe told us a little about the church. We saw a picture of the first minister from 180 years ago before we watched a video of a little boy being christened at the church. Mr. Wroe told us all about the Christening. We looked at the Christening roll, which is a record of all the children who have been christened at the church. The first christening in the book was also from 180 years ago. We also saw the font which we were not expecting to be so small. We had seen pictures of fonts at school that were made of stone and were quite big, but the one at this church was a lot smaller.

Afterwards we talked about how we could have our own christening. We began by singing 'Who Put the Colours in the Rainbow' then Pastor Wroe asked the parents, baby and god parents to go out to the front of the church and stand with him. He then took the baby from KA and blessed her with holy water from the font. The baby was named G.M.H.M. After that Pastor Wroe took the baby to show to the congregation. He gave us a certificate of the christening.

On the video after the christening the family had a party. So we went upstairs to the hall where there were some tables and chairs set up for us to have our lunch. We were all quite hungry and ate our lunches whilst having a little chat to our friends. When we had finished our lunch we had a story and then came back to school.

We had a lovely time and would like to say a big thank you to Pastor Wroe for welcoming us to his church and spending time with us.

by Year 1