This week in brief…

Now that Autumn is well and truly here, we have all been busy sweeping up the leaves in the school grounds…and making Autumnal artwork! Mountain class are now visiting the woodland site in Pyecombe for Eco-Play every Wednesday and we’ll be holding our ‘Community campfire, food and songs’ event at the site soon.

This week’s ‘junior reporter’ is Rory form Lotus class: “This week as part of RE we studied Noah’s Ark, read some of the Bible and learnt about Judaism – in art we made a collage of a dove and the sea, the dove is a symbol of peace. In Maths we are doing equivalent fractions which is challenging but quite fun. In music we started preparing songs for our end-of-term ‘Xmas Factor’ and in yoga we did sun salutations which really stretched our bone structure. In literacy we had to pick a place and then write about that scene – what you can hear, smell and see. I picked a river with rapids flowing up and down. I really did like the fractions, that was my favourite thing we did this week.”

Other news

New Trustees
We welcome two new members to our board of trustees - Kris Fernandes and Jeanette Adair. Read their bios on the Trustees page of the school website.

Mindfulness in Education
On Tuesday, Bea (Acting Administrative Head) and Alison (Head of Nursery) spoke at a national conference in London, Mindfulness in the Curriculum about our school’s ethos. They are writing a brief report about the event which we will post on the school website.

Media Coverage - ISA Journal
The latest edition of the ISA Journal (the magazine of the Independent School Association) includes an article about Mindfulness in Education which features the school.

Remembrance Day has been the focus of the school’s activities this week and in a special puja this morning children read aloud poems and stories, and also spoke about visiting the display of ceramic poppies at the Tower of London (888,246 poppies that each represent a British military fatality during the First World War). Alfredo, in Mountain class, brought in 16 paper poppies that he had felt inspired to make at home, one for each member of his class, each with the message, “kind, compassionate, protection, love, peace”. As well as the British soldiers who were casualties of the First World War, we also took a moment to remember the many men, women and children killed in other conflicts around the world. We shared our wish for peace and offered compassion to everyone who has suffered through war and to those who still suffering in conflict zones.

This week’s ‘junior reporter’ is Una from Lotus class: “On the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month it was Remembrance Day. We made poppies out of paper, wrote good wishes on them and placed them in the Zen Garden. The whole school had the two-minute remembrance. It felt great just to stop for a second and remember the people that fought for our country. In Lotus class, Susannah read us a diary of a wife with two children and the wife wrote about how she felt about her husband going to war. Then we wrote our own poems and stories. Most of them where from different points of view; some were from a child’s point of view, some from an adult’s, and some even from the soldier’s. This morning we had a special remembrance puja and people read out their poems and stories.”

Poems from Lotus class:

The War - by Rory

The people, the people that died in the war.
The people, the people.
They’ll suffer no more.
The guns, the explosives, all that gore.
The war has ended forever more.

The day my Dad went to war - by Ines

Blood thrashing, love crashing
The day my Dad went to war
My heart stood still when I got out his will.
For the future is still a mystery
But the day will come when I look back
And today will turn into history.
Blood thrashing, love crashing
The day my Dad went to war
I lost my breath the moment he left
The day my Dad went to war.
For he is now here
But the moment I cheer
He says he has to go back.
I send him a note
And in it was a quote
To say “I still love you”.
He sent one straight back
For love is just that
The day my Dad went to war
The day the war ended
My love wasn’t depended
On if he walked back through that gate
For I would still love him
Alive or even dead
Blood thrashing, love crashing
the day my Dad came back from war.