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International Day: Infants and Juniors Learn About India

Last Friday, Infants and Juniors turned their attention towards India during this year’s annual Heritage International Day, an annual opportunity for pupils to spend a day learning about specific countries’ customs, foods, culture, religion, art, music and more. The children looked vibrant and cheerful as they dressed in Indian-themed clothing that included the colours of the Indian flag, traditional Indian clothing, and costumes depicting Indian wildlife including the tiger, elephant and peacock.

As the day began, the parents of Year 4 pupil Olivia presented Juniors with an overview of the country of India, its people and culture. Olivia herself also gave a beautiful demonstration of Bharathnatyam, the oldest form of traditional Indian dance. Enormous thanks to all three for providing such a rich presentation.

Other activities enjoyed throughout the day included:

Exploring spices, smelling them, and using them to paint
Baking Nankhatai cookies in the shape of hands and decorating them in mendhi henna patterns
Looking through a selection of library books about India and sharing interesting facts
Learning about the peacock, India’s national bird, whose Sanskrit word (Mayura) means ‘killer of snakes’
Writing peacock descriptions and creating lovely peacock artwork
Learning about the religious festival, Diwali
Using coloured sand to make Rangoli-style patterns
Exploring Indian objects, clothing, and jewelry
Drawing and decorating madhubani elephants
Making mini nonfiction books on India
Maths lessons involving Rangoli symmetrical patterns
English comprehension lesson with interesting facts about India
Tasting Indian food and snacks including poppadoms, onion bhajis, chutneys and naans
Reading traditional Indian stories, including The Monkey and the Crocodile

Another big thank you to Year 2 pupil Charlotta’s mum, who made a delicious meal for the class that was thoroughly enjoyed and completely devoured.

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Heritage Infants and Juniors explored a range of colourful and patterned arts and handicrafts as they celebrated India during our annual International Day,

Heritage Year 4 Pupils giving an assembly about kindess

Year 4 Assembly: The Habit of Kindness

At Heritage, we like to talk about good habits. Though people often think of habits as physical behaviours like brushing your teeth or washing your hands, good habits can also include character traits such as courtesy, gentleness, cheerfulness, and truthfulness that sometimes even work against our own natural tendencies. As Charlotte Mason wrote, ‘The habits of the child produce the character of the man.’

Year 4 have been talking about the very important habit of kindness, and they shared what they have been learning during Monday’s class assembly.

The class started by acting out different scenarios to illustrate what it means to be kind, including being friendly, generous and considerate of other people’s feelings, showing good will to others and helping them when they need it, and showing concern when another person is upset.

The pupils explained that the 17th of February is Random Acts of Kindness Day, a day created to encourage people to be extra kind to others. They displayed drawings that showed different acts of kindness such as letting someone else go first, leaving a positive note for someone, complimenting someone, or reading to a younger brother or sister.

In their examination of kindness, the children have also been looking at a book called Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud and David Messing. They shared the story, which explains that everyone has an invisible bucket holding our good thoughts and good feelings about ourselves. When our bucket is full, we feel happy, but when that bucket is empty we feel sad. We all have the ability to fill peoples’ buckets by showing love or being kind to them, but can also take those good feelings out of a person’s bucket by being unkind to them. The book encourages us all to practise being ‘bucket fillers’ by thinking about what we can say or do to fill other peoples’ buckets.

Finally, the pupils ended the assembly with a prayer thanking God for his love and kindness, and asking for his help to be loving, caring and kind to those around us.

Heritage School Senior pupil running in independent school cross country competition

Cross Country Competitions Get Seniors Running

The goal of our Sports programme is to promote healthy, active living that continues into adult life, and running can be an excellent way to support both physical and mental well-being for people of all ages. This activity is built into the timetable in our Junior School with weekly cross country sessions, and a variety of competitions throughout the year provide further opportunities for pupils to run outside of school as well.

On 6 December, twelve Senior pupils competed in the District Cross Country Championship at Netherhall School. Of the pupils who ran during that event, Emilie (Y10), Silas (Y10), and Sandy (Y9) also qualified for the County Cross Country Championships held at Priory Park, St Neots on 8th January. Although Silas was unable to run due to an injury, Emilie and Sandy ran very well in muddy and slippery conditions. A job well done to one and all for some super running and giving it their best. Next up will be the Regional ISA Cross Country Championships in February.

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Heritage School Year 3 Class Assembly Group Photo

Year 3 Assembly: Be Thankful for What You Have

On Monday, Year 3 talked about gratitude during their class assembly — an encouraging and important message to start out the week. As a class, the children have been discussing the importance of being thankful, including when they might say thank you, who they might be thankful for, and why it is important.

To illustrate the importance of this message, the pupils acted out the story of King Midas, one of the Greek Myths they have been learning about this term. The familiar myth tells the story of the wealth-obsessed king who ruled a great kingdom, and who mistakenly thought his happiness was dependent on the gold he had. When granted a wish by the Greek God Dionysus, the foolish Midas wished that everything he wished would be turned to gold. This gift, of course, brought many problems as everything around him turned to gold, including the very food he tried to eat and, saddest of all, his beloved daughter. Finally realising that his great gift was actually a curse, the king begged Dionysus to lift the spell and from then on ruled as a good King. The moral of the story, of course, is ‘be thankful for what you have.’

The pupils then shared drawings of some things they are thankful for, including their homes, families, and cake! The assembly ended with a lovely prayer of gratitude, and the class handed out smiley faces to each person as they left, to help them remember to be thankful.

Christmas Concert and Nativity

The annual Nativity Play and Christmas Concert is always a delightful and festive occasion for the Heritage community and this year, the event at St Andrew’s church was no different. Many thanks to Mrs Zurcher and all of the parents and staff who made it happen. Enjoy Mr Hulett’s lovely images in the gallery below.

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