This week in Willow class, we were very excited to share our learning with our family community during our Learning Café. This was a very messy but fun shared experience making apple crumbles which the children were able to take home and enjoy. Perhaps the will be helping in the kitchen now, especially with the desserts. It is always lovely to bring the parents in to see what activities we do in school but also to give them the opportunity to join in.

The focus of our assemblies this week was ‘Sense of Place’ and we discussed how we engage with our community in differing ways. We often have charitable events to aid the wider world. Last year we had the school’s birthday celebration where the children engaged with the history of their community. We also thought closer to home and discussed how we can support our classroom community.

In R.E we have been taking this discussion further to consider the different types of communities such as cultural, racial, religious as well as family, groups and school. We had a debate about how we should behave and treat others who may be different in their beliefs or cultures.

Glebeland assemblies this term have held the focus of Community Engagement, exploring each characteristic further by having a focus week. Teachers have identified pupils showing the particular characteristic in their learning and put them forward for ‘Citizen of the Week’ award. Our focus on engaging with debate developed our understanding of respecting other differences, acknowledging their view and responding by sharing our own opinions without forcing others to agree. The whole school participated with each other across all age groups and views were respectfully encouraged and challenged.

In Geography this half-term, heron class are learning about cartography, looking at London specifically. We are beginning to familiarise more with maps, atlases and online resources that would help us to describe the features of a location. We have also been identifying human and physical features of different areas, including London. We went on a trip to Carlton Marshes to explore the park and identify important symbols on a map when traversing a new area.

 Sue and Bob, our Carlton Marsh experts, informed us that community engagement was one of the most imperative elements when designing the visitor centre. We then thought about what could be done to attract even more visitors and members of the community and collaborated when designing a new building made from outdoor materials. Heron class encapsulated a real sense of community thinking about the different ways of contributing to the park's wild spaces and how we can be respectful active citizens when collectively eradicating threats to wildlife e.g. recycling, respecting the environment. 

Woodpeckers have been learning to understand equality and diversity by reading the book, What if we were all the same? By C.M. Harris, We have considered what makes us unique and are beginning to recognise that everyone has different interests and things which bring them joy. To do this we examined our fingerprints and considered our visual differences. We also considered our differences on the inside by writing about something which brings us joy and comparing it with our friends.

We have also been learning the text Coming to England by Floella Benjamin, and have been considering the differences between life in the UK and that of children in Trinidad and Tobago, linking to our home and expressing a clear sense of place.

Children in Red Kite class have been focussing on Learning Characteristics linked to Community in school over the last few weeks.

Evidence of the Sense of place, Participation and Engaging in Debate strands have been prevalent in our classroom with some highly valuable contributions from every single member of the group. These contributions have led to engaging lessons with opportunities for reflection on our own successes and areas of improvement. 

We also reflecting on our Sense of Place. We began with a class trip to Norwich to explore the Victorian buildings and their purposes via a treasure trail, using our cartography skills to map out where we began, travelled to and ended. This term we will be consolidating our sense of place by using maps of our local area to compare those of Norwich.

The last term in the academic year, for KS2, always has a huge focus on responsibility as children prepare for the next stage in their education. We are encouraging and supporting each other to not only take responsibility for our learning but also to understand that organisation of ourselves and the environment that we work in is a key life skill. 

We will continue to build links between these and other learning characteristics as the term moves on.

At Helmingham we have been reminded of how the school offered support to stranded travellers during the floods last year. We were sent the gift of an apple tree with a beautiful plaque from a family that were grateful to take shelter in the school. Whilst the floods were a traumatic event for many, it was a real honour to be able to open our doors to provide shelter, some warm food and drink and to share the stories of random strangers who found themselves needing help. It was lovely to hear how grateful this family was for a small act of kindness from our small community.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank and praise a parent from our school community - Ms Cathy Bradshaw is a school hero! She has been putting posters and flyers to help boost our school numbers, all over the county, leaving flyers on cars at sporting events and putting posters up in local businesses as well as encouraging social groups with the families in the school community. Thank you Ms Bradshaw! You are a real advocate for our school.

Another thank you extends to Sophie and Ed at Helmingham Hall, who kindly opened their doors for the children to look around the hall and see the drawbridge in action as part of their Castles topic. We really value being part of the Helmingham Hall community and appreciate all of their support.

At Henley, as part of our engagement with the wider community, we have been imaginative and creative and have made beautiful two-dimensional artwork for the Young Art East Anglian competition. The theme for his year’s competition has been 'Connections'. 

Class 1 decided to draw pictures of bees, hives, trees and flowers to represent the connection of bees and how they make honey and pollinate the flowers. They practised their pencil grip, colouring neatly within their outlines and using crosshatching to shade. Class 2 have completed very colourful pieces of artwork that represent a stained glass window with their important family and friends on it, to represent a strong relationship as a connection. They have been working on their painting skills. Class 3 all completed different pieces of artwork and were more independent with choosing their representations of connections, using drawing skills. Some chose to draw star constellations, some drawing chronology of boats to show how things evolve but the fundamentals stay the same and some were drawing lifecycles of sea life. Class 4 have been showing off their knowledge of Ancient Greece and have been using felt tips to produce unique and colourful pieces of artwork which represent their topic, such as the Olympic hoops.

Winners and runners up will be chosen from 4 age categories: Nursery & Reception, Years 1 &2, Years 3 & 4, Years 5 & 6. All first prize art will be framed. The children can go and visit the gallery from Friday 21st – Sunday 23rd June where their chosen artwork will be on display at the John Gibbins Gallery in Woodbridge.

This term our core text has been the Hungry Caterpillar.  We have explored the 7 areas of learning using our text.  We have investigated the number of different food items eaten by the caterpillar and their colours, we tried some of the food in the story and we worked together to create our own large scale caterpillar and cocoon using different textures and tools. As a group we talked about which at which fruit we did and did not like. 

The preschool children take responsibility for their behaviour in the classroom and follow the classroom rules of walking feet, kind hands, sitting bottoms and listening ears. We have worked together to understand why we need to have these in place. The children can confidently discuss our rules and work together to support their peers to participate.  We have loved the story the colour monster which is a story about emotions and what these emotions would look like if they were a colour. The children can identify that red is angry, green is calm, yellow is happy and have been able to associate what they are feeling to a colour, in turn understanding an emotion and what that feels like to them as an individual.  

 We have also extended our provision to create an outdoor classroom for both the preschool and the toddler room, this has been a great addition and has created another learning environment that is accessible throughout the whole day.  Children have adapted to the changes in place and love having an outdoor learning space. This has been particularly important for those children who need that extra space to be able to regulate their own emotions. 

This half term children at Middleton visited Minsmere nature reserve for an educational visit. Located within the community just 10 minutes from the school site, Minsmere is home to some of the UK’s rarest wildlife. Minsmere features a range of habitats such as wetlands, lagoons, heath and reedbed. Such a diverse environment provides a rich range of nature, residents include otters, avocets, bitterns and ponies.

Children capitalised on having such a wonderful community resource on their doorstep by using local area experts to develop their knowledge about the local environment and nature within it. While at Minsmere children took part in a workshop focused on learning how to classify leaves. Developing their scientific knowledge by learning about the trees that grow in the reserve and how to distinguish between them children were able to become expert identifiers. Children also participated in an observational study to spot seasonal changes at the reserve. Using the knowledge from their science lessons children were able to explain what they were looking out for as they walked the reserve to help them understand the environment and how the season had shaped it. Growing up in such a scenic area of the country with such a unique landscape and animal population it is vital that our children understand the environment thriving around them to help grow within their local community.

At Reedham Primary and Nursery School we are passionate about working with our community to create opportunities for learning. We are really excited to join forces with our local WI group to enter the Public Affairs Campaign Cup Competition supporting

Our WI have sent some members to prepare the wildlife garden beds at the school to support children to grown some herbs and vegetables, so we can enter the competition.

Our WI also helped us to set up 'Craft Club' on Wednesdays at lunchtime, where our children can take part in craft activities like sewing and knitting. Children can volunteer to take part each half term - this has proven very popular. They will also be helping our Year 6 to create a mural of sewn squares to showcase our year 6 each year.

During the Easter holidays, our PFA ran an Easter Egg Hunt around Reedham village. We sold 67 activity sheets in total - £1 each! All the returned entries were placed into a draw. Poppy in Squirrels won the top Easter prize hamper! The Reedham Post Office did a wonderful job of looking after the Easter Hunt and we are very grateful.

We are looking forward to inviting our community to a picnic on the 80th anniversary of D-Day on Thursday 6th June - we will all be wearing red, white and blue and eating strawberries and cream. This follows on from our village parish council's invitation back in November, where we joined them to commemorate the 21 airmen, who lost their lives 80 years ago when their planes crashed over Reedham marshes.

At Rendlesham our wellbeing committee have been thinking about how they can help themselves but also others, this is a voluntary group led by our SENDCO, Mrs Arnold, that is weekly during a lunchtime.  The group is there to talk about wellbeing and mental health and discuss ways in which this could be improved or sustained, for example by finding activities they enjoy such as reading or dancing.  Ideas are followed up in assembly weekly so this reaches all of our pupils.  We also have a ‘Health and Wellbeing’ board in school where pupils can refer to and find take home activities and strategies to support them.  The group were wanting to reach out and support the local community of Rendlesham and surrounding area so decided to have a dress down day in exchange for an item of food or household produce that could be donated to the Rendlesham Pop up Shop and The Salvation Army in Woodbridge. They were responsible for writing the letter to the parents/carers to advertise the event but also contacting the charities and organising the drop off of the produce.  The wellbeing group take great pride in their work and have achieved so much by participating in ways to help others not just at school but the whole community.

During the summer term, we have asked a handful of parents at Rendlesham to take part in the trial of the trust's newest addition to Learning Pi - our mobile app. The app has two new features and will be rolled out trust-wide in September 2024. The first feature is "Snap and Share" - this allows both parents and teachers to take a photo of a child or their work and tag it directly with one of our eighteen learning characteristics, these "Snaps" are then uploaded to the Learning Pi platform and can be viewed in the feed of each child along with a caption. The second feature is direct messaging between parents and teachers - a feature that we see replacing the book bag notes. This allows parents to communicate quickly and easily with their child's class teacher and vice versa. The trial of the app will continue at Rendlesham and Riverwalk School for the summer term and we will be feeding back to our developers to finalise the app for its launch in Autumn.

     

In Lower School, now that the fine weather is finally upon us Elephants class have joined Lions to share the toys and activities outside. Cars and scooters remain a real favourite with children whizzing up and down the paths and ramps! The spinning cups and slides are in constant use; and on the veranda a sensory circuit attracts all the climbers and movers! We have recently added a few adult - led activities such as bubble blowing, shaker making and water play which are very popular by all the children! Well done Elephants!

In Middle School, With the arrival of the warmer weather, comes more outdoor learning. Emus have been enjoying the swings, bikes, and even problem solving with the water play pipes trying to get the water to flow to the bottom! We've also taken some of our lessons outside and very much enjoyed the bubbles outside as part of our phonics. Emus would like the warm, dry eather to stay so we can use our outside space even more over the coming weeks.

In Upper School, we have had a busy and fun month. Octopus class have enjoyed learning more about dinosaurs, including making a display of the layers of the Earth where fossils have been found, collaging dinosaurs and writing captions to describe pictures of dinosaurs. We have had a visit from Choccy the dog and have done lots of playing outside with our friends. We have planted some sunflower seeds and had phonics outside. We will be doing more outdoor learning as Spring progresses.

Southwold Primary School have been very busy over the last few months. As part of a playground regeneration project the local community including staff, the PTA, members of the local Rotary and Lions and local residents rallied together, to tidy up the playground and garden area. This community spirit was hugely appreciated and we’re looking forward to the continued development of the outside provision for both play and learning opportunities.  

During the year, children across the school have visited St Barnabas, a local care home, to share songs and happy messages including Christmas and Easter cards.  As this goes to print, the residents will have also been treated to a recorder recital after children in Jupiter Class shared their most recent musical learning.  It has been wonderful to see the children’s engagement in intergenerational interactions and feedback from the residents has also been very positive.

As well as venturing out into the local community, we’ve also had representatives from the local community into school. This has included the Mayor who led an assembly and the local Open the Book team from St. Edmunds’ church who have both led assemblies and supported our enjoyment of reading.

Engagement in the local community has also taken place after school, where children have completed litter picks of the local area to improve the environment of the town, visited the library and also explored the beach for beach club.  The Old Hospital is a wonderful community facility and staff and children have visited for events including their new project of “Family Tea Club” where children and families have free access to a meal and activities.

We are very excited to be extending our Warren school family into the wider community and building new relationships.

On the first Wednesday of term PC Salazar and PC Mitchell came to visit. The children in lower school learned about how the police help us, and had lots of fun trying on police hats, sitting in the car and even switching on the flashing lights and siren. They will be returning to speak with upper school later in the term.

Reverend Helen visited from St. Mark’s church and brought along Clive – a visiting curate – to meet with everyone. They spent some time with Post-16, who asked lots of interesting questions. Some of our school council members then showed them around the rest of the school and gave everyone the opportunity to say hello. Reverend Helen is going to become a regular visitor to our school, supporting assemblies and also giving classes the opportunity to visit the church. Two of our secondary classes visited to ‘experience Easter’ recently and two primary classes are visiting soon to act out a christening and a wedding.

Jenny Sandmann, our Post-16 lead, and Sue Phipps our Assistant Academy Head, visited Involve recently and are so excited to build a new relationship and new opportunities for our young people in Post-16. This will include them being part of gardening and recycling projects, which will contribute towards developing valuable life skills and their OCR accreditation.

On Thursday 9^th May, the school was alive with a feeling of community spirit, as parents, carers, staff and students came together to plant sunflowers on the school field. It was great to see everyone mucking in, with smiles, laughter and music filling the air. Some of our School Council manned a shop, selling sunflower trinkets and biscuits. They raised £108 towards our ‘Growing a Growing Fund’, which will mean flowers will be blooming all over the school before we know it.

June 7^th is another opportunity for our school community to get together, as we move a mile for Childhood Day, raising money for the NSPCC.

Nothing gives us greater pleasure than seeing our community grow, demonstrating our values of Unity, Equity, Trust and Success.

Both schools in the Waveney Valley Partnership continue to explore the possibility of becoming an important part of the local community.

This term Mr Lea has continued to hold Learn More sessions with families - an opportunity for all to learn about the methods and approaches now being employed in the education of our children. These are well-attended and many parents now come with pens and books ready to make notes!

The staff, parents and pupils of Mendham Primary have been busy in developing the outside area of the school. Appeals went out to families and many items were contributed including: soil, plants, planters and even seating! We really want to help the local community be part of our school.

​Another link that we have is with the local church where we participated in their Spring fair by holding an Inventions day. Pupils worked collaboratively in different age groupings to create a product that they think would make life easier for people everyday. The groups produced ideas, designs and used a range of materials to produce a prototype. In the afternoon the pupils then presented their work to the rest of the school including the staff. These then went on display in the church and all visitors voted as to the one they thought was the best - the pupils really enjoyed this initiative.

 

 

 

At St Edmunds Primary the school continues to ​develop its links with the community project for the Village Post Office and Shop. We have submitted ideas on how we could produce an Art gallery of the work of the children, assist with the running of enterprise stalls as part of Years 5 and 6 scheme and finally we would also love to be part of the garden project - creating a market garden to sell or offer produce to the local community.

Another way in which we are increasing the profile of the school is by Years 1 and 2 visiting Depperhaugh Care Home. This was part of their PSHE work about kindness and being inclusive of everyone in the local community. The children were very respectful and we are now exploring different ways in which we can engage with the residents of the home. 

At Winterton Primary School and Nursery we pride ourselves in our positive links with the local community. These relationship is something we value on all levels, as it not only enriches the children’s learning experiences by giving them opportunities to meet new people and learn about different ways of life, but it also provides a positive experience for the local people in the community who always give such positive feedback to us about any engagements they have with us.

Some of the people we engage with include: Winterton Cricket Club, the Friends of Horsey Seals, Winterton Church, the Parish Council,  a local group of military veterans and military jeep enthusiasts, the Winterton Lifeboat Restoration Group, the local businesses, the local care homes, the Seasiders Ukulele Band, the local library, the local schools and colleges, and other members of the local community who attend our school events such as the Christmas/Easter/Summer Fayres.

One particular group of people who we have an excellent connection with is a group of military veterans who support and lead our annual Remembrance Service, arrange special celebratory events for the Royal Jubilees and Coronations, and organise commemorative services for D-Day which are held on the beach by the World War 2 tank traps. In addition to this, the veterans also come and lead assemblies to share their knowledge about these important historic events with the children. The veterans also have a convoy of military jeeps which attend the events and provide a special treat for the children in the village at Christmas – the jeeps are used to transport Father Christmas around the village to hand out presents and sing carols – a much-loved village tradition!

At Yoxford and Peasenhall Primary there have been many things happening. Our children are looking forward to Educational Visits over the next half term in the local area including RSPB Minsmere and Easton Farm Park where they will be able to explore more of their local, natural environment.  We have continued our community links with the village church are pleased to have welcomed their Open the Book team in for assemblies and also visit the church and Rev. Tim, to learn more about the religious artefacts within the building. During our Scouting provision the children have been on a local hike to improve their map reading skills, fitness and knowledge of the local area. Our Beaver section forged links with an extended member of our school community and had a zoom call with a real-life pilot!

Our PTA are incredibly supportive of school events and enriching the children’s experiences and we are very grateful for their support, knowledge and skill set. During the year, they have funded a Key Stage 2 trip to the Regent Theatre in Ipswich, had local members of the community come in to entertain Key Stage One and Early Years and provided new playtime resources to support the children’s play experience.  We are very fortunate to have parents/carers, grandparents, aunts and uncles who are supportive and encouraging. We look forward to our continued working together and of course welcome the support of any other community members who wish to become involved with events.

We have recently met with the local councillor for Yoxford, who shared some amazing opportunities that are coming up and we look forward to enriching the curriculum through some of these offers.