December 2022

15 Buckden Roundabout December 2022 Pre - School & School By the time you read this, Christmas will be approaching, and the Preschool floor will probably be covered in glitter! Before the season of glitter, though, the children enjoyed autumn activities. They loved the pumpkin/Halloween hunt, and our nominated child photographer for the day did a great job! Bon- fire Night provided a great opportunity to explore colour and watch a video about fireworks on our accessible interactive whiteboard, which is adding a new dimension to the children ’ s learning. The children are currently busy collaging poppies for our remembrance wreath, which we will lay at St Mary ’ s when we visit. Coming up, we also have an exciting visit from the fire brigade, who will talk about fire safety and the important job firefight- ers do. Congratulations to … Miss Charlene, who successfully applied for the role of Pre- school Manager and took over the role after the half - term holi- day. The Committee wish her every success. Can you spare an hour or two to help Preschool? As a committee run pre - school, it is essential that we have: • A minimum amount of parent members . • A minimum number of total committee members. Without adequate committee members, we could be forced to close, so if you have any time to spare—even just an hour or two here and there—we would be very grateful! For more in- formation, please contact Helen, our chairperson, or Debby, our treasurer, at buckdenpreschoolcommittee@gmail.com Christmas is Coming! We ’ re delighted to be running the Buckden Christmas Lights raffle. Please support us by: • Getting in touch asap if you can donate prizes • Buying tickets, either in advance or on the day Thank you! Our End of Year Thank You As usual, we have so many people to thank! • Our parents and committee members for their contin- ued support. • Our placement student, Emily, who returns to us regu- larly and is such a great help. • Our two nurse mummies who kindly came to talk to the children about their roles. • Nisa. Nisa supplies our snacks for free and hold a loose change collection box for us. • Sally, Buckden ’ s librarian, who is always so welcoming and helpful. It just remains for us to wish everyone A Very Merry Christmas! To arrange a visit or apply for a place, please call 01480 810600 or email us at buckdenpreschool@yahoo.co.uk . For more in- formation, visit www.buckdenpreschool.co.uk or read our updates on https://www.facebook.com/ www.buckdenpreschool.co.uk/ BUCKDEN CHURCH OF ENGLAND PRIMARY ACADEMY November 2022 We returned to school refreshed on Monday 31 st October after a lovely week of weather during half term to unfortunately wet weath- er. During half term we were very lucky to have a group of volun- teers from Bosch Rexroth come and paint the rear of the school as well as help fund the project. Additional funding came from donations from the Buckfest committee, Rocket Graphics Ltd and Huntingdon Homebase kindly gave us a dis- count on paint, roller/brush sets and masking tape. With the help of this additional funding we have been able to make a start on clearing our pond area and look at ways on how we can enhance and use this space more for our outside learning. The school is very grateful for the generous donations and sup- port from these companies and volunteers to help keep our school maintained and develop our learning experiences for all. Exciting news!!! We have been awarded Bronze Award as a Rights Respecting School and currently working towards our Silver status. This means as a school we are putting children ’ s rights at the heart of our ethos and culture, to improve well - being and to develop every child ’ s talents and abilities to their full potential. This is an award given to schools on behalf of Unicef UK. Our Buckden School Children ’ s Parliament class reps are the steering group for this project, it links really close- ly with our Sustainable Development Goal based curriculum. We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded a Local School Nature Grant, thanks to a project run by Learning through Landscapes and funded by the People ’ s Postcode Lottery. Our pupils will be benefitting from a set of good quali- ty planting beds that you may be able to see outside our new library, a collection of books that details lots of outdoor learn- ing opportunities, a collection of wild flower seeds and four Easi - Scopes, all of which will be used to explore and learn about the great outdoors. Outdoor learning is so important for children to connect with nature, stay active, learn in a different environment and promote their general wellbeing. We now look forward to implanting the advice and guidance received and using our new resources. With Remembrance Sunday fast approaching this weekend, we have been selling poppies on the playground to both chil- dren and parents on behalf of the Royal British Legion. Chil- dren will be able to come to school on Friday 11 th November in Scouts, Guides, Cubs, Brownies, Beavers and Rainbows uni- forms. Since the start of term a number of children have attended a variety of off - site sporting events, such as the Year 5/6 girls football team playing at St Neots Football Club for a tourna- ment. We also welcomed Eynesbury Primary School to play a (Continued on page 16)