8 minute read
Education
Cambridge Baby Sensory Juliette & Emma 07966 789785
Little Hands Karen 01763 260964
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Melbourn Playgroup Jane Crawford 07842 151512
Notre Ecole Janet Whitton 261231
Primary School Headteacher Stephanie Wilcox 223457 U3A (Univ. of Third Age) Chairman Elma Forbes 01223 870217
Village College Principal Simon Holmes 223400
Youth Club at Melbourn Village College
Tuesday evenings for School years 7–11 all welcome
See page 14 for more details
Free Storytime for under 5s!
Thursday 10–10.45 am
Melbourn Library The Moor, Melbourn
(next to Melbourn Village College)
News from the Primary School
At the beginning of the school year we were delighted to welcome 50 new children to Melbourn Primary School and hope they have settled well into our community; to help them feel at home there was a ‘New Parents’ coffee morning hosted by the PTFA. In addition there were our first Welcome Evenings for parents in the various year groups.
We hope the year 6 children who left us in July have all settled well into their secondary schools. We were particularly delighted with the results they achieved at the end of their primary career and trust these will launch them well into the next step of their education.
September saw us reliving the many highs of the Olympic and Paralympic games with assemblies focusing on the Olympic value of Inspiration and wow, wasn’t there a lot to inspire us? We are continuing to promote values through our assemblies and circle times. This month we are focusing on determination.
Early September Rion Pierre, a sprinter with the GB athletic team visited us. After leading us in circuit training exercises Rion inspired us with his story which included being unhappy at primary school, a youth football contract with Watford, then Chelsea before joining an athletics group with the aim of improving his football! It is fair to say we were all transfixed and impressed by his determination to overcome difficulties – a valuable lesson for us all. We will be watching the Commonwealth games in Glasgow and Rio Olympics very carefully so we can say “he came to our primary school”, and a few lucky ones can say “I beat him in a race!” The sponsorship money raised from the event was a whopping £1586.95 which has been divided between the Sports for Schools charity and our ‘Astro Pitch’ Fund.
We began the year with our usual array of Inspiration Days
Year 1 and 2 Circus Day We pretended to be clowns and we did really funny things like plate spinning and throwing scarves into the air and trying to catch them. By Oliver
I liked it when the clown was juggling with knives and the music he played on his pipe. By Louis Year 3 and 4 Robot Day On robotics day, year 3 and 4 had their robot inspiration day. There were 4 groups and they went to different activities, one was papier mache daleks, one was making music for Star Wars, there was a quiz and then they went to the hall and made remote controlled lego robots. My favourite part of the day was the paiper mache daleks! We had a great day and we went home smiling. By Grace Year 5 and 6 Evacuation Day I loved finding out about what evacuees had to go through, also they sing songs I’ve never heard of! On the 25th of September the whole of year 5 & 6 got on a train and the mums waved us off. When we got to an unknown destination Foxton, we went into a big hall and wrote a letter to our parents. Then we sang some WW2 songs, had a dance and ate our lunch. It was great fun. By Adam
Everyone enjoyed the evacuation day on the 25th September, we came to school dressed as evacuees and walked down to Meldreth train station. The train
arrived and we boarded it, our parents waiting at the platform waved us off. When we got to Foxton we took a 5 minute walk to the village hall where we ate our lunch. After that we wrote a letter to our parents explaining what we had seen and done. We then did WWII based activities such as dancing and singing. Then it was time to go back on the train we got and we were soon at Meldreth where we walked back to school. Throughout the day we were all excited but curious where we were going. By Jacob
In addition to our relentless pursuit of academic excellence we have many plans for the school this year, most notably to develop the school grounds. We already have a very successful gardening club, which has just had its very successful harvest – with a rather large pumpkin! Which, we hope, will make enough pumpkin soup for everyone. We have started work on creating a ‘quiet’ area of the school grounds where children will be able to sit and chat or read if they do not want to run around at playtime. We will be inviting parents and members of the community to sponsor a plant, so please contact the school office if you would be interested in supporting us in this way. We are particularly appreciative to Phillimore Garden Centre who are kindly supporting us with our planting of espalier fruit trees to improve a particularly barren area of playground space. I cannot wait for the children to see the result of our work here.
We are trying to reinvigorate sport at the primary school and have on offer a really extensive range of after school clubs for example karate, dance, football and rugby. Our intention is to have successful school teams again soon. Hopefully I will be able to share news of this in the future.
Now for the exciting news … ‘fizztickling fun and wizzpopping magic’ … we are planning to take the WHOLE school to the theatre to see Roald Dahl’s George’s Marvellous Medicine. The PTFA have kindly offered to transport us all by coach to the Cambridge Corn Exchange for a Christmas treat and we can hardly wait!
Notre Ecole
Since returning to Notre Ecole after the summer break children in both after school clubs have been learning to talk about their pets in French. At the Wednesday group the younger children have learnt some new vocabulary, practised describing the colour of animals, made masks and have played a number of games around the pets theme.
The Thursday group have practised making more complicated sentences to describe their own pets and various other animals. They too have played games and they have made mini puppet theatres to perform short plays around the pets theme.
The final week before half term children practised vocabulary relating to Halloween and enjoyed making a Hallowe’en owl.
On Wednesday evening at the adult group, the beginners have been working from the BBC’s ‘Ma France’ series, looking at giving and understanding directions, practising the French alphabet and talking about families and their own proficiency in different languages.
The more advanced class have been very busy discussing their holidays, the Olympic Games, French accents (é,ê,è), a text about excessive use of sleeping pills by old people and a text and video about chocolate, after which each student presented their favourite chocolate recipe in French.
Perhaps you would like to start learning French in the New Year? Or perhaps you would just like to brush up on that rusty school French? If so please get in touch. We are a native speaker and a graduate of European Studies with French. Call either Marine on 07533 443153 or Janet on 07791 853448 for further details. If you prefer e-mail, contact marineboulter@yahoo.fr or janet.whitton@tiscali.co.uk. Learn French in a friendly atmosphere *French for Children Games, role-play, songs etc. Every Wednesday from 3.45pm to 4.30pm Every Thursday from 4:15pm to 5:00pm *French for Adults All levels, Conversation Every Wednesday from 8.00pm to 9.00pm GCSE lessons available by arrangement. Individual lessons also available. Tel. Marine – 01763 222876 or Janet – 01763 261231 mob-07533 443153 mob-07791 853448 (Enhanced CRB clearance recently completed)
Melbourn Village College
Science
MVC Club ExperMENTAL had a visit from David Bebb from the Cambridge Science Xchange. The club had a workshop session where they planned their entry into the Science Xchange on Saturday 26th October. They made huge progress and are now working hard on a fantastic design which will ultimately be a
“Little Hands” is a Private Nursery School specialising in quality Pre-School Education for 2 – 5 year Olds
The Nursery School offers : • High (1 : 4) staffing ratio • Variety of session lengths • Term time only booking • Optional holiday clubs • No minimum booking requirement • No booking fee • Categorised “OUTSTANDING” by Ofsted
Also FREE (NEF funded) afternoon (1.30-4.00) sessions for 3 & 4 year olds (NEF can also be used towards half or full day sessions) 01763 260964 (school hours) 01223503972 (office hours) e-mail : janemarshall@littlehands.co.uk www.littlehands.co.uk
Little Hands Nursery Schools are also at Bourn, Linton and Newton
