Page 7 - Abberley Adventures - Dec 2021

ABBERLEY ADVENTURES 7
Outdoor education (continued...)
Nearly all year groups have enjoyed experimenting with our new stainless steel Kelly Kettles. You light a fire at the bottom that whooshes up through a hole in the middle of the vessel, heating a ring of water or apple juice that surrounds it. Children really are incredibly capable and it is wonderful watching them work things like this out for themselves and achieving amazing results; fostering teamwork, resilience and determination at the same time.
What else is going on? We grew heaps of parsnips and waited for the first frost before digging them up in the dark one evening during treehouse club and dropping them off at the school kitchen on our way back. Our leeks were a triumph until a deer ate them but we think they will grow back. We have also found some King Alfred’s cakes (Daldinia concentrica) on some wood underneath a beech tree and we are looking forward to utilising the fire lighting capabilities of this particular fungus. With Spring planting, whittling, spoon carving, willow weaving, orienteering, rope ladders, trees and fire lighting to think about next term, we are seriously excited for more outdoor education in 2022!
Discover Programme
Our Saturday enrichment programme, Discover, has continued to be a huge success. It has been fantastic to see so many children participating in a wide variety of activities on Saturday mornings. Furthermore, this half of term there has been more mixing of age groups, and we look forward to the majority of activities next half term being open to a wider range of ages. Please do look at our programme for January and February and discuss the exciting options with your children before they return to school. After a very successful Clay Pigeon Shooting event recently, Clay Pigeon Shooting will be continuing next half term, with Mr Bedford setting his sights on competing at IAPS in May! This activity is growing in popularity and places are limited so please book early!
During assemblies, we have informed children how many ‘credits’ they have achieved within our Discover Programme awards system, and it is exciting to see some getting close to achieving the Bronze Award! We will continue to update the children on their progress next term and their running totals are displayed on our Discover Board at school.
Pastoral
For obvious reasons, it has been a challenging term! However, the children have again shown true ‘Abberley Spirit’. Moreover, reflecting on the last 24 months, the children have shown resilience and positivity in abundance, something which really should be applauded. The pastoral team will continue to focus on this after the Christmas break and we will provide focussed support as well as work with families, wherever required.
Mr Besley has been setting weekly themes during his Monday assemblies this term. These have often linked to themed days or weeks and are followed up in LIFE lessons and section assemblies, as required. Examples included a focus on our value for the term, ‘Respect’ and ‘Fundamental British Values’. Furthermore, this half of term, the whole school participated in Anti-Bullying week, EYFS participated in NSPCCs ‘PANTS’ programme, Years 1 to 6 participated in NSPCCs ‘Speak Out Stay Safe’ programme and Years 7 and 8 focussed specifically on Mental Health using resources supplied by the Anna Freud and Place2Be charities. Please do keep an eye on the calendar for future themed weeks!
This half of term we introduced ‘Mindfulness’ activities during LIFE lessons and the aim is to provide the tools for all children to use this in other areas of school and at home.
Art and Design, Manufacture.
Despite a slight delay to the festive preparations in the Art room and workshop, over the last few weeks the elves have been busy preparing decorations, advent calendars, Christmas cards and presents. It is always such a productive time of year which encourages even reluctant artists to get making and creating, learning lots of new skills and processes. With Mr Hiles, pupils were enthralled by the craft of macrame and the pieces they have made are so impressive! In the Art room we used software to cut perfect windows for our advent calendars and the excitement around the Advent Countdown project was brilliant. In amongst all of this festive fun, pupils were working hard to complete a wide range of projects from ceramics to paintings and the scholarship candidates are in their final few weeks before presenting their work and doing their drawing tests. Busy, busy, busy!