Easter time at Bow Brickhill is an exciting and busy time. Our Easter service at All Saint’s church on Maundy Thursday, the last day of term, was very well attended by parents and we were so proud of our year 6 pupils who confidently retold the Christian Easter story. Following this service the children headed back to school to take part in a ‘pasta hunt’, our school twist on an Easter egg hunt. The children love this tradition and threw themselves into the challenge of finding 50grams of pasta (the weight of a chocolate bunny) to see which children in each year group would win these chocolate treats - it was surprising how many children managed to collect 50g exactly! 

The children also took part in an Easter craft competition which was run by our Friends of the School Team. Children throughout the school created a range of crafts from decorated eggs, Easter baskets and of course there were some Easter bonnets too. The winners of these activities won a cuddly toy and of course more chocolate. A very busy but happy day for the children.

The weekend prior to Easter we took a small team of children to the Milton Keynes Schools Cross Country Championships, it was third time lucky for the event being run due to the unprecedented rain which we’ve had this year. Despite being the smallest school represented our children did us proud with all of the children completing the course, even though the wind was wild. Two children finished in the top 5 in their races receiving invitations to join Milton Keynes Athletics club and another two finished in the top 20. We are really proud of the whole team and are looking forward to doing even better next year.

Continuing with our sporting news, on the final day of term we took a team of Year 5/6 girls to a football tournament which was run by Premier Sport. The girls played five matches, scoring in each and winning two with their confidence growing in each match they played. For some of the girls it was the first time they had represented the school and they did fantastically well, showing good sportsmanship as well as great perseverance and teamwork. Next half term is the boys turn so we’ll see how well they do!

Lots of other exciting events have been happening in school and will be happening in the upcoming term.  Last term, Cedars were given the opportunity to learn to play the violin, which they thoroughly enjoyed and were able to put on a performance for parents before we broke up for the Easter holidays.  Maples have also started learning to play the ukulele and the children in Year 2 through to Year 6 have been given the opportunity to have peripatetic guitar or ukulele lessons.  Maples will also be starting their swimming lessons this term!

The second half of the autumn term has flown by and now Christmas is upon us. We are very proud of our EYFS children in Acorns and year 1 and 2 pupils in Oaks who worked so hard to get ready for their Christmas performance of ‘Baarmy Bethlehem’. Their songs have filled our corridors over the past few weeks as they rehearsed, culminating in two wonderful performances in front of family and friends.

A huge thank you goes to everyone who supported our Christmas Bazaar. With a good range of stalls, not to mention our ever popular Santa’s Grotto, everyone had a good time and got into the Christmas spirit. We raised a wonderful £464 which will make such a difference, helping to fund resources and learning activities for the children.

Our congratulations go to Chloe in year 6 who won a Christmas card competition organised by David Wilson Homes. Her beautiful festive design will be delivered to residents on the Eaton Leys estate which is now part of our catchment area. Well done Chloe, we are sure you will use your art set prize to create even more wonderful pieces!

As usual, our annual whole school trip to see Cinderella at Mk Theatre was enjoyed by everyone. The excitement of going on a coach and seeing a live performance was palpable in every child. 

The term has finished with our annual carol service at All Saints Church where year 6 shared readings telling the story of the Nativity, each class performed a Christmas song and staff, pupils and their families came together to sing traditional Christmas Carols. A lovely festive ending to a long and busy term! 

It has been a busy first half term at Bow Brickhill. Not only have we welcomed 26 new children across the school but we have also held numerous events. 

Science Day

Our Willy Wonka themed Science Day saw the children arriving at school dressed as scientists or as characters from the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. During the day, each class took part in different activities or conducted experiments to practise and develop their science knowledge and skills. 

Our EYFS children in Acorns started the day by finding out what a scientist is before having a fun packed day full of different investigations. They explored oobleck (which acts like a liquid when it is poured, but is like a solid when a force is placed on it). Next they looked at how materials change when they are heated and then cooled, baking bread and making chocolate lolly pops! Acorns also enjoyed exploring how they could use the colour from Skittles to paint rainbows as well as investigating floating and sinking. Some of their predictions about which sweets would float or sink were very good!

Oaks started their science day experimenting to find out which sweets dissolve in water. Next they conducted taste tests, investigating whether things tasted different when they were blind folded and had to rely only on their sense of smell and taste. Another activity to build candy towers was also very popular, challenging the children to work scientifically as they considered materials and tested the effectiveness of their towers.

Year 3/4 pupils in Cedars classified different types of sweets, sorting them into different groups. They also explored chromatography using Skittles to investigate the colours that came out when water was added, comparing their results with the colours which emerged from M & M’s. In the afternoon, Cedars took their learning to the playground to investigate the properties of materials that would make them suitable or unsuitable for a particular purpose – in this case to make a catapult to launch marshmallows! 

Maples were met with the challenge of working scientifically to invent a jaw breaker production line for gobstoppers to travel through. They also conducted an experiment to demonstrate that the dissolving and mixing of materials can cause changes of state that may or may not be reversible. They loved finding out about the effect of sugar water, salt water and normal water as well as temperature on Gummy Bears, learning about how some foods dissolve and how others expand in different conditions. 

We were very impressed with our young scientists who showed a genuine interest in each experiment as well as demonstrating key scientific skills such as asking questions, observing, fair testing, grouping and classifying.

Macmillan Coffee Morning

Our Macmillan coffee morning on the 29th September was a huge success with many parents and local residents joining us for a cup of coffee and a piece and cake.  Our charity reps worked extremely hard throughout the morning, serving tea, coffee and cake and supporting our FOTS team.  We raised a massive £311.99 and special thanks go to Zoe Griggs who helped raise some more money by selling our surplus cakes at her cafe on Saturday.  Thank you to everyone who donated cakes and came along to support the event.

National Poetry Day

We celebrated National Poetry Day on Thursday 5th October with lots of poetry based activities including the reading and writing of poems. Each class also recited their poem of the month. Later in the day, each class enjoyed a poetry session with the very popular Mrs Dervish who brings poetry to life for our children with actions and by encouraging everyone to join in. As usual there were lots of requests for the children’s favourites.

Harvest Festival

It was lovely to see so many parents and family members join us for our Harvest Festival service at All Saints Church. Together, we enjoyed watching the children perform harvest songs and poems before listening to children from Maples as they shared their prayers of thankfulness. The donations of food we collected for the MK food bank will go a long way to helping support families across Milton Keynes.

This term has flown by but we have managed to squeeze a lot in and have so much to celebrate!

Our STEM afternoon in June was well attended by parents who, despite it being one of the hottest days of the year, worked with the children to build weight bearing boats to float, created the tallest tower using a rationed range of materials, used programming and coding skills to allow robots to travel and created shapes from nets. It was great to see pupils and adults learning and working together.

A huge well done goes to Cedars and Maples for their production of ‘Shakespeare Rocks’. They did so well learning their scripts, songs and stage directions which resulted in two fabulous performances which were enjoyed by everyone in the audience.

Lots of trips have taken place including Acorns and Oaks trip to Hogshaw Farm and our year 6 residential to Caldecotte Xperience during which the children took part in a range of activities including paddle boarding, canoeing, orienteering, archery and climbing.

Last week, Maples took part Bikeability, learning to cycle safely on the roads in the local area. We were so pleased with the progress the children made not to mention the compliments they received from the instructors on their ability to listen and follow instructions ensuring everyone was safe and able to enjoy the training.

Thank you to everyone who supported or helped at our summer fete. Despite the unpredictable weather on the day, it was well attended and has raised valuable funds for FOTS which will be used for the benefit of all the children in our school.  

Finally, we are so proud of our wonderful year 6 pupils who have worked hard all year to achieve fantastic KS2 SATs results most of which are above national percentages as follows;

Reading 88% (National 2022 74% / National 2023 73%)

Writing 65% (National 2022 69% / National 2023 71%)

Mathematics 76% (National 2022 71% / National 2023 73%)

SPAG 82% (National 2022 72% / National 2023 72%)

Science 82% (National 2022 79% / National 2023 80%)

Well done to year 6! We wish them lots of luck and happiness as they prepare to leave Bow Brickhill Primary to move on to the next stage of their education at secondary school. We are sure they are going to achieve great things!

The spring term saw lots of events at school. Our Read2Dog, Libby, has continued to visit, with pupils in Oaks enjoying the opportunity to share their reading books with her and her owner. 

In addition to their P.E lessons, children in year 3 and 4 took part in a racket pack festival, successfully competing against pupils from other schools. Selected pupils from year 5 and 6 also attended the annual schools cross country event at the MK Bowl. We were so proud of their achievements, with some pupils even going on to be selected to run with the MK running team.

As part of their Emperors and Empire topic, Cedars visited the Discovery Centre at Bradwell Abbey, spending an enjoyable day recreating Boudicca’s last battle, receiving training from a real Roman soldier as well as designing and making mosaics. 

In February, we were excited to introduce our wrap around care. This has so far proved very successful with the children enjoying a wide range of activities before and after school in the safety of the school site.

Throughout March we had a number of whole school events starting with a bedtime story theme to celebrate World Book Day. It was super to see the children dressed as book characters and sharing their love of reading through a range of activities with the day culminating with a pre-loved book sale. Our next big event, Red Nose Day, raised valuable funds for Comic Relief. Dressed in the theme ‘Brings me joy’, the children (and staff) brought smiles to faces as favourite foods, hobbies and interests were reflected in costumes. Based in house groups during the day, the children supported each other brilliantly as they took part in dance, computing, art and baking activities before joining together to perform a flash mob for parents on the playground.

FOTS have been busy as usual providing additional events for the pupils including a movie night, a mother’s day pop-up shop, raffles and various cake sales. Currently KS2 pupils have been invited to take part in an Enterprise Challenge encouraging them to embrace their entrepreneurial skills with the loan of £5.00 from FOTS to create a product or service to sell to make a profit. We are really looking forward to their 'Enterprise Selling Day' on Friday 21st April!

The last week of the spring term finished with a range of Easter activities and events. Year 6 took part in Easter Cracked, a fun packed afternoon teaching more about the Easter story then, on the last day of term, it was lovely to see family, friends and governors from our wider school community at our annual Easter service at church. Finally, term ended with an Easter bonnet and decorated egg competition which showed off the children’s very creative and artistic skills – a huge well done to all the children who entered!