Latest News
Keep up to date with all the news happening in school at the moment.
Please click a headline to read more.
-
Hatt is back!
Fri 10 Feb 2023Year 5 have been busy this week creating Anglo Saxon art using printing techniques. We thought carefully about how Anglo Saxon artists designed jewellery and used these as inspiration for our own art. We were very proud to finally recite our Anglo-Saxon stories to Hatt, the intrepid explorer - who returned to find out how much we had learned during our history topic! He enjoyed our Anglo Saxon tales - which we shared together on the playground. These were read with such good expression and we loved solving his curious riddles that he quizzed us on and some of us even managed to answer them and we won some house points for our teams!
-
Bag2School School Council Initiave
Fri 03 Feb 2023Bag2School Initiative:
A HUGE thank you to all of the families from St Mary’s who donated bags of clothes for our Bag2School initiative. Last Friday, members of the School Council helped to load these donations— the children had a whale of a time helping to put the bags in the van and they felt that there was about a 100 bags and the delivery driver was incredibly impressed with the amount—for the size of our school! The school will receive funds based on the weight of all of these bags and the money will be used to purchase new library books for our pupils.
Check out the photographs of the School Council hard at work!
Breaking News! We have just found out that we managed to collect 380kg of clothing - nearly half a tonne! This means that the School Council helped the school to raise £152! Well done everyone involved!
-
An Anglo Saxon visitor!
Fri 13 Jan 2023On Monday this week, BusyBee class had a special historical visitor! Hatt, popped in to see the pupils to ask for willing volunteers to join him on his quest through Europe!
Hatt talked to the class about the three different types of Anglo Saxons—the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes—and how they had come from the lands of Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands! He also explained that they were experienced farmers who lived off the land and that they were able to make equipment such as ploughs and tools to help them in their work. He informed them that they would grind wheat to make flour so they could make bread. Also, the pupils found out that some Anglo Saxons were skilled craftspeople who made decorative jewellery such as brooches and necklaces.
The Busybees also found out that children in Anglo Saxon times didn’t go to school. Instead they learned skills from their parents. Boys learned farming and craftmanship from their fathers, while girls would often learn how to spin cloth and look after the home. Adults also enjoyed sports such as hunting, horse-racing and playing musical instruments. Hatt even whet the children’s appetites by referring to the famous tale of Beowulf—which the children will be finding out more about as the term progresses.
Hatt finished off by talking to the children about his clothing, including his strange shiny metal helmet, simple but effective sword and large axe, as well as his warm and cosy animal furs—which helped keep him warm on cold winter days as well as making him look even more magnificent! He said that Anglo Saxons were mostly a peaceful race, but they were prepared to fight and defend themselves if they needed to.
Pleasingly, pretty much every member of Busybee class voted to join Hatt on his epic quest—so unfortunately they will not be returning to school in the foreseeable future—sorry parents and carers!
I am sure you will join me in wishing Hatt and his merry band of Anglo Saxons the very best of luck!
-
Eco Garden Competition Success!
Fri 16 Dec 2022Eco-garden competition winners announced in local press
As you may be aware (from local press releases this week), we are delighted to announce that the school has won a share of £60,000 in Stansted Airport's eco-garden competition, which took place earlier this term. Seven green-thinking local primary schools (in Essex and Hertfordshire) within ten miles of the airport were encouraged to submit designs for gardens or green spaces that improve biodiversity to compete for the cash prizes. A prize fund of £45,000 was initially offered by the airport for the competition but due to the high quality of entries, it was decided to award grants to all shortlisted schools, resulting in a total prize pot of £60,000.
Quote from Daniel Burford, Stansted Airport’s Community Engagement Manager, said: "We had some really
fantastic ideas on our shortlist, and it was really tough to narrow it down, so we decided to award cash prizes to all of the shortlisted schools, increasing the total prize pot from £45,000 to £60,000. We are really pleased with how many entries we had, and the winners should be proud of themselves. We hope that the prize money will make a difference and allow the schools to bring their brilliant ideas to life. These ideas will not only lead to the creation of new wonderful and rich green spaces and provide children with an excellent learning experience, but it will also contribute to their mental and physical well-being and highlight how important it is to respond to today’s climate challenge. Addressing this is one of our key priorities as the airport continues its recovery from the pandemic. We are fully focused on how this can be achieved sustainably and to help accelerate our progress towards becoming a Net Zero Carbon business by 2038, and a Net Zero Carbon industry by 2050.”
Quote from Mr Chris Jarmain, Head Teacher at St Mary’s Primary, said: “We were absolutely delighted to receive this exciting grant to create an Eco-Garden for our school, St Mary's, in Saffron Walden. This award will give our pupils the opportunity to broaden their knowledge of managing and maintaining a garden and its tools safely. It will also help the children to understand where food comes from and how to eat healthily and sustainably. This new area will boost the physical and mental wellbeing of the children as well as their resilience, allowing them to connect with nature in all weathers. Thanks to our Forest School Leader and Sports Leader, Mrs McInnes as well as our Year 6 Eco Committee for putting in all of the hard work on this incredibly important project, which will have so many benefits for our school children for years to come. A truly long-lasting legacy!”
With the large pot of money that we will be receiving, the school will be supported by the Stansted Airport Community Engagement Team to design and construct our very own Eco-Garden in the new year. How exciting! The link to the Saffron Walden Report article can be found here:https://www.saffronwaldenreporter.co.uk/news/23187881.saffron-walden-school-wins-prize-stansted-airport/
The designs were assessed by a panel which included representatives of the airport’s corporate social responsibility team and the Stansted Airport Community Trust. Various layouts were submitted, including proposals for ponds, outdoor classrooms, sensory gardens, food growing areas, and accessible green spaces. Bishop's Stortford's Hertfordshire and Essex High School, Hockeril Anglo-European College, Richard Whittington Primary School, Thorn Grove Primary School, Windhill 21 Primary School, St Mary's C of E Primary School in Saffron Walden and Great Easton Primary School are the seven schools sharing the £60,000 prize pot.
-
Christmas Lunch Day!
Wed 14 Dec 2022On Wednesday this week, St Mary’s held our annual Christmas Lunch Day in the School Hall. I am pleased to say that it went really well and was superbly organised by Riina Driscoll, our Kitchen Manager, and Rose Dye, our head of Midday, alongside their hard-working team. Classroom staff, as well as Finance Officer Claire Burgess, supported the midday and kitchen team to bring a festive lunch to each of our children as they got to pull crackers, don colourful hats and recount terrible jokes (with a bit of help from the adults!) which had been found within their crackers. Thank you also to all involved—the children had a truly lovely time!
-
Snowy Days!
Wed 14 Dec 2022Wow! What a wintery week we have had here at St Mary’s!
Let it snow!
Monday began with a flurry of snow as the roads and pavements and the entirety of the school site was coated in the coldest precipitation. As the week has progressed we have experienced sub-zero temperatures on every single day of this week—with some readings dropping as low as –8 and even—11 as I was driving in this morning to work. Chilly to the say the least! The week the school has put into operation our ‘flexi’ morning and after school arrangements—meaning that families were able to drop off their pupils a little later in the morning and pick them up a little earlier (if they wished to do so) so as to make the mornings and afternoons that little bit safer—and to stop so many people being on the pavements and roads at the same time.As ever, thank you for your support during these more challenging occasions!
-
Reverse Advent Calendar
Mon 12 Dec 2022Reverse Advent Calendar:
Thank you to everyone who took part in our Reverse Advent Calendar this year and made donations for Uttlesford Foodbank. All of the donations are really appreciated.
On Thursday we took five large boxes and 6 bulging carrier bags up to the Uttlesford Food bank and I know that these will soon be shared amongst lots of families throughout the Christmas period. Another excellent example of the compassion and generosity shown by our St Mary’s community.
-
Yoga Day
Tue 06 Dec 2022On Tuesday 6th December, St Mary's school experienced a day of yoga. First we learnt 'stick' where you stand up tall with your feet together and arms by your side. Then we did 'Sun sequence' (which was stick, hands, reach for the sun, elephant, proud horse, dog, snake and back again). We played 'rainstick' where we all laid down and the yoga teacher would tip the rainstick and make a rain sound then he would hand the rainstick over and then we had a go. We had a go at ladybird relaxation at the end when we laid down and our teacher would dangle a ladybird puppet so that it landed on a thumb, a knee, a shoulder and a nose. Two pupils remarked: ‘I liked the rainstick the most because it was relaxing’, Annabelle and Molly, Year 5. Thank you to Mrs McInnes who organised this really worthwhile experience for our lovely pupils. Please have a look at the Class Updates (for 9th December) for lots more of the Yoga photos from your child/ren’s class.
-
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.
-
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!