Monthly Archives: March 2022

Head’s Blog – 25th March

Head’s Blog – 25th March

This week we have made some memories which I sincerely hope children will remember for the rest of their lives. Mrs McBean invited us to help the Parish Council plant trees that they have in commemorate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. We talked about how amazing it is how long the Queen has been reigning our country and the changes she will have seen in her life time. James, the resident expert, explained to our children the best way to handle the samplings and what they need in order to flourish. After the event, I received an email; I am so proud that I wanted to share it on here.

A huge thank you to all the children of Clearwell school for helping to plant our little bit of the Queen’s green canopy to celebrate the platinum jubilee 

The children were great, very enthusiastic and asked lots of interesting questions. It was a pleasure to work alongside them all

Mrs McBean

We have also been privileged to be given 10 copies of a book by Andy Seed, called ”The Wildlife of the Forest” to go in our library. It is full of interesting information about our local wild life and habitats in our area. We are keen for our children to engage in their local environment. Over the next couple of weeks, Oak class will be carrying out a litter pick in the village.

The wildlife of the Forest is amazingly rich and varied, and so it has been quite a challenge to do it justice with this project. The aim was to create a book which brings alive local habitats and their fascinating plants and animals for children so that they come to understand and value the nature around them. The publication has hundreds of wonderful photos of Forest wildlife, many taken by local enthusiasts, plus high-quality illustrations and a bold, colourful design. I was particularly grateful for the detailed help I was given by experts in the Forest’s mammals, birds, reptiles, trees and more. They have helped make the book into something really special.

Andy Seed
Available from

An update on our fund raising for Comic Relief from last week. We raised £97! Wow, for a school of our size and in these really financially challenging times, we are really grateful for your support. It will all go directly to Comic Relief and for well deserving products, home and abroad.

Today, Oak class have had the most incredible adventure. They have joined a Live Stream from Antartica as part of our Oddizzi subscription. The children were captivated listening to scientists talk about life in Antartica and the importance of preserving this unique habitat.

Our Celebrations

Top Learner – Reader
Top Learner – Historian
Top Learner – Excellent attitude
Christi-Angel
Christi-Angel
Christi-Angel

Head’s Blog – 18th March

Head’s Blog – 18th March

We have had a week of sporting events this week. One of our year 5 children represented themselves, our school and the Forest of Dean in the District Cross-Country at Cheltenham. He came 64th in over 120 children participating, which is a respectable position to come; as part of the FoD team he got a bronze medal. He is very happy as you can see from his post-race face below!

Whilst most of KS2 children were continuing their swimming lessons, a group of Y5/6 children participated in their first netball tournament at Dean Academy, organised by Mr Beard as part of the School Games. Bearing in mind that we do not have a netball court at school, nor a playground which is conducive to playing netball, this did not stop Mr Tomley preparing our children for the tournament. The children definitely improved their ability to mark during the tournament and ended up coming joint 3rd out of the 8 teams in their group. It was great to be at an event with lots of other schools, albeit a bit chilly, seeing the children having fun and having adventures outside of the classroom. We hope that this event will inspire them to take up netball when they go to Secondary school.

Oak class have started to find out about Antartica this week and next week will be participating in a live feed direct from there. How exciting is that?! Meanwhile, they have researched polar bears and written their own non-fiction books. Some of the children have even illustrated them. The images below are from some year 1 and year 2 children.

Thank you to everyone who has donated to Comic Relief this year. I don’t have a final total as yet but I will update you all when I do. We decided to have crazy hair in exchange for the donation with all monies raised going to Comic relief. The children learn about how their donations are used all part of being a Courageous Advocate.

Our Celebrations

Top Learner – writer
Top Learner – swimming
Top Learner – sport
Christ-Angel
Christi-Angel

Head’s Blog – 11th March

Head’s Blog – 11th March

We have had a week of having adventures at Clearwell this week. On Monday, a group of year 3 and 4 children represented Clearwell at the Panathlon at Hartpury College. They participated in new age curling, parachute games, table cricket and shooting into a hoop, to name a few. The ethos of honesty, self-belief, determination, passion, team work and respect was evident in all of our pupils. They also performed really well in the sports and came second overall out of nine schools. Thank you to Mr Tomley for training and taking them there.

On Wednesday KS2 visited Goodrich castle as part of their History learning, where they are studying an aspect or theme in British history that extends their chronological knowledge beyond 1066. They have been looking at a significant turning point in British History, namely The Norman Conquest. Visiting Goodrich castle enabled the children to learn about the design of castles, how life was influenced by the arrival of the Normans and what life was like for children. Using this information the children are writing a piece of narrative to entertain as well as it being able to inform their understanding of chronology. Most importantly, we all had a wonderful day, even though it was absolutely freezing cold!

On Thursday, it was Oak classes turn to have their adventure. We all went to ”We The Curious” in Bristol as part of their hands-on science learning. There are so many learning opportunities including forces, sound, light and the human body to name a few. As Bristol is the home of Aardman animation we had the opportunity to use light boxes to trace characters and make our own stop frame animation. It was a truly fabulous and exhausting day. I am sure that everyone involved slept well last night!

As part of our Collective Worship, Father Robert came in and carried out Open the Book. The children love this every Tuesday as they get to act out the bible stories. This week it was Daniel and the Lions’ Den.

Our Celebrations

Christi-Angel
Christi-Angel
Christi-Angel
Top Learner – Reading
Top Learner – Writer
Top Leaner – SPAG

Head’s Blog – 4th March

Head’s Blog – 4th March

Apologies to start with, I forgot to include photographs that parents sent me from Home Learning on Storm Eunice day, so here they are. The majority of the children in Willow class completed all of the Doodles that we set them to complete so that their learning was not impacted as much as it would have been pre-COVID and when we did not have remote learning all set up. Well done everyone! There has to be some positive outcomes from COVID!

Mrs Griffiths, as English lead, started our day celebrating books. We decided to dress in party clothes today not only because is it the 25th World Book Day but also books and the ability to read is something to celebrate. We watched a rap which named lots of books and we had to identify as many as we could. They included the Gruffalo, Hairy McClary and Paper Dolls. It was also a reminder that all children will get a £1 voucher to exchange for a free book or put it towards a book which costs more money.   Mrs Griffiths also read “Dogger” as a tribute to Shirley Hughes, who died this week at the age of 94.  Her writing  inspired many of the great authors we read today and I am sure will continue to inspire many more.   The children all participated in a number of activities with the most important being reading, something that the day is all about. In the early evening Mrs Griffiths, supported by Mrs McKelvey, hosted EYFS and KS1 for a bedtime with hot chocolate and bed time stories. A lovely hour was had by all. I must thank Mrs Thomas who made party food for us all, as we were celebrating.

We set a reading challenge for children to read every day for the 25 days leading up to World Book Day. All of the children who entered were given a bar of chocolate as a reward and 3 lucky winners got given a book voucher.

We have been showing our support for the people of Ukraine today and whilst we cannot begin to comprehend what these families must be experiencing at the moment we can show compassion. Thank you to the Clearwell families who have donated to support the people of Ukraine. Today, we have all coloured in a Ukrainian flag each and written a message of support. We have also planted sunflower seeds which is the national flower of Ukraine. All children have taken these home today and as the seedlings grow we will be reminded of the people of Ukraine and the importance of showing compassion. We have spoken a lot about the importance of treating others as we like to be treated, something that some adults around the world could learn from.