Brookes Business 2nd issue

Including Cherry Trees Chatter

Welcome to our second addition of Brookes Business on line. It has been a very busy half term. After a month of seemingly non stop rain the sun has started to shine. Just in time for our two very successful residential trips. We were also blessed with sunshine for our first open forest school event on Saturday. You will find out more details, plus more inside including dates for your diary.

Well done to all the students who took part in this event over the Easter Holidays. You raised an amazing £845 in sponsorship money and commission from the book fayre.

The winners for the sponsored read are:

Year 1 Niall Healy

Year 2 Sonny Milan

Year 3/4 Cian Healy

Year 5/6 Riley McFall

Year 9 Sophie Fraser .

Thank you to the PTA for organising this challenge and to all for your support. The staff are very excited about all the new books they have ordered. Page

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Coronation Tea Party

The Lower School children had a great time celebrating the coronation of King Charles III. They made the sandwiches, laid the tables full of party food and thoroughly enjoyed the event.

This term the Caterpillar Room children have been enjoying exploring the new equipment in their garden, which is a great opportunity for them to develop their gross motor skills when balancing and climbing.

During this term in the Butterfly Room the children have been discussing 'The Colour Monster' and being calm (green). We have created a Peace Table, used for both being Zen and to discuss any misunderstanding between friends. Eliza enjoyed some Zen time, tracing in the sand, building a Zen garden and listening to the sea in the shells

Reception Class have focused on ‘The Body’ and Heathy Living. They have been growing pea plants and strawberries. We have been focusing on the environment and the children used recycled milk cartons for the hanging strawberry pots.

Our new Toddler garden

To support the launch of the new names for the Toddler and Nursery rooms, we have had some fabulous signs designed.

Thursday 9th June

Monday 19th

Monday 29th

Friday 30th

French Trip

We had an action packed week full of activities and excursions. Including fencing, archery, aeroball, mini farm, bread making and the final activity was a very muddy assault course. On Wednesday, we visited a local market in St Hilaire where the students bought gifts and snacks, then in the afternoon we went to Mont St Michel which was absolutely stunning. It was an eventful week and the students enjoyed themselves!

Le Chateaux- the students home for the week

French Trip

The Brookes students visited the amazing Mont Saint Michel. This is an abbey built on a small hill on the coast of Normandy and is a pilgrimage for thousands of people each day. It can be seen for many miles away. The students enjoyed the tour of the ramparts by our guide and all of course communicated in French. Afterwards they enjoyed shopping in the numerous shops below the abbey and taking photos of the spectacular views of the Normandy beaches.

During the week of the 15th May we held a ‘Senior School Drop Down Week”. This was a week of logic, exploration, collaboration and challenge. Students worked in mixed year groups to complete various activities that required teamwork, communication and problem solving skills.

The students took part in various activities and challenges including, escape rooms, spaghetti/marshmallow towers, build a rocket to launch, protect the egg and geo-dome to name a few. The students were also placed in groups to work together to design, advertise and bake a cookie with limited resources and budget, which were sold on the final day. Team three worked the best throughout this challenge and made a profit of £17.50p.

Highlights of the week were seeing students overcome their fears and persevere as they took on the obstacles at ‘The Playground’ in Barrow and the Forest School session where students built fires, log sheds and enjoying s’mores.

As part of the drop down week the students were challenged to make geo-domes. The activity tested their engineering, communication and team work skills

Art Gallery

Esther Cushing Y11

Henry Barron Y6

Megan Holman Y9

Noah Fisher Butler Y11

Art Gallery

Shiloh Llechukwu Y10

SebMcAndrew Y10

Freya Anderson Y10

Ciaran Keane Y7

Lily O’Brian Y8

Maddie Crouch Y3

Sophie Fraser Y9

A number of pupils from Years 3-6 visited Flatford Mill Field Studies Centre during May. For many, this was their first time away from home. In the run up to the visit, there was much excitement and the main question was ' Who will I be sharing a room with?' Hopefully nobody was disappointed. We were blessed with glorious weather for the three days we were there - just as well as the majority of learning took place outside.

Monday activities began with bed-making (which turned out to be one of the greatest challenges of the trip!), followed by an array of team challenges, small mammal trapping and orienteering puzzles to end the day. With all that fresh air and excitement, Mrs. Taylor and Mrs. Gale had hoped the children would soon be asleep - but it was a rather restless night for all!

Tuesday began with a bountiful breakfast to ready everyone for the busy day ahead. The first order of the day was to check the mammal traps which had been set the night before. We were expecting either mice, voles or shrews to have entered the traps. Four traps were sprung, but Mrs Taylor and Mrs Gale's trap was empty - Ninja mouse had stuffed his face and decided the hay wasn't comfy enough for the night, so cunningly escaped. The remaining traps contained mice (Jeremy, Tulip and Lily as named by the successful trappers). From there, on to learning about rivers and streams, supporting the learning Year 5 & 6 are doing in the classroom back at school. A number of observations were made on width, depth and velocity of the stream and these were then compared with the River Stour. The velocity of the river was calculated by playing Pooh Sticks! Apart from wading in the stream, the most fun that was had involved trying to stick 'sticky weed' (Goosegrass) onto someone and see how long it was before they noticed!

The next activity was Tree-mendous. This involved conducting a canopy walk using mirrors and 'meeting a tree'. These were eventually identified by using a leaf identification key. Finally, the children learned what type of bugs lived in and around the woodland by going on a bug hunt and again using identification keys to discover more about what they had found. Finally, a campfire with hot chocolate and silly riddles and songs saw everybody off early to bed for a more restful night's sleep than that of the Monday night!

Another cooked breakfast on Wednesday morning set everyone up for the morning's activity of learning about maps and geometry, culminating in making our own treasure maps and using others to try to find the hidden treasure.

Overall, it was a fabulous few days at the Field Studies Centre and a great deal of learning took place, albeit in a fun way. Mrs Taylor and Mrs Gale now need a year to recover before the next one!

Humanities

As part of the year nine homework they were asked to make models of plate boundaries. The wonderful Harriet made this brilliant cake of adestructive plate margin. At Brookes we really try to make the learning as varied and creative as possible. As a teacher, it’s wonderful to see how imaginative the students can be and the cake was delicious!!

A 3-D model of the water cycle made by one of my year seven students

Brookes Xtra this half term took place at Pulse Archery in Barrow. Over the weeks the students skills really improved. Here are some proudly showing their results in a competition.

Boarding News

Another busy half term in Boarding. With the lighter evenings and warmer weather, we are all enjoying spending a lot more time outside after school and on the weekends.

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We have a new summer menu for our evening meals, Chef Carl has been treating the students to some fantastic new dishes, including: Arancini, Mexican Burritos and Chinese Noodles, together with the classic and much loved Sausage and Mash and Chicken Wings.

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We've had lots of fun on the weekends, with a trip to "The Playground" in Barrow, the Cinema to see the Mario movie, an Escape Room experience, a fun game of Crazy Golf and a visit to the South Suffolk Show. We also visited Nowton Park and West Stow. Boarders birthdays have been celebrated in style!

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We are looking forward to the remainder of the term and enjoying the summer weather. We wish our Year 11 Boarders the best of luck with their GCSE exams.

Weekend activities

Food Tech

Cooking this term started with a Brookes bake off.

The students were tasked with a basic recipe and asked to jazz it up for the judges.

Year 7 baked various tray bakes.

Year 8 cupcakes.

Year 9 a Swiss roll or a loaf cake.

Life skills a 5 layered rainbow cake.

All the bakes were delicious.

We had two winners from each group under the categories of:

Best flavour combinations

Best presentation.

Year 7

Hermione and Daisy for presentation

Theo for flavour combinations

Year 8

Katelyn for presentation

Evelyn for flavour combinations

Year 9

Megan for presentation

Caspar for flavour combinations

Well done to all the winners and everyone who took part!

In food technology lessons we are learning about dietary requirements and intolerances. We will be focusing on gluten free, dairy free, veganism and more.

And finally Award Time…………

We had a great time at the south Suffolk show winning 2nd prize in the ‘most innovative stand category!’

Contributions from; Claire Gale, Emma Herd and Cherry Trees staff, Sarah Elford, Natalie Taylor, Helena and Paul Jackson, Claire Cockayne, Nicola Dreuitt, Graham Ellis, Helen Childerhouse, Melanie Nichols

Published by Melanie Nichols

Emily Millar –Arts Award

Millie Callaghan –Arts award