Commando Joe at Red Rose School

This term, we have been introduced to a fantastic new skill-building project called Commando Joe’s. Commando Joe’s is all about solving problems and looking at how we can work as a team. C-J’s (as we like to call it) is led by Jack every Friday, who works for the Newcastle Foundation. At the start of each session, he runs us through what we are going to be doing that day. 

This term in Year 6, we have been studying the life of Ibn Battuta. We have looked at what it would have been like travelling across the desert-like Ibn Battuta and how he would have had to trade with people to get food, water and lots of other essential items. In some of the C-J lessons, we set a market for trading. We replicated sailing a ship with a blind captain, by making an obstacle course, where we had to give instructions to a blind-folded person. We have also created a courtroom for when a boy stole some bread, along with many other situations.  

So far, C-J’s is a great learning experience which has taught us some new everyday skills, like teamwork and communication, which we can apply to everyday situations. We are all really looking forward to another term in Commando Joe’s! 

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At Red Rose, we have been investing in a new system, called Commando Joe’s, where we have missions to boost new skills. These  skills include :

resilience, empathy, self-awareness, passion, excellence,  communication, teamwork - these spell out RESPECT

In every lesson, we build these skills by experiencing new and hard challenges. Some of these include: building an obstacle course to direct a sea captain, making pulleys to lift heavy objects, moving objects in and out of the CoJo box, we even did bullfighting but don't worry it wasn't real, we have also done way more activities all through the year but sadly we have had to stop for winter. 

How the CoJo box came to Red Rose

One cold day we were in the yard waiting to go into school, as it was freezing when something caught our eye… A box with a parachute on top was caught in a tree, we rushed over to see but in a split second the gates opened and our freezing bodies forced us to go in before we could investigate this situation.                          

Half an hour later we were called outside finally to see and find out about this amazing UFO (unidentified flying object ). We were amazed to see that the UFO  was actually a box filled with amazing objects that we can use to complete missions with our instructor Jack.

This term we have been looking into an explorer called Ibn Battuta who travelled around the world about 1000 years ago! I wonder what we will do next.

The Wonderful World of Hamsters!

Presentation about Hamsters

The History of Tennis

The Tennis movement all started in the 12th century with French handball called Paum. (A game which you don't use a racket for but your own bare hands) This game was first created by European Monks for entertainment purposes during ceremonial events. At first, tennis was played with your hands, however, then leather gloves came and even later came, what we now use, rackets.

The game became very popular in France, where it was adopted by the French Royal Family. Then, in the year 1316 French King Louis X died of a very rough game of “Je de Paume”.In Britain, the game was introduced to the public and they called it Royal Tennis - which is the same name Australia called it and Court Tennis in the United States. Either way, the death of Louis did not dampen the creation of tennis.

16th century tennis
In the years of the 16th and 18th century, there was a high demand of Paum in France by kings and noblemen. These French players would start the game by shouting “Joue” which in English means to play.

1530s - King Henry the VIII builds a tennis court in Hampton court palace which is now not there any longer but now a new one had appeared.

1583-The first tennis racket was made in Italy.

19th century tennis

1870s-in the district of Wimbledon in London made an all England croquet club. Tennis was still an indoor game played by the rich at the time.

1873s-Major Walter Wingfield created a new type of tennis that can be played outdoors on a lawn. It was called ’ ‘sphairistike’ (play ball in Greek) This was first introduced in Wales and played on an hourglass court by the rich, this when tennis reached its climax when ‘sphairistike’ was sold in boxes, it included two net posts, a net, rackets, and Indian rubber balls, instructions on laying out the court and how to actually play. These boxes soon became a modern form of tennis.

Tennis is still a hugely popular game that is played and watched all over the world.