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.

We have had lots of celebrations this week. It started with some children bringing in a decorated pumpkin to celebrate All Hallows’ day. They really showed off their creative side, which is something we value at Clearwell. The Winners were Asha and Matilda, Commended were Arthur and Dylan. Other entries were by Amelia, Alfie, Shannon, Mari, Florence, Paige, Theo and Max. Thank you to parents for their support with this. All monies raised by the entries is going to our library fund.

We also celebrated our Harvest service where we are fortunate enough to do at St. Peter’s church with our Foundation Governors present. Unfortunately, we were unable to invite parents due to COVID but they did get to watch their children in their full glory on the videos that have been posted onto Class Dojo – this is a secure site accessible for parents. I am able to share on here the vast quantity of food that families donated, all of which goes to Forest Food bank. We have spoken to children that it is important to give, whether that is love, happiness, kindness or at this time of year food to support those parents that may need extra help to feed their families. Thank you to everyone that are in a position to donate and did so, we know that the recipients will be grateful for this. We will be operating a Reverse Advent calendar during December which again all donations will go to the Forest Food bank.

Another celebration that took place within the Hindu Religious calendar is Divali. So as part of the RE, Cultural awareness and art lesson the children made divas out of salt dough. They had to measure out the ingredients, work together to make the dough, then shape and paint them. They had lots of fun and have created some lovely lamps which will go home next week after they have been PVA’d!

Then came Fireworks images. Art club created some fabulous chalk art work. The children are so lucky that the teachers value art and creativity. I love the fact that they work together, especially after being separated so much in the last 2 years because of COVID.

Our Celebrations