REPORT ON THE SCHOOL YEAR 2010-2011
This report was presented at the Annual Prize giving held at Batch Country Hotel on Thursday 7th July 2011. Mrs Tobias, headteacher at Red Maid’s School,
We build children’s self esteem by identifying their abilities early on, then creating tailored approaches to provide a solid foundation for the next stage in their education. Small classes and a caring ethos are vital ingredients in maintaining enthusiasm for learning, nurturing creative talents and encouraging the optimum development of every child.
Children in nursery and reception experience their first taste of education in a unique and exciting way to deliver and complement all aspects of the Foundation Stage Curriculum. It encourages self-esteem, confidence and independence as well as providing opportunities for active outdoor play and discovery.
The children in reception have their own much loved teddy bear, Barnaby. He is invited to visit the children’s homes, attends their birthday parties and even goes on holiday with them! All his adventures are documented in his own diary – which makes very interesting reading
The staff of a school are its most valuable resource and I wish to thank the Ashbrooke staff for their dedicated efforts and loyal support. All have worked to provide your children with a really first class education.
At the beginning of October on the 10th of the 10th 2010 many of the staff traveled to
Zoe Stevens went on maternity leave at the end of the Spring term and Mandy Rice took over as Nursery leader. Kameron Stevens was born on March .
Tomorrow we have to bid a sad farewell to Ruth Downes our Year 2 teacher, who after 15 years of loyal and dedicated service to Ashbrooke has decided its time to retire. I am sure many of you here tonight will remember Ruth for the caring and inspirational way she has nurtured many classes of children over the years. She has excelled at building children’s self esteem by looking for all their strengths and not just academic excellence, always encouraging them to challenge their thinking. She will be sorely missed by us all.
In September a new PTA committee was elected and their enthusiastic efforts have resulted in several successful fund raising events this year: Carols by Candlelight, a sponsored pancake flip, a bingo evening and a treasure hunt. They rounded off their fundraising activities at our keynote event – the summer fayre – which was held in the school garden in early June. As always there was plenty of entertainment for all age groups – from skittles to water shoot-out, from filling ornaments with coloured sand to bouncing on an inflatable castle. Overall this year the PTA raised £2473.64p. This year’s project is building our bug garden to further increase the eco-systems that we offer to creatures within our school grounds. Rather than going on a field trip to pond-dip we will soon be able to just ‘nip-out’ to our discovery garden.
We would like to thank everyone who helped us to raise this amount, in whatever capacity. Parents and children support us in so many ways throughout the year, by attending events, baking cakes, donating tombola prizes or helping to run an event. We rely on and appreciate this support.
We held our harvest festival at
Fundraising events this year kicked off by celebrating “Children in Need Day” and as usual we had plenty of exciting things for our children to be involved in. It is amazing how many coins are needed to cover an outline of Pudsey Bear. Everything took on a “spotty” look – clothes, food and even faces!
A touring theatre company visited us in November to put on a performance of Arabian Adventure – a chance for everybody to pick up a few acting tips before our own foray into the theatrical world. Pupils need the opportunity to express themselves in a creative manner and it often helps them with self-esteem. We find that sometimes the quietest child suddenly becomes the star when they sit down and play the piano or play the key role in a performance and a hidden talent is allowed to shine for all to see.
The highlight of the Autumn Term is always the Christmas productions and I believe they get better every year.
The lower school performance of “The Elves and the Shoemaker” was excellent, enhanced as always by the many parents and staff working behind the scenes making scenery and costumes. A special mention should be made this year to Amanda Gifford who spent many evenings painstakingly making and sewing on six sets of spider’s legs. I will leave you to work out how many legs that entailed!
Upper school put on two equally good performances the next day of “What Christmas means to me”. Is it the “joys” of shopping, music, presents, meals, the nativity story or is there more?
Christmas always starts early at Ashbrooke – although not quite as early as the shops! Excellent vocal teaching at the school ensures a high standard in performance technique and the school’s choir is asked to perform at various venues in the town including the switching on of the Christmas lights. They also entertain the elderly in several local nursing homes. This is very much appreciated, especially at Christmas when seasonal music always has an emotional and nostalgic impact.
Music and drama plays an important part in the life of the school. A large number of our children entered the Junior Arts Festival with great success and our small choir and recorder ensemble won their respective classes. Children were also entered for examinations in speech and drama, piano and singing. All children from year 3 now learn the recorder as part of their music lesson and Class 6 have the opportunity to play the ukulele as we have just heard. By the way did you know that ukulele means “jumping flea” in Hawaiian?
Many children have private lessons is speech and drama, piano, violin, brass and singing. In September there will be vacancies in all these activities. Our aim is to provide your children with as wide a range of experiences as possible. At the end of the spring term we held our annual school concert “Ashbrooke’s Got Talent” a chance for parents and staff to enjoy the many talents of our children.
April 29th will be remembered by the whole nation for many years to come. Everybody came together to celebrate the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Ashbrooke held its own Royal Wedding Reception the day before, culminating with the traditional cutting of the cake by our head boy and myself.
We start each school day with an assembly and it has become an integral part of the curriculum where we actively teach the importance of love, forgiveness, truthfulness, integrity, courage, generosity and respect to all people. Teachers have a special place in encouraging students to acquire these characteristics.
We often have visiting speakers to talk to us and during the year all the children plan and take part in class assemblies sharing with the rest of the school what they have been learning.
Year 1 shared with the school work carried out in their science lessons on our five senses.
Years 3 and 4 gave an assembly about Vikings – showing us their longship models which they had made at home as part of their half-term homework.
Year 5 presented a short play based on their history topic studying World War 2 an excerpt of which we shall be seeing later.
In the past few weeks each boy in Year 6 has taken an assembly on a favourite hobby or interest ranging from Bristol City Football Club to woodwork, from camping to street dancing, rugby,
One local charity we have supported this year is Secret World – the animal rescue centre at Highbridge. We held an “own clothes day” and pupils and staff came dressed as animals and were able to buy animal biscuits and cakes at breaktime. Secret World came to an assembly and brought several rescued animals with them for the children to see and handle.
World Book Day is the largest celebration of reading in
School life generally is far more exciting and dynamic for pupils now…………it’s not just sitting at a desk and learning……there is lots more interaction and opportunities for children to find out for themselves.
As an introduction to a history topic on the Vikings Class 3 and 4 had a Viking Day – even cooking their own lunch of chicken stew (with carrots, leeks, turnips and pearl barley), unleavened bread (using barley and wheat flours) with butter and a hot apple drink with honey. Many staff abandoned their own lunch that day and partook of the Viking Feast.
Year 6 boys traveled back to the 19th century for a Victorian day. They learned how to chant the alphabet and times tables, use a period ink pen and slates and sung the Lord’s Prayer and the National Anthem. They also took part in a playground drill, while a few unfortunates also had to wear the dunce’s cap.
Reception and nursery finished off their work on the Chinese New Year with a feast of Chinese food – decorating the tables with the Chinese lanterns they had made. They very kindly invited Class 1 to join them.
Other educational visits during the year included Class 5 and 6 visiting the
Year 6 attended a lifeskills workshop in
Year 5 were invited to
At the end of the spring term Classes 3 and 4 went off timetable for two days and visited Goblin Combe Environment Centre for an overnight stay. In recent years there has been an increased focus on outside learning contributing significantly to raising standards and improving pupils’ personal, social and emotional development. Goblin Combe provides the perfect environment in which to bring learning to life through various bushcraft activities, including building dens and creating shelters, building fires, making bread and constructing bird feeders.
Two weeks ago classes 5 and 6 enjoyed an outdoor adventure week at Hill House in the
The highlight of our educational visits is always our end of year school trips. This year we visited Westonbirt Arboretum near Tetbury in Gloucestershire. This was a new venue for many of us and proved to be an excellent choice. The younger children took their teddies with them for a day out and discovered the four basic needs of all living creatures (shelter, water, air and food) through a selection of activities, stories and games. A paw print then led them to a secret picnic.
The older children turned into nature detectives for the day to work out which animals live at Westonbirt. They looked for signs of animal life and found out how they lived.
The Nursery class stayed nearer to home for their trip and enjoyed a visit to Court Farm where they were able to feed and handle some of the animals and experience a tractor ride.
One of our projects for next year is to establish a gardening club. We have had several planters constructed in the back garden and hope to plant them up during the autumn term. Leading into this new adventure Class 3 had a trial run this term successfully growing potatoes and runner beans. Those of you who came to the reception/nursery sports morning will have seen the fruits of their labours as you went into the back garden.
A successful sports day was held at
The annual Reception and Nursery Sports kicked off with a morning of activities including the bean bag pick-up, build a bear race and tunnel race. Gerard King was the Reception Sports Champion.
Swimming at Hutton Moor occupied the games lessons during the spring term and a mini gala ended the sessions with Tabitha Cameron Kettle winning the senior trophy and Gabriella Sawyer-Parker the junior trophy.
At Ashbrooke we are determined that we create opportunities for our pupils to achieve their best and that we tailor our curriculum for each child. We believe that every child really does matter and that we can provide a stimulating and enriching environment for them to flourish. Young people have a desire to do well and move through school successfully – it’s our role to help them in that cause.
My aim for the next academic year is to continue to work with my excellent team of teaching and support staff to offer all your children a high level of challenge accompanied by high levels of support so that all can achieve.
In a little while we will take the opportunity to congratulate your children who have worked so hard throughout this school year in gaining the awards you see spread before us.
