Well, this has been an interesting couple of weeks. Children have represented school in the under 7s mini skills competition with other Preston primary schools (and of course alongside of friends at St.Francis’) and no visitor has managed to leave the building without being a secret reader in Acorns Class. This is getting quite comical now because some of the visitors don’t even know they are going to be a secret reader themselves under Mrs Byrne and Mrs Gornall ask them to choose a book and read to the children- a new level of secret reader! This week it was a paramedic, who actually had a book in the ambulance about dialing 999 and how to deal with an emergency!

We always aim to provide our children with a toolkit of long-term knowledge, strategies for keeping safe, confidence, morals, kindness, appreciation of our world and a love of God and themselves. The past couple of weeks have certainly been filled with enrichment to support personal and wider development beyond our curriculum and our children continue to tell us they are happy. It has been  a pleasure joining with after school club this week and I am very glad that this wrap around care is working well. I thank Ms Greenan and Miss Salmon for doing a wonderful job in breakfast and after school club-the range of activities and theme week links have been brilliant.

The annual Remembrance service was very special and it was lovely to see so many friends of our community attend. The children read beautifully and it really was humbling to spend time with veterans. The Mayor of Garstang attended and we are delighted that he will be coming in next week to celebrate parliament week with us in school. He will be visiting the children for a whole school assembly and he will be talking to us about British Values and his very important role.

Oak Class welcomed PC Atkinson to their classroom to talk about online safety and digital footprints. It was only last week he was a secret reader in Reception Class! We thank PC Atkinson very much for being a frequent visitor to our school. Every time I enter Miss Watson’s classroom, I am so impressed with how engaged the children are and on task. There have been many things going on, including a toilet roll timeline to retain historical chronology!

We greatly appreciated our veteran visits to Blossoms Class and Oak Class. It was amazing to hear about how animals were used in the war and the role of women in the war. We thank them very much for giving their time so freely.

Year 1 and 2 mini skills with Preston cluster and St.Francis…well done children-they came 5th place overall in the competition out of 15 other schools.

Meet our newest member of the team-comfort bear. Also known as Ely, he has a staff lanyard and position in school as ‘comfort bear’. Children with any worries or needing a bit of comfort can spend some time with him. This was a quick recruitment-apologies to any bears out there who would have liked to apply for this job!

Anti-bullying week and silly socks day have been great ways in which to embed our work on how we life the Gospel Values as Jesus taught us at The Sermon on the Mount.

Of huge importance is the need to speak out against all forms of bullying. Throughout the year, we teach the children about kindness and the need to whistleblow if we hear about or see any bullying taking place. We follow many outward facing initiatives and the anti-bullying alliance is one of them. Silly socks day was a great way of standing up to bullying. We have many systems in school to keep children safe and one of these is our ‘Speak Out!’ postbox. The post box is situated at the front of school and children can fill in a bullying form and whistleblow, should they need to. The post box is also a way for children to make suggestions or tell us anything they would like to share. We are always here to help. Miss Salmon is also available for drop-ins every Wednesday lunch time to offer the opportunity for children to talk to a friendly ear.

Beautiful art and some amazing writing.

In Blossoms Class the children have been reading HANDA’S Surprise and, as part of DT, they will be making fruit smoothies. The children have tasted the fruit and they will be visiting a Farm Shop to buy the ingredients they need to make the smoothies, with a budget of their own- how exciting! The children made clay models of significant places of interest in our local area. This was their geography topic but their models are incredible. Enjoy the pictures of our great little learners below…

 

Old and interesting, young and inquisitive…what a superb new area of learning the team have created in EYFS. As mentioned in the title of this blog, I haven’t seen Mrs Gornall arrive in a morning without carrying a huge toolkit! In the picture below you will see a very interesting looking area. It has been created in the snug. Also in the snug is a lovely welcome spool with hydration station, Supertato lunch box area and very twinkly lights. Mrs Gornall has an attic with some of the the most interesting things I have seen and the children are having a great time exploring them. The daily renovations of the classroom areas have involved Mrs Gornall and her toolkit to install various shelves, dividers and bits and bobs that add to the magic!

In the Curiosity Cave, you will always find children taking things apart and putting them back. Today, one child changed a fuse and mended a real lamp. This is typical goings on in Acorns Class. What is brilliant is the fact that the learning for a purpose spills over into other areas of the classroom. Last week, the role play sink was ‘blocked’ and out popped one of the children from the curiosity cave wearing full protective clothing, gloves and hard hat-with work tools. The children decided that the sink was blocked because mice had got to the pipes but they couldn’t ‘get to the pipes’ without removing the kitchen sink cupboard doors. Off they went to the curiosity cave and collected the necessary tools to remove the door (and they really did this) so they could work on the pipes. Using screwdrivers and removing the doors, then reattaching them was such amazing active learning that I had to write about it. See picture 3 below!

Today, we enjoyed a whole school Children in Need day. Thank you for donations! Your support and dedication to our small school is always greatly appreciated. Have a lovely weekend all!