April 2021

16 Buckden Roundabout April 2021 School & Pre - School March brought us mixed weather (as always!), but we have been taking the children out for fresh air and exercise when it ’ s not too grim. They ’ ve enjoyed the space the field offers and loved kicking a football around. Indoors, we ’ ve been celebrating events such as St David ’ s Day, Mother ’ s Day, World Book Day and International Women ’ s Day. We ’ ve planned our learning, craft work and our Book of the Week around these themes. We hope the mums loved their Mother ’ s Day surprises and that our work around Inter- national Women ’ s Day helped the children realise that both girls and boys can be anything they want to be! We ’ ve also started some of our green - fingered activities. We have plans to grow lots of vegetables this year and the chil- dren have already enjoyed planting potatoes, onions, spring onions and carrots. Don ’ t forget that your can keep up with all the activities at Preschool by lining our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/www.buckdenpreschool.co.uk/ Admissions: We have limited spaces available for September, so to avoid disappointment and ensure the sessions you require will be available, please get in touch soon. We can now offer appoint- ments for you to have a tour, see what we do, and talk to the staff. To enrol your child or arrange a visit, contact the Manager, Nicola Henge, on 01480 810600. Urgent appeal: Preschool needs committee members to re- main open As a charity - run Preschool, we are legally required to have a committee of a certain size to continue operating. When chil- dren move on to primary or out of the area, their parents, carers or relatives who were part of our committee often move on too, so we need new members to come forward reg- ularly. We are now in urgent need of new committee mem- bers before our numbers drop too low. Even if you don ’ t have much time to spare us, please consider joining. We are a friendly and sociable (pre - pandemic, and hopefully, post - pandemic!) group and welcome any help you can offer. You do not have to be the carer or relative of a Pre- school child—however, we do have to ensure that parents or guardians make up a certain percentage of our committee, so it ’ s essential we recruit new parent/guardian members too. To learn more about our committee and the role of members, please contact our chairperson, Jo Chillmaid, at buckdenpre- schoolchairperson@gmail.com or on 07393650084. For more information, visit www.buckdenpreschool.co.uk or see our Facebook updates at https://www.facebook.com/ www.buckdenpreschool.co.uk/ BUCKDEN CHURCH OF ENGLAND SCHOOL (Primary Academy Trust) April 2021 As hoped we returned to school on Monday 8 th March. Staff, parents and children were all looking forward to the first day back and it was lovely to be all back together again. It felt a little bit like the first day back in September, after the summer holidays, but everyone soon settled back into the routine of school life. Once again we would like to thank all those parents who were so dedicated to the remote learning during the Lockdown. The children were incredible in their adaptation to this unusual way of learning and parental support was amazing. Equally, well done to the children who continued in school and who adapted to all the changes so maturely. We have returned to the same safety measures that were in place during the Autumn Term. With the additional measure of all our staff undertaking asymptomatic Covid - 19 testing at home, twice a week. This enables staff to work in as safe an environment as possible, protect our students and help to re- duce the spread in school. Unfortunately we are still unable to have very many visitors into school, but we are fortunate enough to have our peripa- tetic music teachers come into school to give lessons to those of us who are learning the piano, violin, and drums but we are missing our many parent helpers and readers. During the first week back, on Friday 12th March, the children came to school in their uniforms inside out for the day. This was a simple way to recognise the work we had been doing during the week to raise awareness of mental health, kindness, resilience and gratitude. Also we took part in Red Nose Day on Friday 19 th March, we put a call out for all superheroes from Wonder Woman and Batman to Police officers and NHS workers, or even newly cre- ated superheros. The children looked great in all their colour- ful creations and it was a brilliant fundraiser. Now that we have returned, can we just remind our parents and visitors about safety and parking around the school area as we enter the school using various entrances in School Lane and Mill Road. Please take care when driving near the school perimeter. We all need to be aware of the needs of the local residents as well as the traffic and parking regulations around the school. The area in front of the school marked with yellow lines is not a ‘ dropping off ’ area. As well as being very dangerous due to passing cars and the pedestrian walkways, this part of the road needs to be kept clear at all times as it is the access area for emergency vehicles. We also ask parents not to park on the grass verge by the school gates or use the school car park. The parking spaces in front of the school are for use by the staff and visitors. Please do not use them for dropping off and picking up your children. Extra parking spaces are available at the Buckden Village Hall, which is a short walk from the school. Thank you for adhering to these guidelines. These have been put in place for the safe- ty of everyone who comes to the school at the beginning and end of the day. We broke up for the Easter Holidays on Friday 26 th March and we look forward to returning for the Summer Term on Monday 12 th April, when fingers crossed, more national restrictions are lifted.