Latest News

Keep up to date with all the news from the school.

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• Peeling Carrots for Design Technology

  Thu 30 Jan 2025

   In Trendle Class, we are looking at animals including humans and Year 1 have enjoyed finding out about animal groups including grouping them based on their diet. Year 2 have been looking at life cycles of humans and what living things need to survive. The children have also been practising their peeling and chopping skills ready to make soup for The Great Works next week.

   

• Christmas

  Fri 03 Jan 2025

  This year Christmas has been just as lovely as it always is here at Cerne Abbas CE First School. The children made Christmas shoeboxes for the children we support in Romania. They have now been gratefully received by the children there. We collected our Christmas Tree, which was kindly donated, from Dobbies Garden Centre and the children made an excellent job of decorating it. The Nativity performances were wonderful with children singing traditional carols and acting out the story of when Jesus was born and the Cerne Abbas Christmas Fair was a delightful experience (despite the windy weather). Finally the last day was filled with parties, a Christmas dinner and Father Christmas. We look forward to more fun and learning in 2025.

  

• Remembrance Day

  Mon 11 Nov 2024

  We have been learning about Remembrance Day and why people wear poppies at this time of year. We have learnt that poppies are a worn as a symbol to remember all the people who have lost their lives serving their country. We have been creating our own poppies, decorating with tissue paper, pastels and colouring pencils. We used our poppies to create a class wreath. The children have especially liked creating their own poppies to wear on their clothes.

  This morning at 11am we gathered at the cenotaph in the village to mark a 2 minute silence. The children stood very quietly as we thought about all the people who have lost their lives protecting us and keeping us safe. We will remember them.

  

• RSHE Parent letter June 2024

  Tue 04 Jun 2024 Catherine Cresswell

   

  4th June 2024

  Dear Parents

   ‘Growing and Changing’ Relationships and Sex Education unit

  Promoting the health and well-being of our pupils is an important part of children’s overall education. We do this through our Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) curriculum. This looks at many topics including physical and emotional health, all kinds of relationships, and living in the wider world.

   In the next few weeks, our school will be focusing on part of our SCARF PSHE scheme to deliver some of the relationships and sex education (RSE) aspects of our PSHE programme to children. It became a legal requirement in September 2020 for relationships and sex education to be taught across the school, in an age- and developmentally-appropriate way. The design of the programme has taken into account the requirements of statutory guidance, up-to-date best practice guidance, and the needs of our children. 

  As parents you do not have the right to withdraw your child from lessons in which they learn about growth and reproduction in plants and animals including the names of the human body and also puberty. You do however have the right to withdraw your child from the non-science components of sex education within RSHE. These elements include human conception (how a baby is made). The content taught  is totally age appropriate but if you have any questions or would like to know more details of what each lesson contains please speak to your child’s class teacher. 

  Year 1 Your child will be exploring themes including ‘Keeping Privates Private’ and ‘Inside my Wonderful Body’. During these lessons, correct vocabulary will be taught and shared with your child. This includes the scientific vocabulary of penis, vulva and vagina. These scientific names are used across all years, so that children are able to express themselves clearly when talking about these body parts.

  Year 2 Your child will be exploring themes including ‘My Body, Your Body’ and ‘Respecting Privacy. The children will use the same language of body parts as in year 1. 

  
  Year 3 Your child will be exploring themes including ‘Body Space’ and ‘My Changing Body.’ During these lessons, the children will learn about puberty and again use the correct language of body parts.

   

  Year 4 Your Year 4 child will be exploring the menstruation cycle and how bodies and emotions change during puberty. During these lessons, correct vocabulary will be taught and shared with your child. Appropriate questions that arise from the children during the lessons will be answered honestly and factually. Each pupil's privacy will be respected, and no one will be asked to reveal personal information. All resources that will be used have been reviewed by the school for their suitability and have been tailored to suit our children’s needs.

  We recognise that parents and carers play a vital part in their child’s RSE, and we encourage you to look at this parent’s support page for further support and ideas.

  https://www.coramlifeeducation.org.uk/rse-for-Y6-and-P7

  If further advice/support is required or you have any questions about the programme, please do not hesitate to speak to your child’s class teacher or the Headteacher. 

  Please refer to the RSHE policy available on our website for more detailed information.

  Please let us know by Friday 14^th June if you wish to withdraw your child from any of these lessons.

  Many thanks as always for your continued support

   

  Catherine Cresswell

  Headteacher

   

• Running Miles for Mosaic

  Mon 29 Apr 2024

  Last week we joined 23 other schools in Dorset to see how many miles we could run for the charity Mosaic. This is s charity that supports bereaved young people and their families. We launched the week with a virtual gathering which included all of the schools involved. We all said a big hello and cheer to one another. We them spent any spare time running. We ran a total of nearly 10 marathons and raised over £250 for the charity. What a great way to support such a deserving charity that helped us to keep fit at the same time. Well done to everyone involved.

  

• Author, Actor and Playwright Chris Connaughton

  Thu 25 Apr 2024

  We were very lucky to have Chris Connaughton visit us again yesterday. As well as telling stories he was showing and teaching the children how to tell their own stories. We are concentrating on oracy as a school and this day helped the children understand not only how to make up their own stories but to retell them clearly and with expression. Children need to be be articulate and this will in turn improve their writing. It was a fun and very engaging day.

   

  

• Artist Sasha Constable visits for the day.

  Thu 25 Apr 2024

  This week local artist Sasha Constable visited our school as part of a bird project that we are doing. We have been learning about swallows, swifts and housemartins and there migration patterns. We have put bird boxes up around the school and hope that we may be able to see some of these bird make nests in school. The children enjoyed making bird mobiles with Sasha using cardboard and string.

  

• A busy day in Cerne Abbas CE VC FIrst School

  Fri 22 Mar 2024

  Today has been busy in our school. The last two weeks have been Walk to School Week and today we met at Simsay Fields and we all walked to school altogether. Then later today the Giants went to visit the Care Home and sang songs, rhymes and read stories with the people that live there. It was a lovely experience. At lunchtime Abbey Class went to church had had a Lent lunch with the community. We then sang them a song to say thank you for the delicious soup that we had. Just another fun day at our school :-)

  

• Muslim Lady Sherene Mourad

  Fri 23 Feb 2024

  Yesterday we had a Muslim lady called Sherene Mourad come and talk to the children about what Allah means to her. The children asked her some amazingly thoughtful and deep questions. It was very engaging having the Islam faith brought to life for us. Thank you Sherene.

  

• Treasure Island Pantomine

  Fri 01 Dec 2023

  FOCAS arranged for a pantomime 'Treasure Island' to perform to the children. It was absolutely great fun and the children loved it. Thank you to FOCAS for organising this.