Education

Education PRIMARY SCHOOL

PLAY SCHOOL NOTRE ECOLE PLAYGROUP LITTLE HANDS MVC VILLAGE COLLEGE U3A

EDUCATION

Melbourn Village College

Little Hands Karen 01763 260964

Melbourn Playgroup Jane Crawford 07842 151512

Notre Ecole Janet Whitton 261231

Primary School Headteacher Stephanie Wilcox 223457 U3A (Univ. of Third Age) Chairman Tony Garrick 01223 510201 Village College Principal Simon Holmes 223400

Charlotte Joyce This last year has seen significant growth in the village college. In September 2017, the school served 499 students; by this September the number had risen to 598. This is fantastic recognition of the excellent work which is taking place and reflects our aim to serve as many of the local community as possible.

The growing popularity was particularly evident as hundreds of prospective pupils and their parents packed into our annual Open Evening to see the amazing opportunities on offer.

Both the talks from Principal Simon Holmes were packed as Year 6 students and their families set about choosing where they want to go for secondary school. Central to his message was the guiding principle of the college, ‘Everybody is Somebody’ and visitors learnt how this guides every aspect of the college’s work.

The visitors then toured the school, visiting each subject area where there was a range of interactive activities for them to enjoy. These included biscuit decorating in Food Technology where youngsters and their adults were challenged to tell the difference between regular and diet Coke – which many did – and between regular and low fat crisps, which proved much harder. Many parents were surprised to find they preferred the 25% less saturated fat variety!

For those still hungry, there was also a change to taste samples from the school lunch menu!

There was also the chance to have a go at 3D games programming in computing, travel back to the Elizabethan era of Romeo and Juliet (a GCSE English text), learn a few words of Spanish and Mandarin, which are both taught from Year 7 at Melbourn, have a go at pottery, get hands-on in the science department, make friendship chains and bookmarks or get active over the PE department’s obstacle course.

Deputy Principal Regina Lawrence said: “The evening was really well attended with both talks being completely full. There was a great atmosphere.”

Meanwhile, there has been cause for celebration as students settle into the new term. They all took part in quizzes about the origin and history of the more than 6000 languages spoken around the world to celebrate European Day of Languages in September, as well as learning to say ‘hello’ in a number of them.

In addition, a former MVC student, Charlotte Joyce, was also celebrating after being accepted on to a prestigious leadership project. Now back at her old school as a teacher, Charlotte has joined the Leadership Legacy Project, run by SSAT, the Schools, Students and Teachers network. She will be part of a group of future education leaders from across the country who have been designated as SSAT Leadership Fellows and are in their first two to four years of teaching.

Miss Joyce, who returned to Melbourn from St Peter’s School, Huntingdon, which, like Melbourn, is part of The Cam Academy Trust, has been identified as showing the potential to become an outstanding school leader.

The SSAT also invite current head teachers to mentor Leadership Fellows and Melbourn Principal Simon Holmes has this year been asked to become a Leadership Expert. He will help his mentees to share his experiences of school leadership and help them develop their own visions and values.

Sawston Adult Education

Wow, what a start to the new academic year! Since introducing online booking for our adult courses we have seen an increase in course take up. Our new courses Flamenco, Willow Weaving and Bollywood have been very popular, so thank you to those who have suggested these courses for our programme. We are delighted to provide the courses the local community want.

Our Saturday Workshops in September have also proved very popular so we are sure you will love our 8th December repertoire. Book now or you might be disappointed! » Saturday 8 December Workshops • Basic Car Maintenance 9.30 – 12.30 £18 per person • Bollywood Dancing 10.30 – 12.30 £12 per person • Christmas Cake Decorations 10.00 – 16.00 £36 per person

Food Fun bumpkins Make & Do bumpkins toddler Tips toddler Tips

Cheese Star Treats

Who doesn’t love star shaped things? These little cheese stars will go down well on Fireworks Night or can be made for Christmas too. All you need is a sheet of ready made puff pasty (at room temperature), some grated cheese and a little flour to dust the work surface. Encourage your child to wash their hands then unroll the pastry. Let your child sprinkle most of the cheese over half of the pastry sheet. You can use this opportunity to discuss what ‘half’ means. Support your child to fold the plain side of pastry over the cheesy side and use a rolling pin to roll the pastry back to its original size. Now let your child cut out stars (or other shapes is you haven’t got a star cutter) of various sizes. It’s around the toddler stage that children begin to realise that tools can be used for a purpose. Encourage comparative language, bigger than, smaller than, biggest. All that remains is for your child to place the stars carefully on baking sheets and sprinkle each one with the reserved cheese. Pop them in the oven for 10 minutes at 200 ° c (180 ° c fan). Leave to cool and enjoy! Could you help raise funds for HomeStart by hosting a tea party with your family and friends from your office, playgroup, school, book club etc.?

We will supply you with a “tea bag” fundraising pack with ideas for all you need to host an event – the pack includes invites for your use, a snowflake cutter and recipes for any cakes or biscuits you may want to make for your event.

If you would like to host a tea party, please call our office on 01763 262262 or email admin@hsrsc.org.uk

“Please join me raising money for The Snowflake Appeal so Home-Start can keep supporting unique and fragile children. Home-Start is in there, making a difference each and every day.

It is changing all our communities for the future. It prevents parents’ difficulties from becoming their children’s problems”. Kirstie Allsopp, TV presenter, mum, stepmum, Home-Start ambassador The appeal runs up to 31st January each year.

•Christmas Day Flowers 10.30 – 12.30 £12 per person • Creative Writing (constructing a story) 9.30-12.30 £18 per person • Fabulous Looks With Make Up 10.00 -16.00 £36 per person • Family Cooking – Festive Sweets and Treats 10.00 -13.00 £18 per adult • Flamenco: Tango for Beginners 10.00-12.00 £12 per person • Indian Stuffed Breads 10.00-16.00 £36 per person • Willow Weaving – Christmas Crafts 9.30-12.30 £18 per person

We are already taking bookings for our Spring term courses, which start week commencing 7 January 2019. Please check our website and book through Wisepay if you are able, it is secure and very easy. If you have any enquiries or wish to make a booking personally, please feel free to pop in to the Adult Education reception Monday to Friday, 9am to 1pm during term time. Alternatively telephone us on 01223 712424.

The Adult Education team are looking forward to welcoming you to your community college. Email community@sawstonvc.org Web: www.sawstonadulted.org

Creative Writing

My name is Garry Pope and I am the new creative writing tutor at Sawston Adult College.

Writing is more than a passion for me, it is a vocation. I’ve been writing for eighteen years and have loved writing every single word. I read creative writing at university at both M.A. and B.A. level.

So, what can I do for you? If you have a passion for fiction, be it novels, graphic novels, short stories, films, plays, radio dramas TV dramas or any other type of fiction, and you’ve always wanted to write or are currently writing, then attending my creative writing course will help you improve the quality and structure of your stories. The course consists of several aspects: Peer editing – You will submit your stories to the rest of the class and have them edit your work and provide critical feedback.

There has been a great revival of medieval plays this

Christmas season, and many an old Parish Church has been the scene of a Nativity or similar sacred play such as was known to worshippers hundreds of years ago.

The presentation of a Nativity play in Melbourn Parish

Church created an immense amount of local interest, as was to be expected, the idea appearing to be new to many villagers. It may be pointed out, however, that such plays are a relic of medieval times when many persons were unable to read, and a realistic presentation of sacred happenings as recorded in the Bible were welcomed, not only by the unsophisticated, but by learned villagers as well. The Church really was the cradle of the drama, and some of the earliest plays centred around the Christmas story. They are known to historians as liturgical plays because they were performed in church, more or less as part of the service, and from them developed the cycles of ‘mystery plays’ which were performed annually in the open by the craft guilds of all important cities – notably York, Chester and Winchester – were noted for these outdoor mystery plays, and the dialogues used are still in existence.

These outdoor plays were not quite so serious as the indoor Nativity plays, for they often had a comic character to claim the attention of a rustic audience. Noah for instance was often portrayed as a comic henpecked character, and in a scene in one of the oldest plays Noah is shown to be having a row with his nagging wife, but obviously all ended well and villagers learned from it something for their good.

There may have been some Melbourn villagers who thought a religious play, even a well presented Nativity play, to be sacrilegious and out of place in a parish church, but all who saw the 17 tableaux so reverently produced at Melbourn - notably the Salutation (Mary and Angel Gabriel) and the even more impressive Visitation (Mary and Elizabeth) must have admired the scenes admirably acted, as indeed were the other scenes, on the chancel steps before the fine 400-year old rood screen, which with the ecclesiastical surroundings, the music of the organ and the singing of the village’s best choristers, gave the right and proper atmosphere, conditions difficult, if not impossible to acquire in a schoolroom or hall.

All concerned with the production, no names were made public, are to be congratulated. One child, who with her mother saw the performance from the front, was heard to say on her return home, ‘I am glad mother to have seen the angels. I now know how beautiful they really are. It was better than reading about them.’

It was a kind thought of the powers-that-be to invite about a hundred German prisoners-of-war to be present in church for the full-dress rehearsal, though some villagers thought otherwise. The lads were deeply impressed, visibly moved and profuse in thanks.

This is by far the most valuable part of any creative writing course. Having someone read your work will help you fix errors within your text, such as typos, punctuation all the way to character development and story structure. Editing – You will also edit your peers’ stories. We are precious of our own stories, and often we’re too close to them to see the improvement areas. By editing other people’s stories you will become aware of these improvement areas in your own writing, making your stories stronger and of greater quality. Analysis – We will look at different types of fiction from the greatest writers and perform close reading of their work to see how they write stories and what techniques they use. Discipline – The biggest problem I hear from people wanting to write is they don’t have time and don’t have goals set. By having to produce a story every week this forms good habits, which continue after the course has finished. Tutoring – My teaching focus is all about story structure: beginning, middle and end. I’ve had students that are good writers of individual scenes become great writers of stories by the end of the course. Story is the backbone of all fiction, until you learn how to write story, your writing will not be as entertaining and alive as the fiction you love from published authors.

The above may sound like exactly what you want, or it may sound a little daunting, either way my classes are structured so that everyone’s work is respected. Writing is a personal thing and it needs a pleasant environment to flourish in. The best thing about creative writing is no one is right or wrong. Writing is subjective, what you might love, I might hate and vice versa. If you’d like to come along to a one day course or attend a ten week course then we have the below available: » Saturday 8th December 2018 – 09:30 to 12:30 –

Constructing a Story – 1 day course » Wednesday 16th January 2019 – 19:00 to 21:00 – Creative

Writing: Beginners – 10 week course » Saturday 19th January 2019 – 09:30 to 12:30 – Writing

Snappy Dialogue – 1 day course » Saturday 16th March 2019 – 09:30 to 12:30 – Constructing a Story – 1 day course » Wednesday 1st May 2019 – 19:00 to 21:00 – Creative

Writing: Beginners – 10 week course » Saturday 22nd June 2019 – 09:30 to 12:30 – Writing Snappy

Dialogue – 1 day course I look forward to reading your stories in one of my courses! Garry Pope, Adult Learning Tutor

Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) – Royston

The Spring course at Royston Town Hall will start on 22nd January 2019.

Scandal: A History of some Worst Nightmares C2225566 with Richard Till £54.75

The course is for 10 weeks Tuesdays 10am-11.30am. You may enrol on-line: https://enrolonline.wea.org.uk