Our gallery is here to provide an overview of the exciting opportunities and activities that make up the year here at Preston Primary. If something catches your eye, please head over to that class's page to find out more information.
Children's Mental Health Week
Each year, the school participates in ‘Mental Health Week’. This year, our reception children focussed on kindness and discussed what makes them happy. We decided that we would like to spread some of our happiness to the local community, so the children made ‘happiness cards’ for the residents of a local care home. The children thoroughly enjoyed making their cards and the residents of West Abbey Care Home (staff pictured with the cards) were delighted with their delivery of happiness.
Chinese New Year Dragon Dance
Our reception children have really enjoyed learning about Chinese Traditions, and finished the half term with a marvellous Dragon Dance. They made their own lanterns and musical instruments and invited the whole school to watch the parade through the corridors of the school. Well done Reception!
As part of their Design Technology curriculum, all three classes in Year 6 prepared their own Christmas lunch. From peeling the vegetables, roasting the potatoes, making the stuffing and of course mixing the gravy, the children also helped decorate the dining hall and laying the tables correctly.
For further photos, please visit the class pages.
Both Hazel and Hornbeam class had an amazing day dressed as Victorians. They enjoyed Victorian art, Victorian lessons, parlour games and even some tasty Victorian tea biscuits! Head over to the class pages to see more pictures!
Having recently redesigned the Welcome Garden at the pedestrian entrance to Preston Primary, it has provided the perfect space for launching important events in our community calendar.
As Christmas approaches with advent, a small team of elves have been busy scurrying and scuttling to prepare a Winter Wonderland, complete with a nativity scene.
It was lovely to see the awe and wonder on faces of children and adults as they walked into school this week but keep your eyes peeled, there’s a new addition to spot everyday!
Each year, the pupils are given the opportunity to have their say in the Pupil Questionnaire. They have the chance to make suggestions on how the school might be improved and we had an overwhelming response this year for a revamped and restocked library.
We were fortunate enough to have Mr Plumbley hand-paint the character decorations on the wall, source a unique sit-on shelf and use the money raised from the previous year’s Scholastic Book Fair to enable us to purchase new texts for each year group.
As such a welcoming and vibrant space, it is the perfect area to celebrate reading and the arts as we have also managed to squeeze an oratory stage in too!
Well done to Lennon and Owen in Year 6, who won our Christmas card design competition. Lennon’ s card design signifying ‘Hope’ will be used by the trust to send goodwill messages and Ethan’s interpretation of Mary and Joseph returning to Bethlehem will represent the school’s messages. You can see the card designs below, as well as the boys receiving the news that their designs had won - well done!
You may have noticed e-scooters popping up around our community. This is because South Somerset Council are trialling a new initiative to reduce the amount of car journeys (particularly single-user journeys) around our locality. Year 6 staff at Preston CofE Primary were given the opportunity to test out the exciting new technology this week.
The controls are very straightforward, your right thumb controls the acceleration and your left hand has a bicycle-style brake lever to slow you down. A handy kickstand helps to keep the scooter upright when parked.
As a vehicle, the joy of the e-scooter is that it is a simple, no-fuss method of hopping those short-distance trips across town, without having to rely on the car. The trial with the council stipulates that users must be at least 16 years of age, with a full or provisional driving licence (these e-scooters can only be used legally in the same highway spaces cyclists enjoy) and wearing a helmet is highly recommended.
Of the ten staff that gave the scooters a try, nine owned their own car. Despite this, we all really enjoyed the novel experience and could see ourselves using the technology regularly if it suited our purposes (the headteacher, Mrs Hodgson, had already beaten us all to using them, nipping around town aboard one over the weekend!)
Year 6 were fortunate enough to participate in the world’s largest Cool Aeronautics event, hosted by Leonardo. Students built working model cars in the teams, before designing bridges to transport the cars across a frozen river.
Year 4 Tudor Day
Both classes had an amazing day dressed as rich and poor Tudors. They enjoyed Tudor art, archery, Tudor dancing followed by a Henry VIII ball and then to end the day, a banquet of Tudor food! Head over to the class pages to see more pictures!
Thank you to everyone in our school community, who made a fantastic effort to come to school in their favourite pyjamas and slippers! The school raised an amazing £527 for the charity, thank you to all who donated.
Year 2 and Year 4 were lucky to have a visit from Pete the Poet today. We had a great time.
For more pictures, see the class pages.
Our Remembrance Garden is now completed, ready for the service on Wednesday morning and for the local community to view from the school gates. The names displayed in the trees and on the fence are names of the fallen soldiers from WW1 and WW2, that lived in our local area. Some can also be found on the memorial on Preston Road, do you recognise any family names? Thank you to everybody who donated recycled red materials to adorn our poppies, as you can see they stand proudly amongst the cascade of poppies.
As part of our Black History Month celebrations, we were able to invite in Kaspa from the Zamble African Dance company to teach Year 5 and 6 about the culture surrounding ceremonial drumming! Head over to the Class Pages to discover more...
Head over to the Year 6 Class Pages to see more photos from the Evacuee Day, helping to conclude our World War 2 topic!
The children were delighted with Malcolm's magic tricks. He wowed us with his multiplying sweet trick and the hall was filled with roars of laughter. A lovely end to a very busy half term!
A sea of yellow entered our gates here at Preston Primary for World Mental Health Day. Spreading positivity, we discussed why we should talk about how we feel and had great fun digging through our wardrobes to don something yellow to raise money for this great cause!
In a year that has seen the introduction of class bubbles and social distancing, the school was unable to hold our usual Harvest Festival assemblies.
The festival is an important time for learners to reflect on how our food is produced and just as importantly, an opportunity to give something back to our local community.
A big thank you to our families who donated gifts, which will be delivered to The Lord’s Larder to distribute to members of the community in need. A special thank you to Rev.Ruth who shared an online Harvest assembly, that all the children could enjoy in their classes.
Some of our children from Year 3 and 4 were fortunate enough to work with our partnership organisation, the Yeovil Town Community Sports Trust this autumn. The pupils worked hard on thinking about the themes of resilience and perseverance in sport and how they could apply this to their own lives and academic schoolwork. Well done and thank you to Lewis and Louis from YTCST who came to help our pupils in their endeavour. See picture above.
Musical Theatre Club
This week we had a backstage pass to the makings of Matilda The Musical and the children learned all about how to become a Matilda! We had lots of fun and they learned that 'sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty!'
National Poetry Day 2020 is upon us and we are very excited to share a range of poems in class and create our own too! Poetry is a powerful art form for exploring abstract ideas and often describing and discovering the world around us. The purpose of National Poetry Day is to fire the imagination of our minds and provide opportunities to see things from others’ perspectives. It is open to absolutely everyone to join in, quietly or noisily in rewarding and enjoyable ways!
On World Heart Day, pupils had the opportunity to take part in a session in CPR.
Learning the basic skills of first aid and techniques like CPR will give our children the confidence to know that they can step in to help someone in need and in the most extreme cases could potentially save a life.