This week, Year 1 went on a wonderful Geography trip to Minet Country Park! We put on our coats and set off to be real geographers.

At the park, we looked carefully for human and physical features. We spotted trees, ponds, and hills, which are all physical features made by nature. We also saw human features like paths, bridges, benches, and car parks that people have built.

Our enquiry question for the day was:

“Are there enough signposts in Minet Country Park?”

We worked in teams to look around and count how many signposts we could find. Some groups thought there were plenty, but others noticed that it was easy to get a little lost! We had great discussions about how signs help people find their way and why they are important in parks.

When we came back to class, we used everything we had seen to draw our own maps of the park. We added the paths, trees, ponds, and even remembered to include a key for our symbols — just like real cartographers!

Everyone had such a fun time learning outdoors and using their geography skills in the real world. Well done, Year 1 Geographers!

We were pleased to welcome so many of our Year 1 parents/carers to learn about phonics and how we teach reading through the Read, Write, Inc. scheme.

Parents/carers attended a workshop at the start of their morning, before spending time in their child's phonics lesson.

We look forward to running more phonics workshops for parents/carers in other year groups after half-term.

A huge well done to our amazing group of eight Year 2 children who represented our school at the Panathlon competition this week. They showed fantastic teamwork, determination and sportsmanship throughout the event and we’re thrilled to share that they came away with the bronze medal! We’re so proud of all their hard work and the children said they had a great day. Well done!

This week, each Year 2 class took part in an energetic Taekwondo taster session. Led by a skilled instructor, the children were introduced to some of the basic movements and techniques of the sport, including kicks and balance work. The taster sessions encouraged important values such as respect, focus, and self-discipline all of which link closely to our school values. The hall was filled with enthusiasm and determination as pupils challenged themselves and celebrated each other’s successes. The Year 2 children really enjoyed the taster sessions. 

We are absolutely delighted to announce that Minet Infants and nursery school has achieved OPAL Platinum Award—the highest level of accreditation within the OPAL programme. This is a remarkable and rare achievement that reflects our school’s outstanding commitment to creating a rich, inclusive, and empowering culture of outdoor play. To achieve this award has not been easy!  It recognises that as a schools we have gone above and beyond in transforming the quality of our children’s play experiences.  

This achievement could not have been possible without the vision and dedication of our headteacher, our key Leads, Mohamed and Liz and the creativity and commitment of our wonderful play team, and the energy and imagination of our pupils at Minet Infants.  

Thank you to John Mcdonnell our local MP, who came to our school today to present the platinum award and for Cath Prisk (OPAL Mentor) for joining us.

On Tuesday we had our #RRSA Ambassador Elections! As well as learning about the democratic process children were enjoying their right to: Article 12-You have the right to give your opinion, and for adults to listen and take it seriously. The voting was really close and the new Ambassadors will be announced shortly. Mrs Vallijee is very excited to work with them this year!