Education

PRIMARY SCHOOL

PLAY SCHOOL NOTRE ECOLE PLAYGROUP LITTLE HANDS MVC VILLAGE COLLEGE U3A

EDUCATION

Melbourn Playgroup

Little Hands Karen 01763 260964

Melbourn Playgroup Jane Crawford 07842 151512 Notre Ecole Janet Whitton 261231 Pippins Children’s Centre Alison Wood 223460 Primary School Headteacher Stephanie Wilcox 223457 U3A (Univ. of Third Age) Chairman George Howard 260686 Village College Principal Simon Holmes 223400 This term at Melbourn Playgroup has been a busy and successful one. We say goodbye to the older children and wish them the best of luck in their reception year at school. We welcome our new children from September.

As the Tour de France travelled through our region we celebrated by tasting French foods such as brioche and croissants. We also coloured in French flags and racing jerseys. The most exciting activity was that we made a race track in the garden and the children drove around it on bikes. We all had a whale of a time!

With the beautiful summer weather we have been learning lots about meadows. We looked at flowers, trees and insects. The children have thoroughly enjoyed looking more closely at insects we have found within the school grounds. We then continued this work on insects back in the classroom.

In the new term we hope to be able to expand our space to give the children an even more exciting, stimulating learning environment. More news on this to follow!

If you want to know more about us or enquire about spaces for your child please contact Jane Crawford on 01763 223459 or email office@melbournplaygroup.org. uk or even visit the website on www.melbournplaygroup.org.uk

Melbourn Playgroup - Oscar - drawing a caterpillar after investigating insects in our garden

Melbourn Playgroup - Poppy riding a bike around the Tour de France track we made

Melbourn Primary School

Parents, Friends and Teachers Association

Melbourn Primary School PTFA are thrilled to announce that new play equipment is a step closer thanks to the generosity and support of parents and friends of Melbourn Primary School. As this academic year draws to a close, the fund balance is in excess of £10,000, which means that installation of a new climbing frame for Key Stage 1 pupils is on track for completion early in the next school year.

PTFA Chair Sian Bolitho said, “Events like May’s Spring Fayre and our annual firework display have really delivered. The support we get from our parents and friends has been outstanding and this means that we can afford a wonderful climbing facility to keep the kids active during their break times”.

Fundraising goes on unabated, however, with plans in place for this year’s firework display already underway on 8th November. The ever-popular BBQ, refreshments and doughnuts will be available. Glo-Sticks will be on sale too, to complement the fireworks display promising one of the most colourful nights of the calendar.

Sian added, “Our next target is to provide an exciting piece of climbing equipment for KS2 to give our older children something challenging at break time”.

Following the success of last year’s inaugural Melbourn Ball, the PTFA have set the wheels in motion for a successor, which is tentatively planned for the middle of September 2015. Sian said, “The 2013 Ball was incredible and we’re hoping to see more of Melbourn dressed-up and turned-out next September”.

For further information, your PTFA press contact is Russell Foulger on 07956 107690 or russell.foulger@ntlworld.com

is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers or clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.

The word UP in the dictionary takes UP nearly a quarter of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.

At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special. A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning, but we close it UP at night.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP, but then when the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry UP.

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, or you fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm goes off by going on. And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

Amazing as the English Language is, it is even more amazing that not just those who are learning English as a second language, but our own children, are able to take it all in – eventually. Did you know?...

•The dot on top of the lower case ‘i’ or a ‘j’ is called a ‘tittle’. • The only two words that end ‘-gry’ are ‘hungry’ and ‘angry’. • The most commonly used sentence using all of the letters in the alphabet and known to many learning to type is ‘the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs’. This is known as a

‘pangram’ from the Greek for ‘all letters’. • The longest word of a single syllable is ‘Screeched’, which means

‘shrieked’ or ‘cried out shrilly’. The longest word with no vowels is ‘Rhythms’. • The longest word with all its letters in alphabetical order is

‘aegilops.’ A genus of flowering plants in the grass family. • It is estimated that a new word is created every 98 minutes. • ‘You’ is the 18th most common word in English, while ‘me’ only clocks in at number 50. • Apparently, the oldest known word in English is ‘who,’ dating back more than 20,000 years. • The longest word containing no repeating letters, including every vowel, is ‘uncopyrightable,’ at 15 letters. • The only English term ending in -mt is ‘dreamt,’ a spelling of

‘dreamed’ commonly used in British English. • Author Ernest Vincent Wright once wrote an entire novel with just over 50,000 words, without using the letter ‘e’. Peter Simmonett Thanks to Anne Lambert for kickstarting this article, by sending the information on the UP.

*The 20-volume historical Oxford English Dictionary is the largest record of words used in English, past and present. It contains words that are now obsolete or rare.

Little Hands is a Private Nursery School specialising in quality education for the under fives and offers

Flexible hourly booking - open 08.30 to 16.30 Term time bookings with optional holiday club

Bumble Bee room for children 12 – 24 months

Ladybird room for 2 year olds

Butterfly room for children 3-5 years With optional “ready for school sessions”

Holiday club for children aged 12 months to 8 years

All sessions have a high staff to child ratio and are available for funded 2 year olds and funded 3/4 year olds with no extra charges

Categorised as “Outstanding” by Ofsted

For further information please contact Anne McCrossen - Nursery Manager : 01763 260964 e-mail lh-melbourn@btconnect.com

Little Hands is also at Bourn, Linton and Newton visit the website at www.littlehands.co.uk

Riding For The Disabled Association

Incorporating Driving

Iceni Group Riding for the Disabled Walk beside a child or lead a pony We desperately need your help at the South Cambridgeshire Equestrian Centre Barrington On Tuesday’s 9.45–11.45am In term time only Please contact Diana Allan 01638 572044 or Thalia Myers 07850 477550

Education Matters

Number 10 Downing Street might best be described as rather like the Tardis.

It does not look especially large from the outside. However, it is remarkably big on the inside. Going up the stairs lined with former Prime Ministers, a suite of rooms presents itself. The largest of these is capable of accommodating a significant number of people. This was just as well for our function as there were perhaps 200 of us present to celebrate “Excellence in State Education”.

David Cameron had invited leaders from selected state schools across the country to acknowledge excellence in the state school system. I was invited to represent Comberton Village College and the Comberton Academy Trust because both the school and the Trust were deemed to be among the very best in the country and worthy of celebration. The criteria for this were a mixture of long-standing high achievement, consistent ‘outstanding’ Ofsted inspection judgements and a significant role in contributing to improving the performance of other schools. Comberton clearly met all the criteria.

David Cameron spoke, as usual, with no notes. In essence, he confirmed the hugely positive effect that all of these factors can have on pupils and thanked all those present for their work in providing inspiration to the young people of our country. It was a fair message and it was good that Comberton’s role and excellence were appropriately acknowledged in this way.

The Prime Minister followed up with a letter in which he said: “I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your contribution to education in this country. State education in England is going from strength to strength, but that would not be possible without the work of people like you.”

“It speaks volumes that the Head Teacher of King’s College Wimbledon, a top independent school, recently pointed out that for the first time in his career, independent schools are experiencing real competition from state schools.” Stephen Munday, Executive Principal On Monday 23rd ninety Year 5 children from five local primary schools mixed with sixty Year 7 students to learn about being Digital Leaders. A team from the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT), led by digital pedagogy expert Andy Williams, ran sessions looking at key questions surrounding the use of digital technology in supporting learning in school. Children created blog entries and presentations which were shared with parents in an evening event at the college. The event was supported by local educational publisher George Pearson, who said “It was a pleasure to be involved in such a forward thinking event and to work with such technologically aware students”

Principal Simon Holmes said ‘It has been fascinating to engage the students in telling us what they think 21st century learning should look like. Schools need to ensure they make best use of the skills they bring and the possibilities that new technologies offer us’.

Somme Visit

June 2014 with funding from ‘A Common Territory’ and support from All Saints’ Church and local historian Bruce Huett, one hundred and twenty students from Melbourn Village College visited the French battlefields for five days. This visit was the largest foreign trip in the College’s history and because of the ACT funding was completely free to the students who took part. The purpose of the visit was twofold; firstly to understand the importance of the First World War as an historical event and the connection to our local community. Secondly we were part of a much larger community through the five million Euro ACT project which is an innovative cross-border collaboration between leading arts and education partners from France and England and is funded by the European Regional Development Fund Interreg IV A France (Channel) England Programme. Led by the Orchestre de Picardie, the partners in this network are The Purcell Singers, Brighton Festival Chorus, Opera de Rouen Haute Normandie, Comedie de Picardie, Cie ECO, Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne, Royal Opera House Education, Southend YMCA, The Gateway Learning Community, University of the Creative Arts, Thurrock Music Services and Melbourn Village College.

Students visited the Somme 1916 Museum at Albert,

Lochnagar Crater, Thiepval Museum for the Missing, the Newfoundland Memorial, Rancourt Military Cemetery, Historial de la Grande Guerre, Amiens Cathedral as well as meeting with our colleagues in Picardie and attending the Menin Gate ceremony in Ypres.

Farrah commented “when we went down to Lochnagar we sketched either the crater or the large wooden cross, but it was the panorama of the site that made the most impact on me, the crater was vast. Seeing this and the century old trenches were the things that made me think the most”.

Jack remembered the Newfoundland Memorial “walking through the trenches in the memorial was emotional: every crater and mark on the land had been preserved. In this small area 86% of the Newfoundland regiment were taken as casualties. It had been a struggle for the people to raise so many men – they were all volunteers. It had only taken a few minutes and two thousand metres for so many women back home to become widows or for families to lose a son. The names of these men, or boys as some were under the age of sixteen, carved into the memorial almost brought me to tears. The countryside all around had the wounds of a century old conflict scarred into their fields and farms, their villages and minds forever.”

Others were struck by the Thiepval Memorial where several Melbourn men were inscribed, “it was a very emotional moment” said one student. Another commented, “I’ll never forget the huge arch with so many names and I think it’s right that the people of Melbourn and the world never forget”. One Million Crosses

To link with the World War 1 commemorations and to get an idea of the scale of the loss of life during this war students at Melbourn Village College were asked in registration time over a week to each mark crosses and completely cover two pages of A4 squared paper. Each student would then have marked 2400 crosses.

An assembly was then held with all students bringing their sheets and raising them so that everyone could see the huge numbers involved. The total of all the crosses on all the sheets of paper was close to 1,000,000. In fact the sight of the 1,000,000 crosses raised by the students would have needed to be replicated in another seven schools if the total number of casualties were to be accurately shown but it did give students an idea of the enormous scale of the cost in lives involved.

This activity was only part of the college’s commemorations, which led up to the year 8 and 9 trip to the battlefields of France.

huge numbers involved. The total of all the crosses on all the

WW1 COMMEMORATIONS

As part of our work on the ACT (A Common Territory) project, Year 7 looked at the 1914 Christmas Truce.

We all know that Christmas is meant to be a time of peace and goodwill to all men, a task that is almost impossible in a war situation. However, the true spirit of Christmas won through and those who had been shooting at each other just the day before shared food, cigarettes and proudly showed pictures of loved ones they had left behind. This also led to, in at least one area of the frontline, a famous football match with people who were no longer the faceless enemy but a soldier, a human being, both groups believing that right was

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