All of the children settled back into school really well for the first half term and as we were working as ‘one school bubble’ we were able to open up our breakfast club and after school clubs.
Our children enjoyed their educational visit to Whinlatter, where they explored parts of the forest and learnt about the animals living in the forest and their habitats.
We had a whole school ‘Geography themed morning’ focusing on the continents. We took part in flag making, Indian cooking, Antarctic snow flake making, research on Australian animals, making Egyptian mummies and learning about the Amazon rainforest.
Our children have taken part in several ‘virtual sports challenges’ alongside other schools, including netball and football. We also took part in a ‘squat challenge’ which we actually won.
Because of the current restrictions we haven’t had many visitors in school, but it has been nice to have weekly visits from Reverend Gilroy and Reverend Banks for weekly worship time. Our Year 5 and 6 children have continued to learn to play the guitar with Colin Hendra from Cumbria Music Service.
Junior children have enjoyed their forest sessions at Torpenhow. The Autumn term got off to a colourful start with the children trying to find all of the colours of the rainbow in their first session back- they successfully created lots of NHS rainbows. The following week they were challenged to construct hand washing stations using sticks, string and watering cans. Some brilliant structures were achieved with lots of problem solving and team work along the way. Over the next few weeks the children painted pictures using paints made from natural ingredients, picked brambles and cooked them on the campfire, learnt about spiders and tackled a giant spider’s web challenge.
We all had fun taking part in our concert ‘The Christmas Journey’ and are looking forward to watching the DVD with our families. Our other Christmas activities included supporting Save the children Christmas Jumper day, where we raised £53.00, having Christmas lunch in school and taking part in Christmas craft morning.
After a long time apart in the Summer Term it was so nice to be together as a whole school again and we look forward with positivity to the Spring term. We would like to wish everyone a happy new year.