Monthly Archives: July 2022

Head’s Blog – 20th July

Head’s Blog – 20th July

I cannot quite believe that it is the end of another academic year! Never a dull moment and this week brought us the hottest temperatures ever in the UK and even though our school building is usually cool and cold in the winter, the classrooms reached 29 degrees! However, the children who were in still kept learning and being creative. Our KS2 pupils researched the Commonwealth Games and created posters. They were highly motivated as Mr Tomley had brought in a box of chocolates for the winners! Never had some of them focussed for so long on one activity.

As our year draws to a close, we say goodbye to Abby and Mr Tomley. Abby joined us as part of Kickstart scheme having completed her A-Levels last year. She has simply been incredible so we kept her for the entire year – we are going to be so lost without her. You can tell how good she is because she will be starting at University in September to secure her qualification to be paid as a teacher. In our eyes she is already a teacher as she has worked with and inspired so many of our children. Mr Tomley has led our PE this year and helped us to participate in many events, all of which the children have loved. He will hopefully come and run our Sports Day in September! We wish him well in his retirement.

Whilst Mrs Griffiths is staying with us to be part-time in Years 3 and 4, I must mention how brilliant she has been in our EYFS and KS1 class. She took over at the start of COVID, revolutionised the learning environment and works tirelessly to ensure that the pupils make progress. The attainment of the children show the impact that she has had on them all as individuals. Thank you and we are so glad you are still going to be around to support and inspire us all.

Our Celebrations

Head’s Blog – 15th July 2022

We have had the busiest of weeks having adventures that I can remember. I cannot thank staff enough for making these things happen at the end of a hectic term. As our Year 6 will be leaving us for pastures new next year I will start with them! They have had the most spectacular night away for their mini-residential at the Wilderness centre. We were impressed with their ability to work together, support and challenge each other and still come out smiling. The instructor was fabulous and we will certainly book to go there again. Lots of memories have been made.

Oak class have been praised for their incredible swimming this term, not all schools offer KS1 swimming but we think it is so important. We hope we can continue with this with the increasing costs of coach travel: quotations have tripled in some cases for next academic year. They have also completed tasting a range of fruit and vegetables and today have made smoothies – lucky things! Oak class had whole class music tuition – for a 10 week period – of Samba drumming which culminated in a performance to parents in the garden. Thank you to all of those that attended.

Year 5 children have attend Five Acres High School Super learning day where they learnt about probability trees, played music and went orienteering around the field.

Our Governing Body would like to organise a group of parents to help keep our great garden up to date. Please could you let the school office know asap if you are available to do this and perhaps join a ”What’s App” group so arrangements can be made.

Our Celebrations

Freya was Christi-Angel this week

Head’s Blog – 8th July 2022

Head’s Blog – 8th July 2022

We have had a week starting with sporting adventures with 12 children going to Newent school on Monday and another 8 going to Viney Hill on Tuesday. The purpose of the events were to raise children’s awareness of the Commonwealth games that are happening in Birmingham this summer. The events enabled children to try out a range of sporting activities that they wouldn’t get to try out at school. They had a fabulous time and hopefully were inspired to take up a sport that they may not have thought of.

Our year 6 children have all been to visit their respective secondary schools over the last couple of weeks, all 7 schools! It is safe to say they are all excited about the next phase of their educational journey albeit a little apprehensive. Even though we are a small school, our children are confident and well prepared to move to a larger school. I am really proud of all of them and what they have achieved over the years that they have been at our school. The Leavers’ Service will take place at St. Peter’s Church on Wednesday 20th July at 10:30 a.m. and we welcome families to this service, as well as the year 6 parents. The Y6 parents will get the front few rows of the church reserved so they can have the best view of the service.

We had our move up day this week as well, which welcomed Mrs Peters to join our new Reception children. There are a couple of spaces available in our new Reception class if anyone would like their child to join us. They will be taught as a cohort of a maximum of 10 children with a highly trained EYFS professional. The statutory data in a Good Level of Development, phonics and SATs shows how excellent the provision at Clearwell is, despite COVID, the children have made excellent progress. Years 1 and 2 have been super scientists investigating what is needed to make plants grow. They made their predictions (hypotheses), decided on the different conditions the cress would live in (independent variables) and then evaluated the outcome by writing a conclusion. This is typical of how science is learnt at Clearwell as we want it to be memorable and interactive.

Our Celebrations

Head’s Blog – 1st July 2022

Head’s Blog – 1st July 2022

A much quieter week this week. A couple of our year 6s have spent a week at their respective secondary schools: we hope that they have had a fabulous time.

As you will have noticed we have engaged with a huge amount of sporting events over the last year, led by Mr Tomley. This has meant that we have been awarded the Gold Award for Gloucestershire games Sports. We hope that we will be able to continue this level of participation next year. Talking of next year, I realise that I haven’t announced staffing for next year! You will notice that Mrs Griffiths loves us so much that she is going to stay for a couple of days a week! We are thrilled by this as she adds so much value to our school and the learning of the pupils.

Oak Class – Mrs Peters, Mrs Ridgeway and PPA by Mrs Griffiths

Years 3 & 4 – Mrs Stirrup, Mrs Griffiths and Mrs Williams

Years 5 & 6 – Mr Hulse, Mrs James and Mrs McKelvey

Our Celebrations

Macey in Oak class was Christ-Angel, Alex was top learner for Willow 1 for his effort in writing and Maci in Willow 2 was Top learner for her effort with measurement in maths.