'We were all delighted with your wonderful children, how good they were and how well they participated.'
School Visitor
We want our children to participate in as broad and as rich a curriculum as possible. We are constantly looking at ways to enrich and enhance our curriculum. We seize every opportunity to widen our children’s experiences both during the school day and beyond.
50 THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU LEAVE SOMERFORD PRIMARY SCHOOL
We want our children to have as broad and rich curriculum as we can. We have created a list of 50 things to do before you leave Somerford. Each child has a copy of this list in a booklet and as they complete items they tick them off. The list includes a wide range of things from writing a letter to someone famous or learning to skip to planting, growing and eating something or watching a caterpillar turn into a butterfly. Have a look at your child’s booklet and see how many you can tick off.
RESIDENTIALS
We believe that residential learning experiences can have a huge impact on learning and development. At Somerford Primary we offer two residential trips.
In Year 4 our children have the opportunity to visit Leeson House Field Studies Centre in Langton Matravers for two days and one night. The children take part in a range of activities, some of which are led by the specialist teacher at Leeson House. The children also do a great deal of learning about staying away from home including clearing up after meals and making their beds.
In Year 6 the children are offered the chance to go to Avon Tyrell in the New Forest. The children stay in tents for five days and four nights and take part in a range of outdoor activities including kyaking, climbing, survival skills and raft building.
We appreciate that residential visits can be expensive, so we offer families the opportunity to pay for the trips in instalments over the course of the year. Families who are in receipt of certain benefits are entitled to pay a reduced rate for the residential visits. If you are unsure whether you qualify for a reduced rate please click here to go to an eligibility checker. If you have any concerns regarding paying for trips, please speak to Mrs Cutler in our finance office.
ASSEMBLIES
Assembly times are key moments which bring our community together daily. At Somerford we believe that our assemblies are important opportunities to enhance the learning and development of all the children. Our assemblies address our key curriculum values, encouraging the children to Enjoy Achieve and Aspire their work. They also look at the British values of democracy, tolerance, the rule of law, repect and individual liberty as well as consolidating our key learning behaviours of being Ready, Respectful and Safe. As well as these key values, our assemblies will also address religious festivals, events in the news or upcoming events or projects in school.
We also use assemblies as opportunities to share learning with parents in our class assemblies as well celebrating successes such as our Green Leaf assemblies, KS2 celebration assemblies and attendance assemblies.
Our assemblies are mainly delivered by senior leadership team as well as other staff and other visitors to the school.
VISITORS
As a school we are constantly looking for ways to engage the children in their learning and development. Whilst we often take the children out of school on trips and visits, we also regularly invite visitors into the school to work with and inspire the children.
These visitors may be related to the topics individual year groups are studying or for a whole school.
We will keep you informed about visitors through the school’s Twitter account and Marvellous Me.
TRIPS
At Somerford we offer a wide range of trips and experiences away from the school site. These can range from trips into the local community to Watermans park or High Cross church or to other Christchurch locations such as the beach, Pizza Express or the Red House Museum.
We also take children further afield to places such as the Winchester Science Centre and Planetarium, Buckler’s Hard, Marwell Zoo or the Tank Museum.
All of our visits are carefully planned with the children’s learning and development at the heart. We ask for contributions towards the costs of the trips to ensure that we can offer the children the broadest curriculum possible, however we carefully consider when the trips take place across the year to ensure that they are spread out.
AFTER SCHOOL CLUBS
The current After school clubs we are running are as follows
-Gymnastics on a Monday, this is with South Coast Dance and Arts https://www.southcoastdanceandarts.co.uk/
-Martial Arts on a Wednesday http://mbmaa.club/contact
-Fencing on a Friday however this is fully booked with a waiting list
-Rugby Tots on a Saturday morning https://www.rugbytots.co.uk/Class/Find
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PARENT PARTNERSHIP IN THE CURRICULUM
We are always looking for ways to work in partnership with our parents. We feel it is vitally important to share our curriculum with our families and give them opportunities to engage in their children’s learning.
We regularly invite our parents in to school to share in their children’s curriculum. Already this year we have held a reading morning, a maths morning and a history afternoon. These events are popular and offer the chance for families to find out about the children are learning about and how we choose to teach it. There are also opportunities for them to have a go themselves. Look out for upcoming events showcasing other areas of the curriculum as well as regular favourites such as class assemblies, sports days and books at bedtime.