School Open for Lower Prep, Upper Prep & Year 6

We were so pleased to welcome 37 more pupils back to school today in addition to our Key Worker Children. We now have 9 pupils in Lower Prep with Mrs Lee and Miss Cage, 10 pupils in Upper Prep with Mrs Carter and Miss Carter and 18 pupils in Year 6 with Mrs Parkinson.

Pupils are being looked after in  ‘bubbles’, (with Key Worker Children in their own bubble, working from the Year 2 and Year 4 classroom’s.) With a staggered start time at the beginning of the day, the bubbles are well spaced out as they move through the building, in the classrooms and the playground. Year 6 are divided into two bubbles, (the girls and the boys) and are working from The Hall. Each bubble has their own allocated play equipment which is disinfected after use.

Mr Fletcher says’

“We are pleased there has been such a strong response from parents of pupils in LP, UP and Y6. It is great to have more pupils back on site and to see so many happy and familiar faces! We are confident in the safety measures we have in place.”

Now providing full days for our youngest classes

To simplify logistics for parents, Heritage is pleased to offer the (optional) provision of five full days a week for both Lower Prep and Upper Prep pupils from September 2020.

Heritage has intentionally designed a gentle start for our youngest pupils, with two full days and three half days for Lower Prep (and one half day for Upper Prep). We still believe that this brings a helpful balance to a child’s week, with focussed, high quality learning taking place at school and time to rest and play at home. However to simplify logistics for parents for whom the half-days are unworkable, we are now offering Stay & Play on each of the half days; Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 1pm-3:30pm. This is also applicable to Upper Prep pupils on Wednesdays.

Stay & Play will be lead by Miss Cage and her team. Miss Cage is an exceptional member of staff, she was recently nominated Student of the Year on completion of her Foundation Degree in Education and Play. Her Stay & Play sessions are full of delights and include gardening and cooking, crafts and stories, free play and trips to the playground, the City Library and Cambridge Botanic Gardens. The children in her care all love it.

These sessions are entirely extra curricular. They do not contain any extra teaching and are intentionally low-key. Children who do not attend will not be missing out.
For more information please contact office@heritageschool.org.uk

The Show Must Go On

In order that we may enjoy performances by our young musicians even in the midst of lockdown, Mr Fletcher invited pupils to submit recordings of their chosen pieces for a digital Recital Assembly.  It was very much enjoyed by pupils and parents alike and many thanks to all who worked hard preparing and practising and sending their work in.  Please keep playing and we hope we will be able to enjoy more live performances very soon.

Blackbird

Birdsong

Last week’s Nature Challenge involved listening and identifying bird song common to the area where pupils live or walk. Using the RSPB website pupils were encouraged to draw or paint and label pictures of the birds they have identified. We have received many wonderful pictures some of which are shown below.
Mrs Fletcher led the bird song challenge with the key worker children at school. They had fantastic luck funding a robin on the garage roof and a blackbird singing on a telephone wire just behind. They recorded them using a phone and on returning to the classroom checked the recording against the RSPB link before painting the beautiful birds.

Celebrating VE Day

As we commemorate VE Day today, the children at school have been busy making bunting. Many at home have done the same thing and we have received lots of pictures of celebratory family lunches and beautifully decorated cakes. Year 8 were asked to continue their Scavenger Hunt Tray Challenge by making a VE Day tray today. Others cooked up Churchill’s favourite fruit cake following Mrs Landemare’s receipe – Churchill’s long-standing cook both at Downing Street during the war and then at his family home, Chartwell in Kent.

At this time of reflection, as many have listened to Churchill’s speeches and watched the Red Arrows flyby, we asked Hope’s Grandmother, (known to many as Granby), for her memories of VE Day. Hilda Stoneley was 18 years old on VE day and this is what she said:

‘Around midday, the air raid ‘all clear’ siren sounded. We wondered what it was all about. My parents heard the news on the radio. My father suggested, in the early evening, that we went to Hampstead Heath, high up to see if all the house lights were on. (During the war everything was blacked out and you were fined if you showed a light.) I was wearing my school uniform.’

‘We went to the tube station at Brent and got a tube to Hampstead, where we saw people sleeping on the platform as their houses had been bombed (or they were scared they might have been bombed.) We walked up the steep hill to the round pond, and here we found a large bonfire had been lit. We all held hands and danced around the bonfire and then the pond, and people jumped in the pond and celebrated! It was very exciting to look over London and see all the houses with their lights on and the curtains open and not blacked out.’

‘After this we walked all the way home, down the hill into Hampstead garden suburb, along past the tube station and the bus depot and along the main street across the road and home. We felt very tired but excited. We had baked potatoes for supper and red jelly! We all then went to bed – for the last time -in the Morrison shelter, in the hall.’

‘The next day I went up to London by tube with my family. We saw all the people in The Mall singing and dancing and shouting in front of Buckingham Palace. Many of them had been there all night. Lots of people were waving Union Jack flags. The Evening Standard newspaper sellers were selling little flags, it was all very exciting.’