At last, it’s all systems go once again at St Peter’s with a full return to on-site learning for all pupils this week.

I must start, though, with a great vote of thanks and gratitude to all you parents and carers who have made learning possible over these past 8 weeks of term.  No two families’ experiences have been the same, but for all of you, whether it was full-time home learning, blended learning of part-school and part-home, or your children attending full time in a very different school atmosphere, “THANK YOU!”  To paraphrase a popular saying, “It takes a village to raise a child, but a vineyard to home-school one!”.  Thank goodness it’s Friday.

Back to the start of the week, and the children just kept on arriving for the morning drop-off of Monday 8th March, and by 9:00am 430 pupils were settled down to classroom learning with their teachers once again.  The curriculum, thanks to teacher planning and remote resourcing, has seamlessly got back underway in school, and here’s a little flavour of what the children have been learning this week.  Early Years have been finding out all about the springtime, and are eagerly awaiting the arrival of eggs and an incubator to wait patiently for hatching chicks.  Year 1 children are ‘Going on a bear hunt’ for their English topic, whilst Year 2 are setting off to find out about life on the Titanic.  Year 3 are building empires through their study on the Romans, with the lives of the gladiators and Roman toilets featuring as early favourite topics, whilst year 4 are doing volcanoes and the human digestive system at the same time – I wonder which will make more rumblings?  Year 5 are concluding studies in 2 subjects, space for science and crime and punishment through the ages for History, whilst Year 6 are trekking out to Nepal and the Himalayas for Geography, combined with a study of Buddhism for their multi-cultural topic.

Please don’t forget the need to keep your distance from one another on the school site during drop-off times and especially at end of the day pick-up times whilst waiting to access both playgrounds.  And a real plea for all adults accessing the school site to wear a face covering, for the sake of other adults and our staff, as we do in shops and on public transport.

And finally, even with the children back in school, we are still producing two collective worship videos a week for use in class during Lent.  This coming week, with the kind hosting of Fr Daniel Agber, we are broadcasting from the parish of St Edmund’s in Horndean.

Mr R Cunningham
Headteacher