Monthly Archives: April 2022

Head’s Blog – 29th April

What a week we have had this week! we have welcomed Mr Rob Hulse into our school as our permanent year 5/6 teacher. He has said he loves it already! Unfortunately, Mrs Stirrup has had to have emergency surgery which means that she will not be in school this term. We all send her our very best wishes. Mrs Stirrup has planned all of the year 3 and 4 learning and Ms Rix will be covering all of the teaching with Mrs Williams. We are again very lucky to have secured a high quality supply teacher who invests in our school as well as an amazing TA!

As a church school, we have a Bishop’s visitor come into visit us. She came on Tuesday and has written a lovely letter about our school. This will be shared with our families via Parent Apps. One of my favourite quotations from it is:

“It was so good to see the positive interactions between children, adults and children with adults – there is a very warm, caring, family atmosphere throughout the school.”
Mrs Anne Davies, 28th April 2022

Oak class have been learning about Judaism and spent some of their learning time creating a sukkah. This is a temporary hut constructed for use during the week-long Jewish festival of Sukkot. It is topped with branches and often well decorated with autumnal, harvest or Judaic themes.

I am writing this blog sat on the floor of the World Resorts Arena with some of our children who are participating in Young Voices. We are about to spend the afternoon rehearsing ready to perform this evening to a huge audience. I will share more photographs next week!

Head’s Blog – 8th April

Another term is over and we are still standing, despite COVID doing its best to disrupt education. I am grateful to all of the community, inside and outside of our buildings for the support that they have given us during the last two years. None of us could ever have predicted the impact of a pandemic on our lives. I am really proud of the children, who despite have disrupted learning in one way or another, for making such great progress in their learning. This is testament to quality of the teaching and learning taking place. I want to thank Mr Burby who has been teaching in Y5/6 for 3 days a week, he has shown a great deal of commitment to these pupils. We are looking forward to Mr Rob Hulse starting after Easter as the permanent Y5/6 teacher. It seems a long time ago since he was appointed.

The Easter Service was wonderful as we were able to welcome parents back into school. Thank you Mrs Williams for recording the service, it has been shared on Class Dojo. The readings and singing was fabulous and a huge thank you to Olivia Dance who accompanied the children on the piano. We are very fortunate that Olivia is continuing to work with our children preparing a ”sing song“ For our Jubilee celebrations on 21st June. We will be sending out invitations to that event but needless to say all of our families and members of the local community are welcome.

Oak class have been learning about the environment and wrote me a letter asking if they could go on a litter pick in Clearwell. The letters were fabulous, so how could I refuse? We borrowed pickers from the Parish Council and yesterday the children set off around a very windy Clearwell tidying up. They had a fabulous time. Now we need to source some new hi-viz vests as ours have disappeared in school – not sure how!

Our Celebrations

Head’s Blog – 1st April

We have had a such a busy week at school, with the children experiencing more adventures. We were very lucky to have a professional string quartet, Carducci Quartet, come to Clearwell to play for us on Monday. There were two violins, a viola and a cello. The musicians told us that the longer the string the lower the note it can play. We learnt about the dynamics of music and how this simply means the music gets louder or quieter.

We learnt lots of different Latin words that are used in musical annotation. One of the many inspirational aspects of the recital was that musicians can have a very varied life. Carducci Quartet perform concerts around the world; have performed in front of the Queen and even played the score on the Paddington film! We all absolutely loved the recital and want to say a big thank you to Nick Steele at Gloucestershire Music for making this happen.

We also had PC Greg Steer in to talk to the Year 6 children about how to stay safe online. The children’s awareness of which games and apps they should be playing. The biggest shock for them was that Fortnite should not be played before the age of 12. A few of our children admitted that they play games that are meant for 18 year olds, Call of Duty and GTA were popular ones. A couple of children also said that they let strangers follow them on Instagram/Tik Tok. They have been advised to remove these people.

There is a lot of guidance on our website, http://www.clearwellprimaryschool.co.uk/safeguarding-child-development/, to support parents with keeping their child/ren safe online.

On Tuesday, a number of our Key Stage 2 children participated in the ’Give it a Go’ day at Newent school. This was part of the Gloucestershire Games offer. Some of the activities that they participated included PowerChair Football, Golf, New Age curling, New Age bowls, cycling, football and a range of cricket related games. Paralympian, Andy Lewis, played table cricket with them! They had a brilliant time and got to do a number of things that they wouldn’t normally get to do in school.

Our Celebrations

Eevee was Top Learner for showing great perseverance when completing her assessments this week and Macey was Top Learner for her positive attitude to learning.