Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• Five Alive July 2015

  Tue 04 Aug 2015

  This term the Chameleon class have been studying city life and we decided to look at Worcester as it is our closest city. We started our topic by thinking about the contrasts of life in Worcester compared to our village life in Cropthorne and Charlton. At the beginning all of us were very clear in our thoughts that we much preferred living in the countryside rather than in a city – would we change our minds after our work on Worcester?

   

  First of all we started our topic by learning about the history of Worcester with an amazingly interesting visit to the Commandery Centre. Here we learnt all about the Civil War and we even tried on armoury before we practised our battle formations. During quite a long walk through Worcester city centre we were surprised by how many historical features are around you than you don’t normally notice because you are looking at the shops and hoping for a drink and snack break! We were fascinated by some of the statutes on the building at the Guildhall and we could really imagine the troops trying to find Charles II as we stood opposite the building where he had been hidden. We were also really surprised by some of the beautiful green areas in Worcester and we started to realise there was a lot more to Worcester than Marks and Spencer!

   

  On our second trip to Worcester we conducted surveys, which we had planned at school, to gather data about what people were doing in Worcester. We were very interested in finding out whether the crime rate was higher in Worcester as we expected it to be, one of the reasons we didn’t want to live there! The people we spoke to were fantastic and they kept telling us how polite we were so Mrs Hunt was feeling very proud! After gathering the data we visited the university to create databases and different graphs using their computers. We had a lovely lunch by the river, watching the swans and the rowers, much more peaceful than we imagined.

   

  Our final visit to Worcester involved a day of Religious Studies at the Cathedral. It must be amazing to have such a peaceful and interesting place to visit if you live in Worcester.  We imagined we were pilgrims for the day, on a special pilgrimage to Worcester Cathedral. We started the day with crafts, making gargoyles, clay mazes, shell pictures and numerical sketches. After this we had a tour of the Cathedral, hearing all the different stories about the special areas and historical events. There was a special prayer room to remember people who have or are still fighting in wars. We finished the day learning about creative prayer, how we can pray in different ways and how prayer can be beneficial to us. The day finished with all the schools joining together in a special song in the Cathedral and we were handed a shell to remember our pilgrimage.

   

  We have been very lucky to see the many different things that are in Worcester and it has really surprised us, although most of us still love our villages! We will visit Worcester again during the summer holidays to share our findings with our families.

   

  Chameleons

  

• Five Alive June 2015

  Tue 04 Aug 2015

  What a lovely weekend we had at Cropthorne School during Walkabout. Amazing how the sun shone and how nice to see so many smiling faces. I just want to say thank you to so many parents and friends for supporting our PTA and helping to raise much needed funds for the school. I don’t know the final amount yet but it is a lot! In addition it was great to hear outsiders wondering around and commenting on our “beautiful school!”

  
  Talking about the PTA…Naomi Standing, Leanne Seal and Sara Agg have worked tirelessly for the past three years co-ordinating some excellent fund raising events allowing us to purchase our pirate ship and Chimps play area and equip our new Nurture Room. All three of them are now standing down but I am delighted to say we have already found volunteers keen to take over. We are a very lucky school!
  Meanwhile, it’s business as usual in the classrooms. Children in years 4 & 5 got particularly excited during election week when they visited the local polling station to observe democracy in action. As the children explain:

  
  “We started the day by looking at Parliament and the role of M.Ps. We walked to Cropthorne village hall which was being used as a Polling Station. We were allowed in to meet the “Presiding Officer” who explained the voting process to us.
  We returned to school and created our own Polling Station and made our own polling cards. Mrs Brown, our Presiding Officer, checked the ballot papers against our register (Electoral Roll), especially to see if everyone could write their own addresses correctly!
  Mrs Hunt read through the brochures for all of the political parties, giving equal time to each party, whilst some of the children acted as roving reporters and film crew.
  The children cast their votes in our Ballot Box and we added up all of the votes to see which party had ‘won’ our election…”