Hello to you all,
Well, here we are at the end of another sunny week. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the buds are
slowly emerging, bringing a wealth of colour.
As we continue with the lockdown, we would like to thank you all for keeping in touch. Thank you to those parents who have been sending us photos of all the fun activities that their children have been doing in the sunshine, including sowing seeds, weeding, splashing in paddling pools, doing keep fit, and more! We have also enjoyed seeing photos of your Maths and English work, and look forward to seeing your final IOW topic work.
I know many of you may feel that you are struggling with juggling home-schooling with other commitments, but please don’t feel guilty or anxious that you cannot replicate ‘school’ at home. As Jeff Williams from the Diocese said in an email to schools this week, learning at home, with the support of family members, is a completely different experience from learning in school, but equally valuable with opportunities for deep learning and experiences of a different kind. Having spoken to some of you, I hear that you are enjoying having the opportunities to engage with your
children for longer periods of time or in lots of new ways. For example, sharing family bike rides or going for local walks, painting walls, planting seeds and weeding in the garden, cooking and baking, reading lots of books, playing board games and completing jigsaws – all of these are valuable learning experiences that promote and develop a whole range of skills and values.
Here in school the children and staff have also been busy. Today the children have made wooden spoon puppets of themselves, as well as taking part in physical activities such as football and racing games. They have carried out lots of activities from the IOW topic grid, including writing postcards to friends on the mainland, creating Brighstone flags which they proudly waved as they made their way through the school, and carrying out some map work about the Isle of Wight.
The children have also been very busy in the garden. Many more weeds grew back over the Easter holidays, so lots of weeding had to be done! We’d like to thank Helen and Sue Cox from the village, who very kindly donated lots of seeds for the children to sow. These have now been sown in the ground or in pots, and the children are carefully and tenderly nurturing them. We’re looking forward to watching and measuring their growth!
Our school values are Love, Courage and Respect, and these have been clearly shown throughout this difficult time by the many inspirational stories both near and far. It has been wonderful seeing the community spirit bringing everyone together, albeit remotely or at a safe distance. One such example was Lucy in Y2, who has been busy planting, potting and tending to lots of sunflower seedlings in different pots. She’s given them out to all the neighbours, and the whole street is now having a sunflower growing competition to see whose grows highest! Other children have also been involved in this – well done for showing our school values with such thoughtfulness and kindness.
You will all have heard the amazing story of Captain Tom Moore, the 99 year old army veteran who has raised more than £28 million for the NHS. His 100th birthday is on 30th April, and people across the world have been sending him birthday cards for his very special day. Knowing how kind our Brighstone children are, if you would like to create and send a card for his birthday, here is his address:
Captain Tom Moore
C/O Marston Moretaine Post Office
67 Bedford Road
Marston Mortaine
Bedford
MK43 0LA
Alternatively, if you would like to send a virtual birthday message, then you can use the hashtag #makeacardfortom.
Many thanks for all that you are doing.
Best wishes and take care,
Mrs Lennon