July 2024

14 Buckden Roundabout July 2024 School BUCKDEN CHURCH OF ENGLAND PRIMARY ACADEMY June 2024 We have returned after half term with only six weeks left to the summer holidays, the end of term will soon be upon us but until then we have lots going on. Over the last few months our PTA have been very busy organis- ing a visit from Circus Pazaz, who will putting on two perfor- mances on the afternoon of Tuesday 11th June on our school playing field. In addition to the Tuesday ’ s performances Circus Pazaz will retuning the following day for all the children to ex- perience a Circus workshop to learn lots of fun circus skills and this has been kindly paid for by the PTA. We had lots of chil- dren design posters for the event and these were posted on our PTA ’ s Facebook page. On the Friday before half term our Year 2 children visited Wo- burn Zoo and had a wonderful safari tour on the coach. The children saw all sorts of animals and then got to have a really lovely educational talk all about giraffes, relating to their Power of Reading book - Zaffa Giraffa. All the children were a pleasure to take on the trip and represented Buckden School superbly. We recently had a group of 16 children from across Year 5 and 6 take part in the Priory Park Cross Country Competition, in St Neots, alongside 50 other schools and over 100 teams. It was a fantastic event! The children had to run in teams of 4 as a re- lay, with each member of the team completing one full circuit of Priory Park. Our children ran their hearts out and represented Buckden School brilliantly. All of their hard work paid off when the two Year 5 teams were positioned 9th and 45th out of 55 teams, and out of the 65 Year 6 teams we positioned 24th and 1st!!!! All the children received medals, and a trophy was presented to the winning team by Beth Tweddle, Olympic Gymnast! Well done to everyone who took part, we are very proud of our stu- dents! Following on from our cross country achievements we also took a team of Year 6 girls to the Bee Netball Tournament at Longsands Academy. The girls played brilliantly, winning many of their games, offering support and encouraging one another throughout the day. They represented the school fantastically and one of the teams even made it through to the Bee Netball County Final which will take place in June at St Ives. To prepare for these tournaments the girls have been training every Friday after school in their netball club and it's lovely to see all of their hard work paying off. If you have a petrol lawnmower that you would be happy to donate to the school we would be very grateful and would make great use of it. We are needing a lawnmower for our school allotment and with no access to power at the allot- ments we would need a petrol device. If you would like to do- nate a lawnmower please contact the school office – office@bpa.act - academytrust.org. 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. Re- member extra parking spaces are available at the Millennium Centre, off Burberry 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, by regular patrolling at peak times by our school governors and the local Police team but we need everyone to show consideration for all residents in the village. Thank you for your co - operation. June is a marvellous month in the garden. The laburnum trees put on a splendid show with flowers that lasted into the start of June, the first of the bee orchids flowered and the red climbing roses on the viewing mound are in full bloom. The gardening team have been checking historical plant lists to find which of the Old English roses were planted in the garden. Now that the shrub roses are starting to flower they are using the lists to help to identify each rose and then label them. The older varieties of rose have been grafted on to wild rose stock. As the group were working on the identification, they discov- ered that the wild rose was trying to take over. These shoots have had to be pruned out, leaving behind rather thinner rose bushes than last year. These roses have a single flush of flowers during June but the climbing roses are repeat flowering plants and will continue to produce flowers until the autumn. The box hedging has had repeated treatments with nematodes which appear to have worked. The moth traps have not suc- ceeded in attracting any moths, hopefully that ’ s because the nematodes worked. The damaged box is unsightly but is just starting to grow back. Knot Garden News