Welcome to Collaton-St-Mary CE VA Primary School!
The Summer Term, with much to celebrate and to look forward to
What a great Spring Term! All the learning experiences planned culminated in some dynamic learning outcomes. The Year Five and Six children can be very proud of the museum they created on the last Thursday of term and their guidance to visitors was superb! Year Three and Four created a great Indian Restaurant one lunchtime with the support of our kitchen manager. The food was delicious! Having enjoyed creating items out of their hand made paper, Year One and Two made over £30 on their recycled paper stall the previous week. The funds will support recycling projects in the school. We ended the term with a very well attended Easter service to which children from all classes contributed. It helped us focus upon our mission and shared values.
This term, we begin a problem solving focus in our learning. This will provide children with the opportunities to improve their awareness of the problem solving process, to think creatively within it and try ideas out. They will be encouraged to learn with resilience and collaboratively as they progress towards solutions to the problems explored. The problem solving skills that are developed through the learning experiences this term will be transferable to new contexts in the future and become a valuable part of the repertoire of skills each child needs as she becomes a life-long learner.
As well as that, we have all the usual Summer Term pleasures to look forward to with sports day, the summer fair and the Y6 end of year performance. We are delighted that our school garden was ready for the growing season and our new gardening club has already begun to grow and tend, with potatoes and herbs already in and salad crops and sunflowers on the horizon. Our community has been really supportive of this project with a parent leading the club, the Collaton St Mary Horticultural Society providing guidance and equipment and garden centres as well as individuals donating seeds and plants. Tools and materials, which we were able to order as a result of our collection of Morrison’s vouchers, have now arrived to enhance this project.
Our long awaited community room will be completed in the middle of June. This will provide a wonderful resource for our school and the local community. Initially, it will be used by our before and after school clubs and for family learning. In time, I’m sure that it will facilitate a range of extended school activities and enrich our community.
I go off on my visit to Peru as part of our exchange organized through our humanities partnership with Churston Ferrers Grammar School. This involves teaching in our link school – Tupac Amaru- at Lucre near Cusco high in the Andes and researching the customs, culture and way of life of the locality. Whilst at the planning stage for a long time, confirmation that funding was at last available was not forthcoming until March this year.! The exchange has been funded by the World Council and we will enjoy the return visit of heads from all the link primaries involved in Cusco later in June. This is a wonderful opportunity for our school to strengthen global links; improve communication and joint learning activities; and deepen our awareness of our interdependence and the importance of sustainable development.
Yet again, much is happening at Collaton St Mary to make it a dynamic learning environment and a school at the heart of its community.
Penny Millington,
Headteacher
18th May 2009