Gallery

         Long to reign over us...

We marked the Queen's extraordinary achievement of reaching her Platinum Jubilee by a day where we dressed in red, white and blue, had a celebratory lunch with singing God Save the Queen, made portraits,  watched films about the Queen and even had a go at pinning the tail on the corgi.

 Golden Anniversary - SMC is 50 this year!

As part of our celebrations we are capturing the children's thoughts to make into a huge display. The question we asked was, "What do you love about SMC?"

The responses have flooded in. Here is a snapshot.

ECO CLUB  - fabulous green fingers!

Eco Club were very excited at the success of their sowing. They proudly brought lettuce and sweetcorn to plant out in the school garden. 

Team Building today at Woodland Club

Mrs Ryan started with a fire safety talk around the firepit (it was too windy to light but we had a good practice of safe behaviour around the fire circle).

We then went into 4 small groups where we had ingredients and instructions to make bread. All the children worked well together; they were good at taking turns, listening and encouraging each other.

And to finish off we played a game of dodgeball: 2 teams against each other which we really enjoyed.

We would like to say a massive thank you to Mrs Ryan, Mrs Rushton and Mrs Wallis who came to help today. We hope you had a lovely time!

Year 3 went to Tonbridge as part of their outdoor learning.  They attended Mass at Corpus Christi Church, learnt about and re-enacted the story of Pentecost then walked to the castle.  There they went on a river trip and finished off with sketching the castle and grounds.  A great time was had by all with lots of learning on the ground.

Well done to our gymnastics teams who took part in the Key Steps Gymnastics competition. There were 4 teams with children from year2 to up to year 6 showing the routines they have learnt in gymnastics club and PE lessons.  We await the results with anticipation....

Proud Altar Servers

Well done for receiving the medal which marks your commitment to the life of the parish through serving at mass.

We look forward to having you serve at our next school mass.

Sports Teams

It is great to have fixtures to attend again! Here are our Year 5 and Year 6 football teams. The Year 6s reached the finals at Hayesbrook and were runners-up.

The Year 5s came second at the recent KCSP football tournament held at St Gregory's in Tunbridge Wells, beaten in the finals by a team they had already played and won against. 

They all showed great sportsmanship. Well done!

 Sunshine Time

We held another Pop-up Art session at lunchtime in the Gallery. We were inspired by Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" to create a vibrant display celebrating spring as it turns into summer.

Years 5 and 6 visited the Globe as part of their work on Richard III and Romeo and Juliet. They had a tour of the theatre, learnt some of the history and then took part in a workshop. 

Here is a selection from the universally enthusiastic audience feedback:

Well done EVERYONE! Some fantastic solo performers, wonderfully supported by a very vocal chorus.

A lovely evening. Lots of hard work and appreciated hearing the gospel story.

What a confident group of performers! Well done to all, including those behind the scenes!

It was wonderful to see your smiling, singing faces again. It was just like a professional performance.

Brilliant! You were all absolutely amazing. Thank you for a wonderful play and all your hard work and enthusiasm.

Brilliant acting and fantastic singing. So smoothly done it all went off without a hitch- everyone working together so nicely.

A thoroughly enjoyable evening. So much hard work but so well worth it. Well done to everyone!

A super performance, you all did it so well. A big well done to you and the fabulous staff for putting it together so well.

Amazing acting, super singing and we could hear every word! You were all SUPERSTARS!

Woodland Club had a very special visitor - Yogi the therapy dog. They also managed to fit in a spring clean.

Woodland Club Team Building!

It was a beautiful morning for Woodland Club today and this morning we had our team building time.

The name of the game today was Floor is Lava. The children had 20 minutes in their teams to collect as much equipment as they could that would help them get from the dens they made a few weeks ago to the other team's den. After the 20 minutes, they had to build a pathway which would allow them to cross without touching the floor.

The teams worked so well together! We were especially proud of the way some of the team members helped the others that were struggling. 

Gardening Club have joined together to spruce up their fence in time for spring sowing. Many hands make light work!

More Eco-friendly Actions!

Early Years decided to renovate their sheds with some more flour paint. They looked at all the colours available using earth pigments and chose red ochre, yellow ochre and green earth.

They had great fun and improved their environment at the same time.

Flour Paint

Ingredients to make 5kg of paint, which covers 15m2

3.2l water

260g of white flour or rye flour

1kg of earth pigment. *

100g of iron sulphate

400ml of linseed oil

40ml liquid soap or a handful of grated Marseilles soap.

Preparation takes about 1 hour.

Mix the flour with 200ml of water. Add 3l of water and bring to the boil in a large saucepan or cooking pot.

Keep stirring as you let it cook for a quarter of an hour.

Add the pigment and the iron sulphate. Keep stirring and cooking for another quarter of an hour.

Add the linseed oil. Keep stirring and cooking for another quarter of an hour.

Add the liquid soap to help emulsify the linseed oil.

Let it cool; the paint is ready to use.

Add water if it is too thick.

With thanks to the organisation “Terres et Couleurs”.

* We used red ochre, yellow ochre and green earth from artists’ suppliers.

After a successful but very wet team building exercise last Friday at Woodland club with Capture the Flag, the children seemed eager to find out what we had planned this week. Today all the children participated in a scavenger hunt but with a twist. Once the children had their clues of what they needed to find they brought it back to us and were given a letter. Only once all the things were found and they had all the letters could they spell the word out. We split the teams so that the children weren’t with the children they usually play with, mainly because we wanted to see how they worked with others. We would just like to say we are extremely proud of each and every one of them. It was different from what we normally do at Woodland club but they all engaged well working as a team and they really did have fun. 

National Geographic Competition Winner!

One of our talented pupils put forward his design for the theme of "Back to School". He has won the following amazing prize:

 Each child in the class will win a year’s subscription to Nat Geo Kids magazine AND a copy of ‘A Year of Nature Craft and Play’ plus the whole class will have a virtual Q&A with authors Becky Goddard-Hill and Catherine Hughes. We will keep you briefed on the Q & A session.

Antarctic Explorer visits Year 2!

The children were enthralled by Lucy's first-hand account of her voyage to Antarctica on the Bark Europa. She shared fascinating photos and videos. We were agog, both children and adults!

   Eco-friendly Paint 

We looked at making our own "green" paint and found this Swedish flour paint recipe. All we needed was linseed oil, flour, water, red ochre, liquid soap and patience. It took an hour of stirring!

Look at the fabulous colour of the PE shed. We are so enthusiastic about this!

Christmas Fair

Our amazing PTA made it happen for the children! They dealt with restrictions, masks and LFTs to ensure that the children had the magic of Christmas. Everyone was then able to enjoy the Christmas market that was set up outside at the end of the day, too.  

This was the result of another Friday pop-up art collaboration. The whole school had the opportunity to work on a display for the Gallery, taking inspiration from Early Years' work with collage. We love the wintry feel created by the juxtaposition of colours!

World Kindness Day

We decided to celebrate this a day early in school - there can never be too many opportunities to be kind! Thank you to all those who organised so beautifully. You are really kind and thoughtful.

Here are some appreciative comments in return.

We have just left the school run after the lovely coffee morning that was put on by the staff for Kindness Day and just wanted to say thank you to all those involved.

We really do appreciate all the events and little gestures that have been put on this year, the free flowers, vegetable plants from the gardening club, parenting support groups, hot drinks just to name a few. Such lovely gestures that really do make a difference.

Happy kindness day and thank you.

Thank you kindly for the coffee from the teachers and staff this morning. It was lovely to have some kindness to start our day and also meet some of the teachers in different years. 

It has really made us parents start the day with love and support from a wonderful school promoting a compassionate culture for us all.

I wanted to share with you my thoughts on the wonderful if not inspiring work your TA'S seem to be doing, not just on a daily basis but even more so with the initiatives they have been doing throughout the year regarding parents and their wellbeing.

Thank you for providing them with the support and tools they needed to create such a wonderful service. 

Multicultural Day

Parents came in this morning to share their own cultures with us. We had Russia, Australia, Poland, Germany, China and Trinidad represented. It was a fascinating moment for us all; the parents were so impressed by all the questions! Thank you to all those parents who took time out of their busy days to be with us.

 Woodland Cub decided to raise funds so as to recycle our old tables properly. Today they ran 10 laps of the field, which is a long way! It was a proud moment when they all got round. We were especially proud to see how well they encouraged each other when it got tough, which it did.

                     Community means…

Having a common interest and pulling together to reach goals.

Community feel is happiness all around.

Being together brings happiness and laughter.

Community is helping each other and making people happier.

Community is helping each other to make our world a happier place to live.

Community is all about the unity in which we find strength.

Seeing everyone on the school drop-off and having a quick chat.

People supporting and looking out for each other.

It’s feeling part of something.

A shared effort to help and support one another

A sense of belonging.

Loving and caring for each other.

Sharing. Supporting. Thinking of others. Fun!

Helping. Sharing. Encouraging each other to be more resilient.

Loving service.

Working together and friendship.

Building something bigger and more beautiful together than you could ever do alone.

Working together and supporting each other. Looking out for each other.

Friendship, support and laughter.

Being kind, accepting other’s differences. Looking after each other.

Unity, support, togetherness.

Loving and caring. Always there to help.

Making new friends.

Coming together in times of need, being kind, helpful to those who are vulnerable. Coming together to achieve the same goals.

Pride in our area.

To us it is all the love you can get, support and always being there for each other.

A warm, welcoming and happy place that nurtures our children and supports our families.

Being part of a team, working together, looking out for one another. Caring, for families, elderly and the young. Everyone is always welcome.

We see community when we are together for school plays, assemblies and sports days.

We have missed the chances to be all together and get to know other parents.

We look forward to taking part in more family- based school activities, for example parents reading with children in school.

We are thankful for routine and seeing everyone again.

We feel part of a community through events like the football competition each year.

Tonbridge Community Day and Outreach

Many of you will know of the wonderful activities run by Tonbridge School as part of their giving back to the local community.

Usually our  Year 5s attend but this year they were away in the Isle of Wight on their residential trip, so it was the turn of the lucky Year 4s. While they were at Tonbridge School enjoying drama, cricket, hockey, science, pond-dipping and so on, boys and staff from Tonbridge were active in local primary schools carrying out projects on our behalf. 

Year 5 were very involved in generating ideas for the projects as they put their persuasive writing into practice. We took elements of their ideas and then further refined them in discussion with the Tonbridge team. I hope that Year 5 will be impressed by the effect of their letters!

We had a great group who created a seating area at the far end of our woodland trail. This will enable us to spread the use of our site more sustainably and minimise our impact on the environment. We are looking forward to using it for science, story-telling, Woodland Club, Forest School and much more. 

Here are photos of the initial clearing and finished area.

This Week's Book Recommendations

Early Years and KS1

"The Enormous Crocodile" - zany illustrations which match the text perfectly.

"So Much"

My children loved this book when they were small, especially when they were pretending to be the baby and receiving"SO MUCH" love.

KS2

"It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" -  Antonio is more than a capable of dealing with any number of brigands!

"Artemis Fowl  - The Opal Deception" - Artemis is the master of sleight of hand, but has he met his match in Opal Koboi?

"The Magicians of Caprona"

A story of friendship and feuding; of how the over-looked members of two families become the ones to heal the quarrel, all set in a place rather like Italy, but not quite. 

"the dark horse"

Somewhere in Scandinavia, somewhere in the past, a threat is rising. Will the village survive and what is in the box which cannot be opened?

These books are all on display in the Library.

The next stage in the garden - planting out.

Thanks to very generous support from local growers, we received more than enough to fill all the beds. The children, from Years 1 and 2  to Years 5 and 6 had a wonderful time following the plan we had worked out. It chimed very well with Mental Health Week, as some of the older children mentioned. In their words, "This is so relaxing. I really feel calm when I am gardening."

We look forward to sharing the fruits of their labour,  literally!

In their words:

We made a stall to raise money for a charity  called Sustain, and guess how much money we earned? £112.36p in an hour and half! Isn’t that amazing? We made white chocolate Oreo fudge, cookies - chocolate chip - and bracelets. And loads of people came! 

He Is Risen!

Thank you, God, for everything you give us: our friends,  our families, each other, brothers and sisters, this world, our teachers, joy, food, nature, learning, our school,  assembly, the light of God, for being created.

We are joyful and thankful.

                                             Gardening Club

The children learn how to plan, sow and then recognise weeds as compared to the seedlings. They learn self-reliance and fortitude as persevere through the cold and wet of winter and early spring before the rewards of growth and harvest which they share with the local community through the Harvest Festival and through "pop-up" sales at the school gates.

They learn the economic realities of  having to buy their own seeds and reinvesting any profits in extra tools or equipment. 

They enjoy being responsible for a productive garden which is a valuable space for all the school to experience at first hand germination, growth, pollination and the life-cycles of plants and insects.

They develop their teamwork as they negotiate and work on a common project, sharing successes and failures. 

A common theme this year has been their acknowledgement of the mental health benefits of being outside.