October 2022

16 Buckden Roundabout October 2022 Pre - School & School We ’ ve had a lovely start to the term. The children have en- joyed playing with playdough and sand, which gets them cre- ating and communicating, both with us and each other. In the maths area, we ’ ve started the term with a mixture of puzzles to encourage their dexterity and logical thinking. Indoors, our home corner has been updated over the summer and outdoors, we have a new, exciting addition: an outdoor craft station! We are thrilled with this, and huge thanks go to the organisers of Buckfest, who so kindly donated it to us. The children have really been enjoying it! We started the term with a book of the week that we thought most new starters would know— ‘ The Gruffalo ’ by Julia Don- aldson, a favourite with our established preschoolers. We have a lovely set of ‘ story spoons ’ to accompany this book, which the children can interact with, using them as puppets or talking about the characters. Coming up we have the nurses ’ visit and a trip to church for harvest festival. We will be collecting donations to take to the church for the food bank. We ’ re looking forward to marking autumnal festivities, including Halloween, and the European Day of Language. We will be looking at popular stories in other languages, such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar in French. As always, we want to thank everyone who makes donations to preschool—those donations enhance all these exciting activi- ties and we ’ re deeply grateful for them. In response to our calls in The Roundabout, we ’ re delighted to be welcoming two new volunteers on to the preschool com- mittee. If you have the odd hour to spare here and there and would like to do something sociable and worthwhile with them, do consider joining them! You can contact our Acting Chair, Helen Lumb, at buckdenpreschoolcom- mittee@gmail.com to find out more. Just before going to press, we heard of the sad passing of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. We thank her for her service and remember the great community spirit in the village, and the fun we had at Preschool, to mark her platinum jubilee. We look forward to celebrating the coronation of our new King, Charles III. To arrange a visit or apply for a place, please call 01480 810600 or email us at buckdenpreschool@yahoo.co.uk. For more infor- mation, visit www.buckdenpreschool.co.uk or read our up- dates on https://www.facebook.com/ www.buckdenpreschool.co.uk/ The Valley - Buckden Village Hall Trust BVHT is launching a modest fund - raiser to address the chal- lenges in the Valley during the current historic drought which is causing the quality of the water to deteriorate. We also want to create a wildlife refuge as our 1 st brood of ducklings is being terrorised by hungry gulls. Any donation, however small, will help. The Parish Council is also supporting our effort. Please see our GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/buckden - valley - drought - relief - project BUCKDEN CHURCH OF ENGLAND PRIMARY ACADEMY September 2022 Well, here we are again after our summer holidays. After a glorious summer of hot weather, we have all returned to school refreshed and ready to start the new school year. Our new Reception children are settling into the school rou- tines and look as if they ’ ve been here for much longer than they actually have!! We have also welcomed new families to the area and the children have all joined higher up in the school and have settled into school life with ease. We also welcomed a small number of new staff to the school and wish them well at Buckden Primary. After the last couple of years of the pandemic, as we start this new academic year it definitely feels we have returned to nor- mal and we very much hope we can return to welcoming visi- tors and parents back into school and celebrate all our chil- dren ’ s work and watch live school performances once again. Along with the rest the of the local community we were very sad to hear the news of the Queen ’ s passing. As a school we respected the period of mourning, as did the country. We will be completing books of condolences with the pupils during the coming weeks, and as a sign of respect, newsletters and cele- brations within school will be paused until after the state fu- neral. As we start the beginning of the school year can we take the opportunity to remind our parents and visitors about parking around the school area. We all need to be aware of the needs of the local residents as well as the traffic and parking regula- tions 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 pedestri- an 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 park- ing spaces are available at the Millennium Centre, which is a short walk from the school. Thank you for adhering to these guidelines. There have been put in place for the safety of everyone who comes to the school at the beginning and end of the day.