Sybil Elgar pupils and students had a wonderful time celebrating this past half term: The Jubilee, Father’s Day, Science Week and more!  

At the heart of our philosophy sits the ambition to make the school a place that our children and young people look forward to coming to everyday. Celebrating special events can really motivate a person and help to structure the term and year in an exciting way for our students. 

There is a certain sense of connection to the greater world when important moments are celebrated together, at home and abroad.

It is also a fantastic opportunity to take learning outside, so we all enjoyed plenty of outdoor lessons, including tending to our grass caterpillar! 

Celebrations and special events - opportunities for learning

We frame special events and celebrations in the context of the curriculum. That usually means exploring different topics that relate to these events to make connections with the things that are meaningful to each individual. The goal is to identify learning objectives that could extend the  knowledge and skills of our pupils and students.  

Examples of extended learning through special events:

Platinum Jubilee, 2 June 2022 

We felt privileged to be able to join the momentous Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. For this unprecedented event pupils and students had the opportunity to learn about our national heritage in a variety of ways. 

This was an opportunity to bring Geography and cultural identity into the classroom with flags, illustrating and speaking about diversity, emotions and other factors that make us unique. 

Then there was the element of baking, live music performances, arts and crafts and PSHCE that students had the opportunity to engage with through celebrating this momentous occasion. 

Father’s Day, 19 June 2022

Father’s Day gives us a chance to appreciate fathers and father figures and all the people who have played an important role in our lives. Our pupils and students made gifts and cards to show thanks to them. 

We work with sensitivity towards those who may have a home environment where either or both parents are not around and include everyone in making a gift for someone special.

This was a good opportunity for students to practice their writing and designing skills. 

Healthy Eating Week, 13th – 17th June 2022

Healthy Eating Week aims to promote healthy eating, drinking and physical activity. By doing all these, we hope everyone can achieve a healthy way of living. We engage our students with different workshops to develop their independent skills and to encourage them to explore, prepare and consume a range of healthy food. 

This year our students celebrated Healthy Eating week by making fruit smoothies, mango lassi, salad and fruit and vegetable kebabs. This has given our students an opportunity to explore options for making healthy choices, extend their vocabulary and practice independence skills when using a knife or scissors. 

Our gardens are blooming and fruiting and it is absolutely fantastic to watch our students interact with nature as they harvest the crops they’ve planted and nurtured for this week, always learning from our imaginative teachers and support staff. 

Science Week, 12th - 24th June 2022

"We were excited to present our annual Primary Science Club again this year. For this we turned our playground and garden into a scientific laboratory. All primary children had lots of fun, taking part in experiments, combining liquids with solids, exploring reactions and new combinations. Our teachers supported us to understand science through observations, encouraging us to take part in the experiments. 

We used microscopes and observed little creatures, such as ladybirds, ants and sea monkeys. We enjoyed digging in the sand for dinosaur eggs and then counted them. While playing with magnets and magnetic materials we learnt about magnetism and we found which objects are capable of producing magnetic fields. We also enjoyed the ever-popular ‘does it sink or float’ activity. To top it all off we all enjoyed mixing washing up liquid and water to make bubbles." - Primary Science Club 

International Yoga Day, 21 June 2022

We continued our usual daily yoga sessions for International Yoga Day. These sessions have proven highly enjoyable for pupils and students from early years to sixth form. Yoga is a great way to practice balance, improve strength, endurance, and increase flexibility. 

Yoga and mindfulness also have psychological benefits by offering a strategy to manage stress and anxiety. Our yoga teachers use a range of cross-curricular subjects to explain to pupils and students what to do. Counting, reading, shapes and memorising names of poses and sequences are ways in which yoga can be used to practice elements from other subjects. 

A closing note from our therapy team 

Whether we’re celebrating a special event, or conducting the activities of a regular school day, communication is always key. 

Improving communication skills helps us better understand people and situations. If we change the way in which we communicate with each other for the better, we can share experiences in more detail and work together to find solutions for problems that we can get stuck with on our own. 

Please see our Transdisciplinary Team newsletter for ways to promote independent communication skills presented by our Speech and Language therapist, Karen.