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We have had a super History Day. The children all looked fantastic. We started the day with an assembly all about the history of our school. We saw historic photos and listened to a recount of Miss Catherine Granville who was a teacher at the school... can you believe she called the children 'wild beasts!'? The children in Trendle then used a real fountain pen to practise writing their name...some found this tricky. They then watched a snippet of The Borrowers which was originally written in 1952. Abbey class boys learnt about the school building and girls (as they would have done in 1940s) learnt how to sew. Just before playtime, we found out about the types of games children played in the 1940s and 1950s and at playtime, we took part in these games.
After play we learnt about what school was like. Children didn't wear school uniform because after the war, due to rationing, people used their rations to buy other clothes. We found out that all children walked to school...by themselves. Children started school after their 5th birthday and only moved up to the next class when they had learnt enough to move up. Judy showed us some old desks kindly brought in by Alfie Isles and showed us the ink well she would have used. She talked to us about discipline (which luckily is different to now). After this session, Giants and Trendle took part in a lesson children would have taken part in...a nature walk. Abbey class had a traditional arthmatic lesson.
For lunch, we enjoyed a 1940s/1950s style lunch of meatloaf or cheese, potato and onion pie and for pudding....jam roly poly!
In the afternoon, we had a talk by George Mortimer who showed us what Long Street looked like in the past. We then used boxes to recreate Long Street. These will be displayed at the event at the village hall on Tuesday evening next week.
Thank you to all the members of the community who came in today to share their knowledge. You really made our day special!

The Cerne Abbas Music Festival is world famous and the whole school were invited this week to see the the Gaudier Ensemble play Berwald's Grand Septet in B flat major for Winds and Strings. The children were mesmerised and one little boy in Year 2 exclaimed when they had finished 'Wow I loved that I hope they play something else'. It was a real privilege to watch their rehearsal and a lovely experience for our children.

Today we had the grand unveiling of our Jubilee mosaics. This was organised by local artists Sasha Constable and Becky Paton who worked with all the children to design and create these wonderful pieces of art. Local resident Kate Adie MBE unveiled these in front of the whole school and it was lovely to hear her talk about how these mosaics could be around for a very very long time. The children then sang their Jubilee Song to finish off the presentation. 

Today we had a Reflective Day and everyone was encouraged to think deeply using a windows, mirrors and doors analogy. We started the day with the whole school gathering together and each staff member shared a special object or picture and explained why it meant so much to them. Children then visited each classroom in their teams and took part in activities to encourage deep reflection. Miss Trent's room experienced rock mindfulness and then painted their own rock, Mrs Brown had a prayer stations in her room to encourage children to think about various things they could pray about or reflect upon and in Miss Stephen' s room all of the children talked about and recorded why their objects, that they had brought in were special to them. We then gathered at the end of the day to share our thoughts about the day. We finished with a mindfulness activity and prayer led by the children. Spirituality is a golden thread of our curriculum and we love spending time just allowing ourselves to think more deeply about things.

We buried our time capsule this week in the Peace Garden. It was filled with messages to the future children explaining what we did to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee and Jubilee memorabilia.  We sang our Jubilee Song and every child in the whole school put some earth on top the capsule to help bury it. It was a very memorable occasion and very touching. The site is now marked with a plaque.