New Forest Small School News

Now that the school has secured the capital needed to move to new premises in Cadnam it is now only a matter of when, not if, we move.

Presently we are progressing slowly but surely. We have been held up by the current vendors of Nuthooks losing out on the property they were hoping to move in to. However we are currently in negotiations with the vendors to establish a date for handover, regardless of whether they are able to find a new permanent property for their business, as they have very kindly offered to go into temporary accommodation to allow the sale to take place sooner rather than later. We hope to have established a date for the opening of the new school by the next parent's meeting.

Meanwhile our planning application is almost ready to be submitted. In the next couple of weeks you may notice a noise and traffic surveyor at the school who will be collecting data as part of our planning application. The application will be submitted as soon as this survey is completed and we have reached an agreement with the vendors of Nuthooks.

Even though we all missed the Christmas Celebration, we have enjoyed getting our presents for New Year!

Dulcie's Mum Lisa is a great addition to kindergarten staff - she is so kind and helps look after us. It's also been great to have Hannah's Mum Andrea, teaching German (through fun and games of course!) on a Monday morning.

We enjoy getting over to the park in all weathers, where we love to play in the woods and on the ship in the playground. We enjoy the walk and are learning much about road safety- a valuable skill in today's world!

We have had great fun dressing up as a Chinese Dragon as part of our Chinese New Year Celebrations and we are excited about spreading Love around as part of our Valentine's Day celebrations. We also look forward to our egg hunt amongst the daffodils in the park at Easter that the Easter bunny has hidden.

We love sharing our class with the primary as they are such fun and play great games with us- we're a big happy family!

Andrea (Hannah's Mum) has been teaching German - she can also speak Spanish, which she has promised to teach later!

Fi (Rudi's Mum ) has written a great song about Hangar Farm and she has been coming in to teach it to us, ready for a performance on 27th Feb. Please come and listen - it's a great piece of history.

Paul has joined our teaching team as he's so good at art and ceramics. We've been studying art history and he's helped us to improve our drawing skills. We had a fun trip to Southampton Art Gallery and loved walking amongst all the works of art. Next term we look forward to doing some sculpting. It's also been great having Michael's Mum, Maggie, in to teach sewing - we have taken home some lovely cushions this term.

Claire has done a fab job teaching geography, but next term Nick will take over this lesson. In Science the children have been learning about the ingredients of the universe - elements and learning how to make compounds, which has been great fun. Whilst in History after completing our study of the Ancient Greeks we have now moved onto the Romans

Claire (Harry's Mum) is also a great addition to the teaching team and helps with school meeting (and in kindergarten).

The Primary Class will be taking exams at the end of this school year, in June - exact dates to be confirmed. There will be exams in all the main subjects - English Language, English Literature, Maths, Science, Geography, History & Art.

As most of the children in the Primary Class have not taken formal exams before, the fundamental purpose will be to show that taking exams, although hard work, can be fun and rewarding. Consequently it is our policy, when pupils are taking exams for the first time, to show children the exam papers a couple of weeks beforehand.

The exam papers will only contain subject matter covered by the class and the children will be writing up, in their relevant books, the areas to be covered in each subject. You will need to ensure that your child has all their written work from the last two years. If your child has lost any of their written books please let me (Nick) know ASAP.

There is no need to start any revision just yet - we suggest you start helping your child to revise by the beginning of the Summer term and suggest your child does 30 to 60 minutes revision at least 5 times a week. There will be no homework during this period. We would advise that you help your child establish a timetable or clear routine for revision. We would suggest that your child read through certain sections of their work each night, taking notes, and are then tested. Try to make the revision time as inventive, creative and fun as possible. Enacting short plays around the work is always effective, as well as games and quizzes. Please speak to me if you need some ideas. Part of the Summer term will be given over to revising in class.

A letter will be sent to Primary Class parents giving full details and dates by Easter. If you have any questions or any concerns about the Primary exams please speak to Nick.

The Secondary Class will also have their end of the year exams in June - exact dates to be confirmed. There will be exams in all subjects, modelled on OCR GCSE papers, with that unique Small School touch.

A letter will be sent to Secondary Class parents giving full details and dates by Easter. If you have any questions or any concerns about the Primary exams please speak to Nick.