Reflections Mag FINAL.indd - Handcross Park School

4
PRE-PREP AND NURSERY
What a busy year we have had in the Pre-Prep and
Nursery, I cannot believe that I have only been here
for three terms! During that time we have squeezed in
lots of exciting activities. As well as working within
the classroom, children went out on educational visits
to stimulate their interest. First out were the nursery
children who went to Tulley’s Farm to pick raspberries
as part of their preparations for Harvest Festival,
coming back to make jam and also bread. At the same
time Pre-Prep children took part in an assembly to
celebrate harvest. Rev. Ian Philips from the Easter
Team, a Christian charity providing care for those in
crisis, spoke to the children and accepted their gifts.
Little Owls joined in with the celebration by making
a scarecrow.
Other trips out included visits to Sainsbury’s to
buy ingredients for shopping, Sussex Wildlife Trust
at Woodsmill, Warnham Nature Reserve, Worthing
Museum and beach, a local library and Holmbush
Farm as well as lots of walks in the grounds.
The children’s other charitable work included fund
raising for orphans in Romania, earthquake victims in
Haiti and a local hospice as well as donating shoes to
children in Zambia and nearly new items for the Eco
‘recycle to make someone smile’ sale.
We introduced Spanish into the Pre-Prep this year
with Senora Nagle teaching through songs and
games. We also enjoyed a few themed weeks in which
all children participated. One particularly overcast
week in the autumn term saw all our children travelling
around the world! Each teacher set up their
room as a different country and gave the children a
flavour of what it is like through cookery, art, and
much more. At the end of the week all children had
a ‘stamped’ passport with the flag of each country. In
the Spring Term our themed week was ‘People who
help us’ and we had visits from a dentist, a nurse, and
a police officer who all reminded us how to stay safe
and healthy.
Our musicians kept us entertained with violinists,
recorder players and pianists taking part in informal
concerts and assemblies as well as our newly
formed choir performing for us. We had two major
performances during the Year 1 of the catchy tunes
in our Christmas show, ‘The Magic Box’ appeared
again with new words in summer’s ‘The Magic Key’
– I am still humming it now! Our children gave such
confident performances and as always I was incredibly
proud of them and of our teachers who bring out the
best in them.