Latest News
Keep up to date with all the news happening in school at the moment.
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Remembrance Service at St Mary's Church
Fri 11 Nov 2022This morning, at 9.30am, St Mary’s hosted our annual Remembrance Service in St Mary’s Church. I started the service off by talking to all of the children about the origins of Remembrance Day—which started back in 1919—a year after the Great War had ended, and we also talked about the reasons why we mark this special day in this country each year. We also discussed what remembrance means and how this links to our everyday lives. Then, class by class, pupils shared a wide variety of special art work, poems and prayers around the theme of Remembrance. You could tell that the children were very proud of their efforts!
A number of children from Year 6 read each of the verses from Laurence Binyon’s famous war poem For The Fallen; Reverend Jeremy Trew shared a memory of a great uncle who had served in the Great War, had survived, but had been sadly impacted by what he had experienced in the Battle of the Somme.
Towards the end, some members of the School Council and Worship Council read some prayers, written in school and then we took part in a one-minute silence so that we could reflect on what we had learnt during the school week and also during this service. The children were engaged and respectful throughout and a number of our visitors remarked upon how well behaved all of the children were.
After another minute silence held at 11am in each classroom, I then accompanied the members of the School Council and Worship Council up to the memorial in Saffron Walden, along with Mr John Westnedge (our Chair of Governors) and Jo Crocker (our Welfare and Support Officer). At the memorial we talked about the history behind these memorials and monuments and what they tell us about our past and the children asked and answered a wide number of questions—as ever they really did the school proud. We finished off by reading a shared prayer altogether which was very poignant.
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Year 3 Egyptian Day
Fri 04 Nov 2022Today in Year 3, we had a fantastic Ancient Egyptian day. The children came in amazing costumes and fully immersed themselves in the day. To start, the children learnt some of the history of Ancient Egypt and the importance of the River Nile. Once the children had completed this, they then completed a quiz involving lots of important parts of Ancient Egypt. The children came up with some fantastic answers and I was amazed with their knowledge of this civilization.
The next part of the day involved looking at lots of incredible artefacts from Ancient Egypt. The children looked at pots, real life mummification linen and arrow heads all from this time period. We then studied different pictures and learning more about the Egyptian way of life.
Finally, the children played a game called Hounds and Jackals. They learned the rules and played exactly like how they would have all of those years ago! The children enjoyed the competitive aspect of the game and took the rules very seriously! -
What a sporty term!
Tue 01 Nov 2022What an impressive half term we had for sports. Every pupil took part in a sports activity at least once. We created 602 active opportunities for our pupils to represent the school, we are extremely proud of this and them.
We started the sports season with football, attending festivals to enhance our skills that allowed Yrs 5&6 boys and girls to play in a tournament at Herberts farm. Both teams did extremely well and faced some challenging matches.
We have also hosted sports events and invited other schools to join us on the meadow for multi-skills fun, led by our very own Year 6 class. Both Year 3 & 4 had a blast in the sunshine and our Yr 6 students found a new appreciation of their teachers.
KS1 and Early Years have been busy learning to keep safe on their scooters and completing a Teddy Bear Run. They had so much energy and were such super stars with their running. They definitely had the cute factor!
This week we had 46 children across KS2 take part in a Cross-Country Running event at Herberts Farm, the weather was windy and not an easy task at all. A huge congratulations to Bertie Skipper and Maisy Andrews who qualified for the next level in this event. An amazing whole team effort from all our pupils, no one gave up and we all completed the run. A great afternoon making sports memories.
Thank you for supporting our first Inter House competiton, the children looked amazing dressed in their bright neon colours. It was a fantastic way to end the half term, everyone laughed and danced their way into half term. The Winner of the Event were Green group!
A special thank you to Mrs Carron Shaw who helps and supports our school, herself and Jackie Coleman work tirelessly to create these opportunities for our children.
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Sustainability Workshop
Tue 01 Nov 2022Megan, Lewis and Rachel (from Essex County Council) visited our school to talk to us about air quality and pollution. Rachel became ‘Doctor Rosemary Ayre’, and she had a workshop/ laboratory in her garden shed. She told us what air is made up from: Nitrogen, Oxygen, and small amounts of other gases like carbon dioxide. Furthermore, air sometimes contains other things such as: Nitrogen Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, Sulphur Dioxide and Particulate Matter. All of these things shouldn’t really be in our air, and are pollution. Theo, Emma, Molly, Logan and Lucas were chosen to ‘use tongs to clean up the air’ (move balls from one basket to another). The point was that everyone did a little bit, and together they made a difference. Together they managed to clean the air.
There was a scale of different pollutants for children to organise from least polluting to most polluting. Children found out that 1. Walking was least polluting. Then 2. LED lighting was still not very polluting. 3. Planes were slightly more polluting. 4. Factories were more polluting. 5. Traffic was the most polluting of all. It accounts for 70% of all air pollution.
Children were encouraged to walk to school where they can, and walk when they can, rather than taking a car to go to places, although the crew did recognise that we do live in a rural area so sometimes we need to drive.
All in all it was an excellent show and we really enjoyed it. We were able to talk about the things we have been learning about Sustainability and Food Miles so it was nice to add our prior knowledge.