Education

Education PRIMARY SCHOOL

PLAY SCHOOL NOTRE ECOLE PLAYGROUP LITTLE HANDS MVC VILLAGE COLLEGE U3A

EDUCATION

Melbourn Primary School

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 Tony Garrick 01223 510201 Village College Principal Simon Holmes 223400

Calling all Local artists

Melbourn Bloomsday committee invite submissions for an art exhibition to mark our annual Bloomsday celebrations 15th – 17th June, 2017 Melbourn Community Hub, 30 High Street, Melbourn SG8 6DZ Contact Peter Horley: 07743609953: p.horley@ntlworld.com for further information. It is a new year and I have lots of exiting things about which to tell you, but I must begin by telling you about our wonderful trip to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in London on December 14th, 2016. The whole school set off in seven coaches and I was mighty relieved when the seven coaches arrived back with everyone aboard! It was quite a feat of organisation, as you can imagine. Thanks, must go to all our parents who kept the secret for nearly six months: The children had no idea until our ‘big reveal’ the day before. It was just magical to see first the disbelief and then the wonder as they each got their very own ‘Golden Ticket’ to see the show.

To take over three hundred children to see a London show and enjoy the sights and sounds of our capital city ranks as one of my most memorable days at Melbourn so far. We saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the Shard and even the Tower of London, to name but a few! The show was fantastic but the best part by far was watching the children’s faces. I sat behind a little girl in Foundation Stage who literally beamed throughout the performance and next to a year 5 child who told me at the end, “that was the best trip ever!” The children behaved impeccably and yet again I was reminded how lucky I am to be head at such an amazing school. It was the most marvellous production! Science Mark Another exciting milestone for the school was the recent award of the Primary Science Quality Mark in recognition of the work we do teaching our children science. Well done to Miss Rimmer and Miss Thorne who lead Science. The focus of external assessments is on the increased expectations of the English and Maths curriculum, so it is marvellous to have our work in the wider curriculum acknowledged in this way. It is tempting to focus all efforts just on the basics, but this would not be fair to our children – it is our responsibility to teach all areas of the curriculum and ensure children leave us interested in the world around them.

Hola! The new year has seen the children learning a new language- Spanish. We are lucky to have the wonderful Veronique Sanders and Janet Whitton who, with their extensive knowledge of the language, teaching Spanish to the children in years 3, 4, 5 and 6 in a fun and interactive way. More awards! The school has been awarded the School Games Bronze award. This reflects the effort we have taken to improve the teaching of PE within school and the wider provision of extra-curricular sport at our school. Helen Cottle, who leads sport, is already planning her campaign for the road to Silver!

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Yurt news and a plea You may remember that we won £10,000 through the Tesco carrier bag scheme towards the purchase of a yurt for our Forest School provision. It is now in situ and thanks must go our wonderful team of parent volunteers who helped us prepare the ground work: it saved us a lot of extra fundraising! We are still in the process of kitting out the yurt, so any donations of cushions or bean bags would be most appreciated. An Inspiring way to make learning irresistible As always we start the term with inspiration days. Children in Foundation Stage saw their teachers in a new light on their inspiration when they became cabin service attendants and were whisked off to China. Children in years 1 /2 were enchanted and intrigued by the exotic animals brought into school by Mini Monsters to start their Home and Away topic comparing Melbourne in Australia with their home village. The children in 3/4 dressed as Romans- most of them fully armed- and made an oil lamp, painted a watercolour of a Roman God and designed and built a bridge.

They also went on a marvellously educational trip to the Roman ruins at Verulamium. Our neighbouring school at Foxton kindly agreed to be the venue for the billeting office for 90 or so year 5/6 evacuees who trudged through the snow with their gas masks and suitcases to catch the train from Meldreth.

I am sure you’ll agree with me that Melbourn is a truly exceptional community. Mrs Stephanie Wilcox – Headteacher

Melbourn Village College

Publication of the Department For Education Performance tables in January saw more recognition of the excellent job that Melbourn Village College is doing in educating the next generation. The headline Progress 8 figure of 0.44 means that students at the college do almost half a grade better per subject than their counterparts elsewhere across the country. This means that the college is, once again, in the top 10% nationally for student progress.

This progress is spearheaded by excellent results in English, Maths and Humanities, all of whom are in the top 15% of such departments for progress.

Importantly, the benefits of this excellent progress were spread across the whole student body, regardless of ability or background. For a school whose motto is ‘Everybody is Somebody’ this was particularly reaffirming.

Looking forwards, this means that the college is in a very strong position to deal with the ongoing funding cuts and national teacher shortages. By working with the other members of the Cam Academy Trust, which now numbers four local secondary and four local primary schools, the college continues to offer the local community an excellent standard of education.

Students from Harston & Newton making Chinese Lanterns with Mr Fan.

Primary Mandarin

Primary pupils received a taste of Mandarin thanks to the only school in Cambridgeshire offering the language as part of their curriculum.

Specialist Mandarin teacher Frank Fan from Melbourn Village College, where the Chinese language is taught to all Year 7 students, has been working with youngsters from two of the college’s partner primaries, Harston & Newton and Foxton.

Harston sent 23 Year 5 students to Melbourn for two separate lessons. In the first they experienced Peking opera and learned colours in Mandarin with some even memorising a selection of characters including 红, 黄, 绿, 蓝. In the second, which coincided with Chinese New Year – the year of the Rooster has just started – they learned the Chinese Zodiac and made Chinese lanterns and bookmarks.

Mr Fan said: “They really enjoyed it. Writing Chinese characters was a challenge for them but they did well. The teachers and I were very impressed by their learning with some even able to write characters from memory. Even native speakers find it hard to write such difficult characters at the first attempt.”

The 23 Year 1 and 2 pupils from Foxton also learned the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac and enjoyed repeating the names in Mandarin. Some of them could recognise four Chinese animal characters after an hour’s lesson.