Monthly Archives: September 2018

Head’s Blog – 28th September 2018

After weeks of disruption st school and dinners that we know aren’t as good as Mrs Thomas’, we finally have a newly refurbished kitchen.  Mrs Thomas couldn’t be happier! She even cooked in there today.  Thank you to the staff and pupils who have had to put up with the noise and mess and a huge special thank you to Mrs Knight who went over and over supporting Mrs Thomas throughout the disruptions.  We are looking forward to our hygiene rating being re-evaluated now our kitchen is top-notch!

Our playgroup was busier this week.  There were some children who joined the welly walk and others who played with our EYFS resources.  Everyone is welcome, but be warned, welly walk leaves at 9:45 if you want to join them!

A visitor has arrived in school today and will be visiting us until 10th October.  Watch this space to see what it is all about!

 

Our  Celebrations

As promised to the pupils I am sharing Willow’s homework, Oak’s will follow when I get their pictures.

 

Head’s Blog – 21st September

We were all super excited when Jeremy Gazzard (a teacher and talented friend) arrived at Clearwell on Wednesday with the mural he had painted for our KS1 library.  The pupils had decided on their favourite characters which he included in his final piece of art.  Who can you spot?

What we didn’t know was that he came prepared to paint another mural on our wall too! The pupils got to watch him paint as they went about their school day. Jeremy said how lovely the children were and how interested they were in what he was creating.  If only I had as much talent as he has in his little finger! We are so fortunate and grateful to Jer for doing this for us, as well as inspiring pupils by seeing what is possible.  He even read the children a story!

Contributing to our Community

Being a Collabomera is one of our key learning behaviours and this week this has been in abundance at Clearwell.  One of our year 3 pupils spent his weekend creating a mud kitchen for the children to play with.  I am sure that you all agree that the finished product is superb.

Then today, all of Willow helped weed our local community.  Most of the class spent an hour clearing up their creative play area whilst a team went into the village and gave the monument the pampering it deserves;  it has been there since the 14th Century.  I am so proud of all of them.  We know that people in the village are grateful as they were thanking the children when they were doing it.

Our Celebrations

 

 

Head’s Blog – 14th September 2018

We have had the busiest week ever at Clearwell with lots of workmen carrying out improvements to our school.  At one point I think that we had 7 extra adults carrying out work!  Our outdoor area for KS1 has been finished as far as outside agencies are concerned.  We just need to work our magic now to make it an exciting learning environment for everyone. It can be played in all year because of the fabulous canopy.  If you have any old Lego base plates and Lego you no longer need we would be happy to take them off your hands to fix onto a piece of ply to attach to the wall.

We are also going to develop the outdoor area by the School garden so that everyone can play.  One of our parents is going to make us a mud kitchen.  If anyone has any old pans or utensils they no longer need then please bring them in.  We also would like old drain pipes. We really appreciate the support that people give our lovely School.

Our kitchen is also being refurbished but will not be ready for a couple of weeks.  It is looking fabulous and we are all very excited about the finished product, especially Mrs Thomas.  The fire door was installed today.

 

Independent learning

We have been so impressed with the effort being put into the independent learning carried out by our children.  Here is a sample of their  work.

 

Our Celebrations

Housepoints are at the highest they have ever been. I wonder if it has anything to do with the receipt of a pink pink and a chance of a dip in the reward bag of you get over 20 Housepoints?!

We would really like the children to share their sporting achievements. I would like to create a board of photographs to inspire others to participate. Please could you share photographs of out of School sports achievements for us to share? Thank you

 

Stay and play

This starts this week, please share the news.

Head’s Blog – 7th September 2018

What a first week back we have had!  I would like to welcome our new members off staff, Rachel Griffiths and Wendy Williams.  Rachel has taught locally for many years and also works for Foresters Forest. She is passionate about education as well as our Forest heritage.  She is absolutely perfect for Clearwell School and our new curriculum. Rachel will be doing PPA in both KS1 and 2 as well as teaching in KS2  Friday afternoons from January when we start our 100 years in Clearwell project.  Wendy is the TA in KS2 and has 15 years experience in a city school in Bristol.  She brings with her a wealth of experience which she is already putting to good use in school.  Both new members of staff are offering clubs which is fabulous.

 

Our trip to the British Museum was extremely successful and wouldn’t have been able to happen if it wasn’t for the financial contributions from Friends and the time of parents who came with us on the trip.  It was a long day but enjoyable day with the children being able to experience original Greek artefacts.  The ideology behind the trip was to inspire the children to think like historians and come back to school and decide what they would like to find out about the Greeks.   It certainly worked as they were buzzing with ideas today and we have a vast array of ideas to use to plan their learning.

 

For lots of the children and parents it was their first visit to London and we were fortunate our driver was a bit of an expert and treated us all to a mini tour of some of the landmarks including Trafalgar Square, The London Eye, Downing Street, Big Ben (technically Queen Elizabeth tower!) and Westminster. We were very fortunate with the weather too, being able to picnic sunshine was a real treat.  I don’t know of many schools who take a whole school trip to London!

Thank you to everyone who put their little blue tokens in the pot at Tescos, we came second which means that we have £2,000 to buy new ICT equipment. It is true, every little helps!

 

Celebrations