EDUCATION

ALL THE NEWS FROM YOUR LOCAL SCHOOLS BOOKSHELF

Check out the Primary Times Easter shortlist of great books for young minds

Make Your Good Friday Great!

Looking for something exciting to do with the family on Good Friday to kick start your Easter weekend? Make your Good Friday GREAT and join us for the new All-Weather Championships Vase Day to enjoy the best of All-Weather racing, free admission for U18s and a host of FREE entertainment!

A day of fun for all the family, Good Friday racing has become a firm favourite in Lingfield’s calendar. Not only will there be 7 thrilling and high-action races but we have plenty of FREE entertainment to keep all of the family amused throughout the day including; a live band, Easter egg hunt, funfair rides and more! The All-Weather Vase Day on Good Friday is a fantastic idea for a fun day out with the family this Easter. Kids will love watching the horses up-close and enjoy the variety of free entertainment on offer. Gather your friends and family to be part of the action and celebrate the best of the All-Weather as horses gallop for glory on Vase Day.

Grandstand tickets £38 Nations Favourite – 2 adult admission, 4 x fish & chips meals £99 The 99er – 2 adult admission, 4 x ice creams £79 Buy tickets now: www.lingfieldpark.co.uk

Learning about the stars

Teaching your children all about the night sky is a great, interactive way of helping your child explore the universe and get them interested in and inspired by astronomy from a young age.

Meteor Showers Meteor showers or shooting stars are types of rocks from space known as meteoroids. When these meteoroids fall towards the Earth and enter its atmosphere, the air around the rock becomes extremely hot and begins to burn. This is why a shooting star can be seen so brightly. The brightness is not the rock itself but rather the hot air around it burning as the rock flies through the atmosphere and eventually burns out. When we can see more than one shooting star, it becomes a meteor shower.

To see a meteor shower isn’t as rare as you may think and can happen several times a year. When lots of meteoroids fall towards the Earth, it usually comes from a comet. When a comet is orbiting past the Earth, the sun can boil off some of its icy surface, meaning that lots of dust, rock and debris fall off the comet and head towards the Earth. These meteoroids are usually small, around the size of boulders, and burn out quickly, with very little chance of them hitting the Earth, but they do create a beautiful show.

Meteor showers are named after the constellations they appear in. For example, the Lyrid meteor shower is named after the constellation Lyra the Harp.

The Lyrid Meteor Shower The Lyrid meteor shower will be active between 16th April and 25th April 2022. It is expected to reach peak activity at around 8pm on 22nd April. During the peak activity it is expected to produce a rate of around 18 meteors per hour.

The visibility of a meteor shower depends on a variety of factors such as sunset times, location and the weather conditions. Try pre-planning your meteor shower viewing so you can be out on a clear night in a location of little light pollution such as a field or beach. To make your star show a fun evening for everyone, bring chairs, hot chocolate and possibly even a telescope to watch the meteor shower in comfort. Quiz each other on which constellations you can see, download educational apps such as StarWalk to help you explore the starry skies in real time, and count how many shooting stars you end up spotting.

Constellations A constellation is a group of stars that have been given a name due to their particular shape in the sky. If you were to look at the night sky like a dot-to-dot puzzle, choosing the brightest stars to join up, you would end up with a picture that would look like an object, animal or person. Although constellations where created thousands of years ago, astronomers still use them today to name new stars and meteor showers. Check out some of the most well-known and largest constellations below and see if you can find them in the night sky.

The Secret Garden Experience

Why not spark your child’s curiosity with this imaginative, educational and playful gift to be enjoyed by all the family at home.

This interactive experience, adapted from the much-loved classic by Frances Hodgson Burnett, includes audio episodes and a through-thepost Secret Box filled with activities and crafts for 2 children (6 - 11years). These are accompanied by digital quizzes and challenges via our website. There’s no time-limit, you can simply pause and continue whenever you like. Exceptional value at only £3 per episode.

***** “Brilliant for families” - A Younger Theatre

thesecretgardenexperience.co.uk

Help you need – in the heart of your community

MagiKats has always brought high-quality learning and support to local families, but without invading people’s homes! Our first groups of students (almost twenty years ago) worked around a kitchen table; we keep that small group mentality to this day. MagiKats provides familystyle support for maths and English in small, friendly groups at community-based workshops. Now, more than ever, we see this as an important part of what we offer local children.

The last two years have been hard on everyone - not least children and their learning. Some have thrived but lacked consistency, some struggled but found new strengths: one thing is obvious to us - almost all students currently need some extra support. Now is the time for us to move back closer to the families we serve, returning to friendly, welcoming, familiar places where students feel secure and supported. We are moving firmly back to basics – offering workshops with a family-feel, close to home.

MagiKats gives National Curriculum support and extension, alongside essential core skill practice. Harder, workshop topics are worked together to help students understand topics and then extend their skills. This happens in small, tutor-led groups with a mixture of worksheets, group discussion, and hands-on activities. Work on basics for each individual is brought together, to be completed at home - building speed and confidence to help harder, applied work.

Whether starting school or preparing for entrance exams or GCSEs, we are there for them! To find out more please call 01483 667795, email jan@magikats.com or visit www.magikats.co.uk.

Developing Potential For Life

St. Andrew’s School was founded in 1937 and is a respected and thriving coeducational Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School, set in 11 acres of grounds near Woking town centre. St. Andrew’s creates a nurturing and happy environment in which all pupils are encouraged and enabled to develop their potential to the full.

At St. Andrew’s children feel secure and confident and are highly motivated to perform to the best of their ability in all aspects of school life. Above all, children make friends for life, leaving as confident well-rounded young people ready for their education ahead. Children are prepared for entrance and scholarship exams to a wide range of independent senior schools and there are specialist teaching facilities for all subjects including science, ICT, music, food technology and art. The curriculum is broad and the school places great emphasis on music, sport and the arts. In our latest ISI Inspection we were proud to be rated ‘excellent’ in all areas.

St. Andrew’s has excellent on-site facilities and our latest building development project has provided us with a fantastic tiered seating theatre, food technology room, library, changing rooms and classrooms. Our impressive outdoor facilities include an astro, sports pitches, tennis courts, cricket nets and a swimming pool.

Don’t just take our word for it, come and visit the school to see for yourself! We have three open days, one per term, but you are also welcome to visit the school at other times. See our website for further details: www.st-andrews.woking.sch.uk

Out of school tuition for pre-school to GCSE, enabling students to achieve their full potential. Covering Guildford, Cobham and Farnham (Wrecclesham & Badshot Lea)