Thank you to everyone this week who contributed to our Harvest celebrations.  We had an amazing array of food and other essentials to donate to the Kip project locally which supports homeless people locally as well as supporting the work of the local foodbanks which anyone can access if they need some additional support.  The Year 1 and 2 children delivered a beautiful assembly - The performance of Little Red Hen was a particular highlight.  We were delighted to welcome SImon, from the KiP project alongside Stuart and Ann who hosted our visits to Christchurch earlier in the week.  Following their visit to the church to see their harvest displays the children had made their own bread to add to our harvest display.  This week has been an excellent opportunity to understand how some of our food is produced, but also a time to reflect on the importance of sharing and how we build stronger communities by working together.

Year 6 have been immersed in their Arts fortnight.  Having explored a range of artistic skills and techniques to discover how to build texture for fur, the resulting pictures have blown us away.  It has also been delightful to hear how having time to be totally focussed on the art work has helped pupils understand the positive impact on their emotional health.  We hope to have some of the wolf pictures displayed around school and online - accompanied by the soundscapes composed by the pupils. 

Visits to the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham this week for Years 3 and 4 were a real success.  Pupils were amazed and intrigued by the range of plants and animals they encountered.  Being able to take the children out on these experiences is such a crucial part of our curriculum, we have missed being able to go during the pandemic, it really brings the topics alive.  We are looking forward to seeing the resulting work this half term and how the children use the knowledge they acquired during the visit back in school.

Our Early Years children are getting to know Squirrel school.  They are finding out about what grows in and around our school site, with a particular focus on the apple trees near the sports hall.  We are looking forward to working with the National Trust at Sunnycroft this term to use the apple press to create our own juice.

Congratulations to our Year 6 pupils achieving their swimming awards in recent weeks.  So much swimming time was lost through the pandemic, however we are working hard to ensure we catch up as quickly as we can.  

Next week we will be putting our special golden leaves onto the tree in Tim's Garden.  This is a really important part of being a Short Woody, they act as a reminder of the promises we make to care for each other, to work hard, to follow the rules and to believe in ourselves.  If you haven't already returned your home school agreement please do so as soon as possible. 

Have a great weekend, hopefully we can enjoy some bright Autumn days.