February 2023

15 Buckden Roundabout February 2023 Pre - School & School It was lovely to welcome the children and their families back to start a fresh new year at Preschool. We started with some fun and colourful activities to fight off the post - holiday blues! Col- our dabbers were provided for colour mixing and the children enjoyed using maxi colour buttons to create pictures and geo- metrical patterns on grid boards. These resources help to de- velop analytical thinking and encourage discussion about size and shape. Early Years is all about giving children opportunities to learn though play—and play that follows their interests as naturally as possible. Some children had expressed interest in materials for craft rabbits in a catalogue, so we supplied newspapers and balloons so that they could make papier - mâché rabbits. Simi- larly, after one child became interested in aeroplanes and played with a paper aeroplane, other children wanted to test how far they could fly their planes across the classroom. We supplied different materials so that they could test which was best for plane - building, encouraging language about strength and weight. We also supplied rulers and tape measures so they could learn how to measure distance and practice number recognition. It ’ s surprising what your child has learnt at Pre- school when they tell you they “ just flew paper planes! ” In our outdoor area, we supplied damp sand at the beginning of term, providing a sensory experience and a resource for ex- ploring texture, weight and quantity as the children filled con- tainers. Some children made ‘ soup ’ and ‘ cakes ’ for a picnic using the mud kitchen. Others were interested in ways to move the sand from one place to another. To develop these interests, we added more utensils to the mud kitchen and ex- tended the space to give then more scope for transportation! Where will their interests take us next? Committee Members Still Needed Although some new volunteers have come forward for the committee, we often regularly lose members as children go on to big school or move house etc. This means we would still love some new members! We ’ re a friendly group, you won ’ t be asked to take on any tasks or responsibilities that you don ’ t want. Please contact Helen, our chairperson, or Debby, our treasurer, at buckdenpreschoolcommittee@gmail.com for more details. To arrange a visit or apply for a place, please call 01480 810600 or email us at buckdenpreschool@yahoo.co.uk. For more infor- mation, visit www.buckdenpreschool.co.uk or read our up- dates on https://www.facebook.com/ www.buckdenpreschool.co.uk/ BUCKDEN CHURCH OF ENG- LAND PRIMARY ACADEMY January 2023 Happy New Year to the residents of Buck- den, Diddington and Southoe from the staff and pupils at Buckden School. We have returned to school after a busy Christmas holidays to a much quieter term than the last one! We ’ re all looking for- ward to new challenges this term and hopefully some warmer weather as we head towards Spring. Our fabulous PTA raised an impressive £5334 during the Au- tumn Term through various events, especially towards the run up to Christmas. They were kept very busy organising activi- ties such as the Christmas Raffle, Christmas Fair, refreshments served at the Reception children ’ s Nativity performances, the Elfridges shop where children could come along and buy Christmas presents for loved ones, and personalised Christmas cards from MY Child ’ s Art. You too can help raise money for the PTA by simply changing the way you shop! By linking your Amazon account through Amazon Smile and choosing Buckden PTA as your charity. Al- ternatively you can create an EasyFundraising account and each time you visit your favourite online stores such as M&S or Tesco, the PTA will get a donation from those companies for every purchase you make. Lastly if you have oil central heating, when you come to order your oil visit www.boilerjuice.com/community - fundraising/ register and Boiler Juice will donate 25p for every 100 litres of heating oil ordered. As we hear so much about the ‘ Cost of Living Crisis ’ we have made the decision to support all the good work that Godman- chester Foodbank are doing, as a school community. There- fore, if parents of the school are able to help, we have a dona- tion box in our school office reception area to take any food donations for the Foodbank. Thank you to parents who have so far donated. We are very proud to announce that the school has been offi- caily recognised as working at the Bronze Level for the Anti - Bullying Quality Mark UK. We have been given special recogni- tion within the areas of ‘ Leadership ’, ‘ Curriculum ’ and ‘ Regard for Vulnerable Groups ’. This work is an ongoing project as we strive to improve what we offer our children and as part of this work, pupils from Year 3 and Year 5 are currently undergoing training to become Play Leaders in the playground. This in- volves learning about how to deal with conflict and peer medi- ation. We look forward to officaily launching our Play Leaders in the next few weeks of the Spring Term. Can we please take the opportunity to remind our parents and visitors about safety and parking around the school area. We all need to be aware of the needs of the local residents as well as the traffic and parking regulations around the school. The Parish Council very kindly donated money to us to purchase safety parking signs to promote more considerate parking, which can now be seen outside the school. Remember extra parking spaces are available at the Millennium Centre, off Bur- berry Road, which is a short walk from the school. We realise this is a contentious issue, and one the school is trying to keep under control, but we need everyone to show consideration for all residents in the village. Thank you for your co - operation.