November 2022

16 Buckden Roundabout November 2022 Pre - School & School Our ‘ new ’ children are now settled and confident at Preschool, enjoying our very musical month. We played the Sticky Kids CD, which improves listening and attention while teaching the children about movement and tempo. They also had the chance to choose favourite songs, thanks to Miss Char ’ s Alexa, and to try different musical instruments. As the landscape turned autumnal, they enjoyed collecting natural resources such as acorns, conkers, twigs and different coloured leaves. These were added to the play doh and mud kitchen to enhance imaginative and sensory play, improve dexterity, and stimulate discussions about texture, shape, seasons and change. The children had been taking great interest in measuring limbs and chalking around each other on the floor—perhaps we have some budding crime scene officers! We extended this with cardboard cut - out craft, which tied in well with our recycling theme. We also have some budding childcare practitioners too, so we upgraded our ‘ baby area ’ in the home corner with more clothes, feeding equipment and prams, plus real nappies (but no real babies, we promise!). For World Mental Health Day, we read Anna Llenas ’ ‘ The Col- our Monster ’, which equates feelings to colours. The children had the chance to express their own feelings with colour on the accompanying ‘ monster ’ sheets. On European Language Day, we enjoyed some well - known picture books in different languages, including The Very Hungry Caterpillar in French! Finally, as part of our Harvest celebration, we visited St Mary ’ s Church. There, Fr David gave us a behind the scenes tour and talked about where food comes from and helping those less fortunate than us. We ’ re very grateful for his time. We ’ re also grateful to parents for taking the time to contribute to their child ’ s Tapestry online learning journal. Their posts about activ- ities and achievements at home are invaluable in providing a rounded picture of each child ’ s interests and capabilities. Looking forward, we ’ re delighted Miss Emily will be returning to us on her student placement and hope to welcome a new manager very soon. Recruitment is still open, so please contact our acting chair, Helen Lumb, if you are interested in the role. Would you like to support Preschool? Please consider donating your loose change to our collection pot in Nisa, or your spare time (even if it ’ s only an hour or two) to our committee. For more details, contact Helen Lumb at buckdenpreschoolcom- mittee@gmail.com. For more information on Preschool and our activities, visit www.buckdenpreschool.co.uk or https:// www.facebook.com/www.buckdenpreschool.co.uk/. To ar- range a visit or apply for a place, please call 01480 810600 or email us at buckdenpreschool@yahoo.co.uk. BUCKDEN CHURCH OF ENGLAND PRIMARY ACADEMY October 2022 At the time of writing it doesn ’ t seem possible that we are now approaching October half term, with less than two weeks to go. All our Reception and new children that started with us in September have settled into the school routines with ease and look as if they ’ ve been here for much longer than they actually have!! Left over from the glorious summer weather we are still making the most of the mild weather that we have had in September and October. We are continuing to use the school field for our break/lunch times and PE lessons. One of the highlights during the first few weeks of the term is the Harvest Festival Service at the church. All our children enjoyed the walk up to St Mary ’ s Church for Father David to conduct the service, it was lovely to be altogether once again in church. The children brought gifts of non - perishable foods which have been donated to the Godmanchester Community Foodbank. Thank you to our parents for their generous donations. At the end of September, we welcomed ID Image Develop- ment, who are the locally based photographic studio in St Neots to take our school photographs of our children, we were very excited to try something different by having the photographs taken outside and we were very lucky that the weather stayed dry and sunny. The photographs look fabulous and we hope the parents are very pleased with them. With COVID settling down we are very pleased to report that we have had very few cases amongst both children and staff. To help combat the winter flu we are being visited by Vaccination UK in October and November for them to administer the flu vaccine to all the children. On Monday 26 th September we celebrated European Languages Day in school, the children were able to come to school in a European costume (modern or traditional) and the school dinner menu for that day had a European flavour, with a delicious menu of gnocchi, paella and croquet monsieur. Throughout the day the children took part in a wide range of cultural activities to celebrate all that is wonderful about different languages, cultures and traditions. Our Year 6’ s went off very excitedly on their residential this week. Their first stop was Whipsnade Zoo before heading onto Green Park Activity centre in Buckinghamshire, which boasts 80 acres of rolling parkland and mature woodland, as well as having a rich history with it being a former Rothschild estate. The teachers have lots of activities planned for the week such as orienteering, minibeast trail, sustainability study, archery, bush craft, a disco, evening campfire, climbing, pond dipping and lots more. Fingers crossed that the weather stays nice for them and that they come home safe but very tired from the week. We look forward to hearing all about it from the children and the memories they made. If your child was born between 1 st September 2018 and 31 st August 2019 and is due to start school in September 2023 you can apply on line at https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/ residents/children - and - families/schools - learning/apply - for - a - school - place/primary - reception - junior - or - middle - school before 15th January 2022. We are very pleased to invite pro- spective parents to visit our school for an Open Evening on Thursday 17 th November at 6.00pm, we look forward to seeing you there.