Wimborne St Giles CE VA First School and Nursery

This morning, we gathered together as a school family to celebrate our wonderful Year 4 children at their Leavers’ Service. It was so lovely to hear their memories of their time with us and to hear the younger children talk about the impact they had made on their lives too. A huge well done to our ‘Mighty Oaks’ - you leave behind an amazing legacy and we cannot wait to see what you do next! It’s been such a privilege to watch you grow and flourish in so many different ways. We will miss you all so much and could not be prouder of you all.

We loved creating our display for the St Giles’ Church Flower Festival today! With the theme based on the letters of the alphabet: "It begins with..."we decided to celebrate our school values! Huge thanks to the staff team and our resident artist, Clare Holmes, for helping to put this together. Well done children - once again, we are so impressed by your imagination and creativity! The festival is well worth a visit - with refreshments in the church from 11am-5pm this Saturday and Sunday.

We had an AMAZING time at the Etches Collection in Kimmeridge today! We got to learn all about Mary Anning and her legacy, handle fossils that were 80 million years old and observe them under a microscope, meet the 150 million year old pliosaur and learn all about how it moved and what it ate and see Steve Etches hard at work in his workshop! We also had time to design our own dinosaurs! Thank you so much to Nick and the Etches team for having us and to our grownups for all their help. What a fantastic day!

Elm Class had a wonderful afternoon with the Sports Leaders from Cranborne Middle School. They organised some fantastic games that we all loved. Thank you so much CMS and well done Elm Class!

We really enjoyed watching a production of Oliver Twist from M and M Theatre Company this morning! Oak Class also got a master class in production. We learned how they get changed so quickly, who helps with the lighting and sound and we had a go at acting! Thank you so much to our PTA for all their fundraising which provided such a memorable experience for us all.

In Science, Oak Class have been exploring changing states. We took 4 different solids (ice, jelly, butter and chocolate) and we put them in hot water and observed what happened over time.
# TogetherWeGrow

We were delighted to be asked to take part again in Gussage All Saints’ fete this afternoon. The children performed a ‘Summer Medley’ of songs and maypole dances and did so well. Thank you so much to all of our families who came along to help and cheer us on and to our former pupils who were a great support and took charge of official photography! And thank you so much to Gussage All Saints for having us - we had a fantastic time! Well done WSG; once again, we are incredibly proud of you all.

Yesterday, we were at Salisbury Cathedral for the DSAT Leavers’ Service. With the theme of ‘Light’, it was a wonderful opportunity for our fabulous Year 4s to begin to reflect on all the ways they have grown and let their lights shine so brightly during their time at WSG. We also had a chance to explore some of the history of the cathedral which we really enjoyed! It was another really special day and we felt incredibly grateful to be there.

We had such a great morning yesterday as we all came together as a school family to celebrate our annual Sports Day. The sun shone brightly - as did our children - and our values of Love, Hope and Joy were in abundance making for such a lovely atmosphere. Thank you so much to our grown ups for coming to cheer everyone on (and being willing to take part in our parents’ races!) and to our PTA for the delicious mid way refreshments. Congratulations to Team Hope for lifting the trophy at the end of the morning and well done to all of our children - you displayed such brilliant sportsmanship and teamwork and we are so proud of you all!

A HUGE thank you to all of our families who came to our Give A Morning today and worked so hard (with sporadic downpours!) to make the school grounds look so fabulous! It was lovely to welcome back former pupils too and to see so much nature moving into our wildlife areas - including baby blackbirds, slow worms, dragonflies and newts!

We had a special delivery today in Ash Class! We now have some chick eggs in an incubator and we have a 'Countdown' to our chicks arrival (21 days). Ash are super excited and they know the responsibility they play in looking after them in the class.

This morning we were thrilled to be visited by Rosamond Sweet-Escott on behalf of Dorset Gardens Trust to present our Year 4 children with a special commemorative plaque in recognition of our work to develop our fruit orchard in the grounds of our school. Last month, we gratefully received some pear and apple trees from the trust which we planted in our wildlife area. We are really enjoying taking care of them and watching our orchard grow!

We are so proud of our Eco Crew who led a brilliant lunchtime club for their friends today. They spent the session looking for minibeasts and exploring the biodiversity in WSG Wild Woods! 😊

World Bee Day is observed on 20 May each year to draw attention to the essential role bees and other pollinators play in keeping people and the planet healthy. We are so grateful for the opportunities we have at school to learn about these amazing creatures in the stunning surroundings of our Wildlife Area and to enjoy our own bee keeping sessions with Jen! We turned World Bee Day on Monday into a week long celebration - Elm Class got to try on our bee suits in preparation for our beekeeping sessions after half term and Ash Class were very creative in Grow and Give time this afternoon. They loved being outside selecting natural materials to make their own bees! We also looked back at Oak Class’ beekeeping sessions this time last year - where we tried our own honey for the first time. It was delicious! 🐝

We had such an amazing afternoon with Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at the Lighthouse in Poole this afternoon with a concert inspired by the majestic seas. This was presented by award-winning composer and conductor, James Redwood and actor/director, Lynn Forbes and it was utterly thrilling as we got to hear pieces from opera, films and symphonies. We also took part in the concert - performing two pieces with the orchestra that we had learned back in school - one sung and signed and the other a body percussion piece - the sound was incredible! We also had a chance to explore all the instruments that make up a symphony orchestra and were taught how to look for themes in the music. (We even got to meet James after the concert!)
Thank you SO much to James Redwood and the incredible BSO - and to all of our grown ups who made it possible for us to be there today. It was an unforgettable experience!

Ash Class had a wonderful afternoon with In Jolly Good Company and the Skittle Alley Strummers this afternoon! We loved joining in with the songs and lots of us have decided that we want to learn the ukulele! Thank you so much to Sarah Rampton and all of the group for inviting us to join you today. 😊

Our official photo from our visit to QinetiQ has arrived! We are so proud of our wonderful Oaks who were brilliant throughout the visit and asked some really thoughtful questions! Thank you so much again to Joe Merrifield and the QinetiQ team for making this possible 😊

And so, all too quickly, our PGL adventure was at an end. Full of blue skies, sunshine, fun and a LOT of laughter: we had the BEST time. Our Year 4s were nothing short of amazing and we could not be prouder of you all! Thank you for the amazing young people that you are 🤩

For our very last activity we took to the skies with the longest zip wire at PGL! We were so proud again of the way the children all challenged themselves and supported each other! 😊

A few from last night and our PGL tournament! It was a beautiful evening by the sea 😎

En guarde!! This afternoon we enjoyed a session of fencing fun followed by a ‘vertical challenge’ where we reached new heights! (Our children are fearless!) 😊

This morning we took to the sea for our rafting session on Portland - home of the sailing Olympics. We built our raft and then took it for a test drive - (Our teachers spent most of their time in the water!) It was SO much fun and another opportunity for us to work brilliantly as a team!! 🤩

We had an amazing first day at PGL yesterday! We loved all of the activities and have really looked after each other! What a great team you are Year 4!! 😊

We’ve arrived at PGL to blue skies and sunshine! Let the adventure begin! 😊

We had an amazing time at QinetiQ’s technological,
engineering and scientific research and development centre in Gosport today! We learned about hydrodynamics and the Archimedes principle - then had the chance to race our own remote control model powerboats across the water! A huge thank you to Mr Merrifield (Rupert’s dad) for making this possible and to all the QinetiQ team for being such fantastic hosts and teaching us so much about the valuable work they do! We had such a great day (official photos to follow) 😊

We had so much fun in the sunshine last week! In Forest School,
Oak Class continued to live like Anglo Saxons and made patterns in cloth from natural dyes we found in different flowers and grasses. We also made dough from the flour we had ground at the Ancient Technology Centre the week before then cooked it over the fire. We thought it was delicious! 😊

Oak Class had the BEST day at the Ancient Technology Centre yesterday! We learned what it was like to be an Anglo-Saxon - how they lived and what they wore. We learned how to make cordage with rushes, how to weave and how to ‘sound the horn’ in case of attack. We even made our own flour using Quern stones! Thank you to our grownups who came along and to Mrs Haskell for some beautiful photos and Huge thanks to Andy and the ATC team for bringing history to life in such a fun and engaging way! 😊

Happy Earth Day 2024! Eco Crew helped to lead a special worship this morning exploring this Earth Day’s theme ‘Planet versus Plastics’. We thought of ways we could help our world and some of us went on a litter pick around the school grounds. We also said prayers to say thank you for our beautiful world. We feel very grateful to be able to learn and play in such amazing surroundings and we have made the most of the glorious sunshine (when it appeared) over the past week! 🌍 ❤️☀️

Today is the United Nations’ International Day of Forests! We are so grateful to have such wonderful outdoor spaces and for Jen and our Forest School. Highlights this term have been pond dipping and planting pear and plum trees in our new orchard!

Happy International Women’s Day! We have spent the day learning about inspirational women all over the world and thinking about the women in our lives who inspire us too. 😊