St. Keverne School News

www.st-keverne.cornwall.sch.uk

or our news this month we start way back in November with St. Keverne Feast Day, which was celebrated in some style at school in the form of a "Tea Treat", for which the children had been busy baking cakes and biscuits. These were handed round at the Celebration Assembly and were much appreciated by everyone present. There was a major change at the beginning of this term when the Pre-School Playgroup re-located to the unused Elliot Building. Their former premises have been converted to form a, long overdue, comfortable and spacious room for the staff.

Celebration Assemblies. Class 1 have been busy learning their alphabet by way of large, colourful pictures of animals, which they had made and which contained the appropriate cut-out letter for each animal. Also they had learnt the Alphabet Song (ABCDEFG....etc) which they sang to us. Closer to Christmas they had produced a very long paper chain in three colours, the length of which they estimated in assembly. They had learnt how to work together as a team in order to achieve the correct sequence of colours, with each team starting to construct the chain from opposite ends. Class 2 had, of course, contributed many of the cakes and biscuits for the "Tea Treat" for Feast Day and had helped with similar contributions to the Christmas Coffee Afternoon organised by the Friends of St. Keverne School. In addition they had made items for sale at this event. In art and literacy work they had written adventure stories based on the 4-Schools day at Kennack, which were then displayed as part of the wall collage depicting the day, along with photos and pictures of the various activities. Several youngsters had conducted interviews for articles in a school newspaper which they are producing as part of their English syllabus; studies in French took the form of a class recitation, entirely in French, of a well known story.

Concert. The school concert took the form of a puppet show based on the book "The First Christmas" by Jan Pienkowski, for which Class 2 had made some excellent shadow puppets. Everyone had worked extremely hard to present the show, which was interspersed with readings from the Bible and several carols and songs performed by all the children. There was a charming accompaniment to Silent Night from the Guitar Group and the little ones in Class 1 created a lovely Nativity tableau. The whole show was a very evocative precursor to the Christmas festivities. And a big "thank you" to the person who donated the gold fabric!

(P.D.B.)

---

Pre-school looks back on a busy 2011

n February 2011 St. Keverne Pre-school celebrated Chinese New Year and the children got stuck in with chopsticks, trying the different foods and flavours of China. We also had fun making pancakes for Shrove Tuesday and trying some delicious toppings on them.

In March we dressed in red and baked and sold cakes and raised £50 for Comic Relief. We also enjoyed a visit to the Tylor's farm to meet the new born lambs. In April we had a big outdoor tea party to celebrate the Royal Wedding.

In June we held a sponsored Pedal Push, raising £400 for the NSPCC and £130 for the Pre-school. In July we were joined by parents and some grandparents for our summer trip to Paradise Park. It was a beautiful sunny day and a great time was had by all.

In September we painted fish for a harvest display in the church. While we were visiting the church to see these the children all had the opportunity to have a go at ringing the small bell in the bell tower. In October the fundraising committee held a very successful Halloween party and raised £263 for the Preschool. The children all dressed up in spooky costumes and enjoyed party games and food.

In December we visited the Mullion Gymnastics Centre and the children were able to show off their fantastic PE skills. We also put on a nativity play and rounded the year off with a Christmas party and a visit from Father Christmas. Just before Christmas the pre-school moved to a new building, still within St. Keverne School grounds. This has given us lots more space both -inside and outside, allowing us to extend our opening hours and increase the amount of children we can take in.

With our batteries now recharged we look forward to another busy year in 2012!
Claire Smitheram