The Durham Dales Federation is a federation of small rural primary schools, which was formed in September 2023. Staff from all schools work together to share expertise and to plan and deliver the curriculum. Our subject leaders co-ordinate their subjects across all the schools within our federation, which ensures that we can offer the same high-quality experiences to all pupils in our schools.
The Upper Dales schools of Wearhead and St John’s Chapel work together on a regular basis each week. At the start of the week, each school works in their own building and on Thursdays and Fridays, the schools come together on the St John’s Chapel Primary School site. On Federation days, we take advantage of the opportunities to work in larger groups with other children of the same age, and we often arrange visits and visitors for these days so that everyone can participate.
Wearhead Primary School This afternoon, the whole school walked to Cowshill to sing at and witness a church wedding. The guests commented that the children sang beautifully and were very well behaved.
View this PostHamsterley Primary School Class 2 had the best time in Forest School this afternoon! The children enjoyed getting into the Halloween spirit with a Halloween disco and hot dogs
View this PostSt John's Chapel Primary In Early Years, we have been getting into the Halloween spirit!
View this PostSt. John's Chapel Primary School Class 2 and 3 children have been learning about healthy eating this afternoon. We cooked potatoes five different ways and discussed which methods of cooking were the healthiest and why.
View this PostSt. John's Chapel and Wearhead Primary School Last week, Year 3 and Year 4 worked with Kerryanne and Ken on our wildflower meadow. We sowed yellow rattle seeds and planted daffodil bulbs.
View this PostHamsterley Primary School This afternoon Class 1 and 2 had some special visitors! As Halloween and Bonfire Night are coming up, the Fire Brigade came to remind/teach the children how they can keep themselves, and others, safe around this time of year.
View this PostWearhead Primary School Class 1 have been learning about Victorian Schools this afternoon. They learned about the equipment Victorian school children used and enjoyed experimenting with slate boards, ink pens and an abacus.
View this PostHamsterley Primary School In cookery club last night, children enjoyed making gingerbread dough, shaping it and baking it. Today they finished off by decorating them in a Halloween style!
View this PostSt John's Chapel & Wearhead This morning, the children in year 5 & 6 have been plug planting in our school meadow. They also planted some crocus bulbs.
View this PostSt. John's Chapel and Wearhead Primary Schools Congratulations to our certificate winners today!
View this PostSt John's Chapel & Wearhead Thank you to everyone who came to our Harvest Festival today. All donations of food will be given to the Weardale Food Bank.
View this PostHamsterley Primary School In computing, Year 3 and Year 4 were looking at packet data and how the internet sends information in smaller pieces, directed by routers, and put back together again by servers. We exemplified this by creating pictures, cutting them into pieces, adding coding instructions and asking others to piece them back together again. We had a very enjoyable lesson with some great understanding!
View this PostHamsterley Primary School Thank you to everyone who was able to come to the Harvest Festival yesterday and to those who brought donations for the food bank. The children all did a fabulous job and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!
View this PostWearhead Primary School In Art, the children in class 1 have been mixing primary colours to create secondary colours.
View this PostWearhead Primary School Today Class 2 used their story dice to create dialogue based on the characters in Stig of the Dump.
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