School and Nursery News June 2022
Peaslake Free School
Blink and you’ll miss it! that’s what this half term has felt like!
We were delighted to be invited to the Duke of Kent for their story telling workshop with Storyteller, Danyah Miller, who spoke to the children about telling stories and then began to make up a new story starting each sentence with a different letter of the alphabet. The children soon got the idea and were able to carry on in ever-more imaginative ways.
A week later the Year 1 and 2 children were off again to join other schools at St Teresa’s Infant Music Festival. Our chosen song was Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, which was very ambitious considering how fast it is and how many words needed to be learnt. Needless to say, with the help of Avril’s choreography and Miss Heaton’s musical teaching, they performed brilliantly and thoroughly enjoyed the whole day.
Now that our days are longer and we’re spending more time outdoors our “School Days” topic has leant itself to revisiting memories of Peaslake School and what it was like when it closed over twenty years ago. How it was rehoused for several months at Mr and Mrs Jones’s house, Ridgmount in Lawbrook Lane, before finally moving back into the school building. The children have really enjoyed looking back at the photographs taken at the time and making comparisons with today. The VIP visitors who came in to tell us about the memories they have included Mrs George who is a former head teacher, Lizzie Kettle, a former pupil and Mrs Weller who has supported the school from the outset and is still busy working in the office today.
Our classroom walls are buzzing with creativity as the children have been looking at the work of James Rizzi, an American pop artist, and recreating their own versions in his style. We have some brilliant artists in our midst. There are also close observational drawings where plants have been dissected and carefully drawn as part of our scientific enquiries.
In the school playground the children have been busily helping a team of parents prepare for Peaslake’s Open Gardens on 12th June. They’ve been planting an assortment of seeds, including sunflowers, so it can look its best for the day. Please do come and join us from 12 noon until 4.30 pm.
Sara Dangerfield
Peaslake Nursery
Our topic this half term is “Construction”. The children have loved it so far, making use of all our different construction resources. Our workbench and tools are very popular and we’ve been counting the bricks in the teetering towers being built to measure the children’s height! It is so good to see the girls enjoying it just as much as the boys.
The older group are having focus time working on writing their names and on number recognition – this will continue through the term getting them ready for school in September.
Vanessa Pollard
