Linked to our value of Responsibility, we celebrated Earth Day on Monday 22nd April. During the day the children learnt about ways to protect the planet before making their own pledges as to how they can be changemakers in supporting the planet. Key Stage Two even had the experience of going on a virtual school trip, thanks to PrimeVR, exploring environments linked to their Geography topic.

On Thursday 28th March, we held a Careers Day to build the aspirations of the children and explore a range of jobs and careers available to them. In Early Years, Year 1 & Year 2, the children got to take part in a range of different jobs in our Little City and Key Stage Two were visited by different people to talk about the jobs they have. The children then wrote a letter to Mr Killick applying for their dream job.

Towards the end of March, Early Years were in charge of looking after some eggs that arrived in school. We were all excited when they hatched into little chicks that all the children were excited to visit and learn about how to look after them.

In the build up to World Book Day, all the children took part in our Readathon challenge where the children were sponsored to complete Mr Killick’s reading challenge over 10 days. The children were incredible and raised and incredible £1134, which was donated to our Friends of Holne Chase who are raising money to provide the school with a fabulous learning garden.

In the Spring Term, children from Year 1 – Year 6 joined Computing Club and became computing programmers as they learnt all about coding. The children were able to create algorithms in order to programme our new micro:bits.

The Holne Chase choir had a brilliant opportunity to perform at the o2 arena in London where they spent the day rehearsing before putting on a performance for thousands of fans! It was an incredible experience enjoyed by both children and staff as well as the parents who travelled down to support us.

A video of them performing can be found on our Facebook page.

During the Autumn term, the children became artist creating a range of art work in their art lessons. The school hall was then turned into the Holne Chase Art Gallery where children were able to tour their parents around and sell their art work to their parents (for a small fee) raising funds for our school.

In June 2023, our Year 6 children loved their residential to Caythorpe Court in which they got to take part in a range of adventurous activities including archery, rafting, abseiling, air rifle shooting and much more.

On Wednesday 1st February 2023, some of our amazing Year 5 children took part in the Trust Shakespeare performance of The Tempest. Prior to the performance, the children wrote their own song, choreographed a dance and worked with an actor to perform a scene from the play. All the Year 5s who took part in the performance were phenomenal and we are extremely proud of their achievements.

On Thursday 19th January, we celebrated the Lunar New Year in which children took part in a dance workshop, made class dragons and learnt all about how the festival is celebrated around the world. The children then took part in a dragon parade for parents to continue our Lunar New Year celebrations.

Before the Christmas holidays, we had some special visitors in school… Santa let us meet some of his reindeer. During their visit, the children learnt all about reindeer, how to look after them and some interesting facts which they shared at home. It certainly got children and staff into the Christmas spirit.

In October, we celebrated Black History Month in which the children learnt about a range of historical and inspiration figures. During our learning, we were lucky enough to be visited by Albert Bernard who became a policeman in 1984 and received a certificate of service on his retirement after serving 25 years with Thames Valley. The children were inspired to hear his story about life as a police officer. You can hear his story by visiting www.bhmmk.co.uk.