One of the very special things about Heritage is our focus on nature. To celebrate this, our Infants and Juniors have created some beautiful nature drawings especially for the upcoming HCA Summer Fete. A selection has been made into notecards, which will be available for purchase at the fete; each pack of six cards will be sold for £5. You can get a preview of the lovely drawings below.
This morning, Infants and Juniors enjoyed an excellent class assembly from Year 2, with the theme of ‘being helpful.’ The class began by acting out some familiar fables and parables meant to illustrate how important it is to be helpful; these included the parable of the long spoons, the fable of the ant and the dove and the fable of the horse and the donkey.
The children also displayed some posters showing their own ideas for being helpful to parents, fellow pupils, and others. And they talked about some helpful figures from history they’ve been learning about, including Florence Nightingale. Captain Cook, Samuel Pepys and James Watt. They ended the assembly with a terrific poem they wrote about being helpful. Well done to all of the children for such a ‘helpful’ assembly!
This year’s Senior Camp was filled with activity, friendship, and plenty of time spent outdoors in the natural beauty of South Wales’s Gower Peninsula with its stunning beaches, as well as the peaks and waterfalls of Brecon Beacons.
The campers experienced the good fortune of ideal weather, and there was never a dull moment, with days that were filled with archery, rock climbing, hiking, games on the beach, surfing, and walking among the beaches, gorges and waterfalls. The Year 9s and Year 10s completed their DofE hexpeditions, a challenging feat whose reward was a simple but very real sense of achievement. Evenings were spent enjoying the fantastic evening meals prepared by Mr Campbell and team, along with a campfire on the last evening before the pupils started getting settled in their tents. On the drive home, the group stopped to tour the underground mines at The Big Pit National Coal Mining Museum, providing one more stimulating experience before the campers returned home, tired and happy.
We are so grateful for the efforts of Mr Appleyard, Mrs Atkinson, Mr Bayley, Mr Bell, Mr Burden, Mr Campbell, Mr Fletcher, Mr Hulett, Mrs Lowe, Miss Pearce-Higgins, Mr Nicholson, Mr Pitcher, Mr Scott, and Mr Tunnicliffe to create such a memorable experience.
Our pupils have been getting out of the classroom–both within Cambridge and without–during their Enrichment sessions this half-term. Take a look at our galleries below to see our pupils visiting the Botanic Garden, Imperial War Museum in Duxford, the Zoology Museum, Shepreth Wildlife Park, the Natural History Museum in London, the American Cemetery, Flatford Mill, and more!
As part of our priority to get pupils outdoors, we offer regular Forest School sessions in rotation to classes in Upper Prep through Year 8. Through these experiences, we want our children to relish the unique delight that is available through time in nature, in addition to building their confidence with a new set of skills and a growing a sense of responsibility for the great outdoors.
During this half-term, Year 2 and Year 7 pupils have been enjoying time in Clare Wood during their weekly sessions. Year 2 have been learning to whittle, practising wilderness cooking, creating natural arts and crafts, playing woodland games and more. Year 7 have practiced all of the steps in fire lighting including laying, lighting, striking and safe extinguishing. They have learned to cook rudimentary ‘what veg do I have?’ soup, tasted nettle crisps and dandelion cookies, and learned about which plants in the woodland are good for us and which may contain toxins best avoided. They have constructed water filters to purify the water from the stream and learned about filtration and the purifying properties of charcoal. They have also mapped the woods, laid trails and followed each others’ pathways to solve quizzes, find new destinations and experience the journey.
We hope this time in the forest will stay with our pupils long after their time with us, teaching them that nature offers a sense of satisfaction, refreshment and enjoyment that can only be found by stepping outside.
