Current Events

Visitors

We welcome many visitors to our school each year for a number of reasons. Collective Worship is very important to us and each week, Rev. David Perry used to come in to Key Stage 2 on Thursday. Now we have Richard Carew, Marjorie Hill's team and youth workers from Beverley Minster. Other regular visitors to our worship have included Miss Dorothy Hailstone, a Foundation Governor, John Heaver and the "Splash" team from a Driffield church, Rev. Luke Smith and Ben Norton, a Beverley Youth Community worker. These people help us with our prayers, songs, reflection,Christian message and they are superb role models for all our pupils. We record feedback and thoughts in our book in the hall.

Several parents have visited our nursery to show the children things or talk to them, such as a police officer, driving instructor, nurse and water safety expert. Parents are invited to all our class assemblies, Easter, Harvest and Christmas services and concerts. Many parents help us in school, on visits out and with our PTFA events.

The Young Enterprise team came with Janet Brumby for our Industry Day. Pam Lee from the CITB has led exciting projects again, constructing roads and bridges. Big Hand Productions made a CD with the year 6 class as part of their Creative Contexts work. Klaus Selke from Setpoint brought his electricity skills and the F1 team to school. The Humberside Fire Brigade regularly visit year 2 and year 5 in March with their presentations. The Humber Eblo helped with our Citizenship Day in Year 5/6.

The Leap Dance Company pay us a visit each year and work with a class. They also perform in front of the whole school. John Marshall's Magic Carpet Theatre Company starts Christmas off for us each year. Captain Kipper brought his Drugs Awareness Show once again. All of these professional artists give our children the opportunity to see a live show.

In October 2003, we held Africa week, in November 2004 Mexico,in November 2005 India, in November 2006 China and in November 2007 America weeks. Every class took part in music, art, dance and drama activities to bring the countries alive to the children. The Educational Development Centre organised day trips to Africa, Mexico,India and China with postcards, artefacts, shopping, dance, music and singing or dancing. The children also enjoy tasting food from the different countries. At the end of America week we held an American Bingo session saying "Yeeha!" During our European Week we learnt many songs, studied the EU and met native speakers.We learn French at our schools and German too at times.

Members from Pocklington Junior School came to us for a day to look at our play facilities, building and Healthy School activities. They particularly enjoyed our school dinners, fruit and adventure playground. We regularly share ideas with this school and coordinator.

Our year 6 class enjoys visits from the Fit Kids team each year. These two ladies involve the children in fitness activities, healthy eating and making their own healthy packed lunch. Sue Berwick, our community nurse, comes in regularly to give talks to our children. Sue Ray has been twice to help with the 'say.something' website and many children have won prizes. This gives our children a good opportunity to have a voice. Our Governors help us a lot, especially Karen Arundel who joins us for special DT days. She is about to talk to us about Economic Well-Being.

Lots of parents and grandparents help us weekly with reading, art work, educational visits, gardening and baking. At Christmas, we hold a senior citizens Christmas dinner with entertainment, and over fifty local people come. In July, they are invited again for a cream tea and entertainment.

Music is very important to us. Each week Mrs Jackson takes three violin groups and Mrs. Hall takes three woodwind or brass groups. The peripatetic service visits us each summer. We have held a Music Week each Spring. This includes a visit from Jenny Scruton, other professionals and an evening concert for parents and pupils to perform. This year we are going to have a Creative Arts Week in June.

Finally, we are grateful to the health and education visitors we get regularly - a speech therapist, occupational therapist, art therapist, Behaviour Support,SENSS and our education psychologist. We occasionally get visitors from the Skirlaugh Council Offices for lunch, especially at Christmas!. We welcome visitors, so please give us a ring and pay us a visit.

Travel Plan

We are currently developing a school travel plan to initiate Walk to School Wednesday and Scoot or Cycle to School. We hope to gain funding for cycle sheds. We have a small committee who work together including staff governors, local community police officerf and parents.

This term Key Stage 2 Children are involved in Pedestrian Skills Training and Cycle Proficiency with East Riding Council and our local community police officer.

Creative Context

Creative context 2008 is following the theme of water. Children and families enjoyed the "water, water, everywhere" event in October. The enthusiasm has continued this term when Gary Hammond, percussionist, has been working with children to create sound poems.

Positive Playtimes

Y5 and Y6 children have responsibilities at playtimes encouraging younger children to play a variety of games and take charge of equipment.

Our Nursery Grounds

Changes have been and are still being made to our nursery grounds. We have developed a sensory garden and story area, mini-beast corner and vegetable patch. We have a new adventure play area made up of tunnels, steps, slide, tower and quiet sections. We have developed a building area with bricks, sand and gravel, and a water wall with guttering. We made a small pond, and we attract wildlife to it. We use the outdoor environment as an extension of the classroom to develop children's learning. The canopy in this area helps our children play out in all weathers. The PTFA funded this.

School Council

Our School Council is a valued part of school life.

The Council is made up of four year 6 children, four year 5 children, two year 4 and two year 3 children. There is a photo board of School Councillors in the main entrance. All the councillors wear "School Council" badges.

The Council meet on average, once every two to three weeks. They meet in lesson time or Special Mentions Assembly time, and usually in the Staff Room. They have juice and biscuits! Mrs Cluskey usually attends meetings to help and advise us, but the councillors are able to run the meetings by themselves.

The Council elected themselves a Chair and Secretary who run the meetings and take the minutes. Each year group has a School Council file. Key Stage 1 children are kept informed by the Key Stage 2 councillors visiting their class to talk about things which have been discussed.

All children in school have the opportunity to contribute to Council business by putting suggestions in the Council's Suggestion Box. These are then discussed at Council meetings.

The Council has been involved in many things. Below is a brief list of some of its activities:

• Setting up a Constitution, election process and a new School Council logo

• Selecting new play equipment for the Adventure playground

• Organising an "Idol" day and games to raise funds

• Purchasing new wet playtime games for each class

• Suggesting new ways of organising lunchtime arrangement

• Charity Events

The OFSTED inspection observed a Council meeting and were very impressed with how well it worked and how the children responded to the challenge of being involved in the "management" of the school.

The Council was invited to talk about how the Council works at a "School Council UK" conference. This was at Ravenscar Hotel near Whitby... and we had a really lovely day!

Environmental Aims

These are targets for "improving" our environment this year. The staff, children, PTFA, Governors and LEA will all be involved in ensuring we maximise the school environment.

• More interactive displays

• Maintaining the Butterfly Garden

• Waste Paper Collection bins in each classroom collected regularly

• Bags 2 School clothes and material collection to be held twice

• Bark renewal

• Grounds maintenance discussions

• Plastic rings collection

• Recycling computer and photocopier cartridges

• Summer and Christmas Gala stalls - Recycling toys, books and household objects

• School uniform re-sale

• Improvements to all our outdoor classrooms

• Willow sculptures to be tidied up

Our compost bins have been put near the playground. We recycle as much as possible. We love to collect computer cartridges, phones, paper, plastic can holders and much more to recycle.