2023-2024
Friday 6th October -
Kent Fire and Rescue Service Assembly
We had a representative from Kent Fire and Rescue lead workshops to the whole school. The sessions were really interesting and engaging and reminded the children about the key fire safety messages.
Tuesday 10th October -
Harvest Festival
Thank you to everyone who came and supported our Harvest Service at St Martin's Church on Tuesday. The children performed really well and showed great confidence in front of a packed church. A massive thank you to Mrs Cripps for coordinating the service.
Tuesday 10th October -
World Mental Health Day
The children all enjoyed varied activities across the school based around emotional wellbeing, physical health, feelings, emotions and mindfulness.
Some of the children enjoyed learning a song about ‘The Little Spot’ and his mixed up emotions, there were opportunities for relaxation through yoga, and mindfulness through ‘body scanning’ activities creating a calm space for children to think about their own bodies and how relaxing and exercising can make them feel.
Some children took a sunny nature walk around the school grounds concentrating on their breathing, whilst using their senses to take in sights, smells and sounds around them and talking about how it makes them feel.
Others created the perfect ‘recipe’ for their own wellbeing health, adding to the cooking pot things such as family, friends, and favourite toys and activities; recognising the people and things that can help keep their mental health ‘healthy’.
Some of our older children talked about issues that can come from the effects of social media, school pressures and friendships and how these things can make people feel. How they can ask for support, keep themselves safe online and if they are able to recognise trusted adults that they can talk to.
Others joined in team activities relying on each other to complete tasks while discussing the importance of connecting to others to be successful in certain areas of our daily life.
It was a really positive and relaxing experience for all of the children and gave them an opportunity to talk about Mental Health in a productive and informative way.
Week Beginning 6th November 2023 -
Year 6 Bikeability
Well done to a group of our Year 6's who completed their Bikeability course this week. The aim is that after Bikeability, children are better at responding to risk and report increased confidence. As a result, we see more children cycling to school which in turn improves mental health and wellbeing.
Sunday 12th November -
Remembrance Sunday
On Sunday 12th November, we were honoured to take part in Maidstone's Remembrance Day parade. Pupils from Year 5 and Year 6 walked through the town centre towards the monument, where the service of Remembrance took place. As part of this service, Oscar and Florence (Year 6) laid a poppy wreath.
Throughout the week before Remembrance Sunday, we were busy raising money to support the Royal British Legion. Pupils and parents were very generous and we raised a fantastic £584.60. Thank you to everyone who helped us raise this amazing amount!
13th-17th November 2023 -
Anti Bullying Week
We marked the start of Anti-Bullying week with our own Odd Socks Day which took place on Monday 13 November. Odd Socks Day is designed to be fun! It’s an opportunity to encourage people to express themselves and celebrate their individuality and what makes us all unique It was amazing to see so many pupils celebrating their differences and what makes them unique.
All the classes enjoyed listening to the odd socks song- you can listen to it here.
Friday 17th November -
Children in Need and Friendship Friday
We ended our Anti-Bullying week with Friendship Friday and a chance to raise money for Children in Need. The School Council worked hard to plan different events to help us raise money for this very worthy cause. Events included spare change donations to create an amazing piece of artwork, a cake sale, a raffle and donations for an own clothes day.
Well done to the School Council for a fantastic day and helping us raise an amazing £526.56. A big thank you to all of our families for their kind donations. It was a fantastic was to end our weeks learning on Anti-Bullying!
Monday 20th September -
Mayor and Mayoress Visit Senacre
We had a very exciting visitor join our celebration assembly this week. The Mayor and Mayoress of Maidstone joined our assembly and presented our winning certificate and £250 for winning the Maidstone Scarecrow competition. We were also very excited as the Mayor very kindly presented our weekly celebration assembly certificates.
For more information, please read our Maidstone News article.
Tuesday 28th November-
Shaun the Sheep arrives at Senacre!
We are excited to announce that we will be part of the second art trail in Maidstone from 29 June to 30 August 2024. The second art trail will feature another iconic and much- loved character – Shaun the Sheep!
On Tuesday, we were very excited to reveal our very own sheep, which we have named Barbara! A massive thank you to Bellway Homes, who kindly donated to the Heart of Kent Hospice to enable us to be part of the art trail. During the assembly, we presented certificates to all the children whose art work will be incorporated onto our sheep. We look forward to sharing photos of Barbara when her design has been completed and she is ready to join the trail!
Friday 8th December -
Rocksteady
Today we were very lucky to start our Christmas Jumper day with two performances from our school Rock Steady Bands. They were both amazing performances and the whole school enjoyed watching the performance and joining in with the songs.
Monday 11th December
Christmas carols at St Martin's church
On Monday, Years 1 - 6 went to St Martin's church for our annual Christmas Carol Concert. Each class sang beautifully and we were treated to a performance of "Silent Night" from Recorder Club and "We wish you a Merry Christmas" from Music club. It was a fantastic way to start our last week of term and everyone should be proud of their performance.
Thank you also to parents and carers who were able to join us as well as St Martin's Church for hosting us.
Wednesday 3rd January - Friday 5th January
whole school experience - Stem Week
We started the new year with a whole school STEM week with the theme of Time. There were lots of opportunities, for all children, to work on their ability to tell the time using different types of clocks and the correct vocabulary.
Pupils were also using their science skills linked with time.
EYFS have explored the seasons across the year and learned some sequencing skills for their maths learning. They have also started to learn about coding in computing by following small instructions.
Year 1 used sand timers and stop watches to time what they can get completed in 1 minute. They also used different materials to make a track, and predicted whether these would make the ball slow down or speed up.
Year 2 made aeroplanes, thinking about the properties they need from their material choices. They then measured the amount of seconds it flew for and recorded how far it flew on different number lines.
Year 3 magnetised needles so that they could make their own compasses. They then measured how long they stayed magnetised for, except they did such a great job that the needles are still magnetised now!
Year 4 timed how long their paper aeroplanes stayed in the air for. They had a competition and the winning aeroplane stayed flying for 4.5 seconds! They also tried to build the strongest tower out of paper in the short time of 20 minutes.
Year 5 have completed experiments about how long things can stay in the air, including balloons and the kites that they made this week. They have been recording these in different ways.
Year 6 designed and made their own 30 second sand timers, which they will be using to complete an experiment.
Monday 15th January
young voices
On Monday, 15 January, the choir had a fantastic evening at the O2, as school choirs from around the country came together to perform. The children left school and travelled by coach to the London arena where they spent time rehearsing and sound checking before the event. They had a fantastic time singing songs including the always popular Pop Medley. Well done to all the children that took part- they represented the school brilliantly!
Friday 19th January
World religion day
The whole school celebrated World Religion Day, by learning about the values and importance of representation, inclusion, understanding and respect. After lots of discussion and investigation, each year group then focussed on a specific area of the topic. These were; Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Wider Religion. To express our learning , each year group produced a creative piece of work in various ways, to share with the school and promote unity!
Year 5 discussed why we should celebrate World Religion Day
"it is important to learn about other people's life styles." - Poppy
"It builds respect for other religions." - Harry
"Every religion should be celebrated." - Grace I
Thursday 1st February
Secret artist - The big reveal
This term has been very exciting because we had the return of Secret Artists. This is a game that we play every year where staff members and children produce art and leave it on display around the school. Everyone has great fun trying to guess who the secret artists are.
To see even more of our pupils' brilliant artwork, visit our art page.
Friday 2nd February
nspcc Numbers day
All the classes have been very busy completing different activities. Within EYFS and Key Stage One, Oak class have been working on their number bonds, Ash class have created some brilliant maths games and Beech class have been solving riddles linked with their work on shapes.
Key Stage Two have also been very busy with Rowan and Willow class working on their magical maths skills, Maple class playing different competitive games and Sycamore class learning sign language for numbers to 100.
Thursday 7th March
World Book Day
This year, Senacre Wood celebrated World Book Day in style! Staff and students dressed up as their favourite characters from books, films and comics- a huge thanks to all our parents for going to such a great effort again this year! Several of the classes looked at the texts 'Ten Word Tiny Tales' and 'The Mysteries of Harris Burdick' to inspire some story writing and children swapped locations and teachers to 'sign up for a story' at the end of the day.
Friday 15th March
rocksteady concert
During assembly, we were treated to two performance from our amazing KS1 and KS2 bands. The children were amazing and showed such confidence in front of the whole school. A massive well done to you all.
Wednesday 13th March
The school council visit the houses of parliament
Past and present members of the School Council went to visit The House of Commons! As the school’s elected council, we felt like we were the ‘school’s parliament’ and were eager to see the real thing! When our guide, Morgan, told us that the Prime Minster was in the building, having just finished Prime Minister’s Questions, we couldn’t believe it!
After a short tour, we were ready to go up to Public Gallery to watch part of a parliamentary debate on wind farms as part of Urgent Questions. We thought the technique of bobbing was very strange (when MPs stand up and sit down to indicate they want to ask a question) and Mrs Dixon, Mrs McKenzie and Mrs Heard enjoyed all the excellent vocabulary being used! The children agreed there was lots of tension in the room as they watched the ‘professional argument’.
Next, it was time to go into our workshop with Laurel and meet our MP, Helen Whately (who is also the currently Minister of Social Care).
We had an amazing multimedia room for our workshop- we watched a film on the walls! We voted on different issues as to whether they were fair or unfair and gave fantastic reasoning. Miss Whately was very generous with her time and answered lots of the questions we had generated in our groups. She was very impressed with our confidence!
Monday 25th March
The school choir met the Archbishop of Canterbury
The school choir were invited to sing at Esther's farewell party. Esther has worked as St Martin's school liaison officer for the last 14 years and has provided immense support to the local schools. The school choir sang beautifully and were a credit to the school. As part of the event, we were all delighted to see the Archbishop of Canterbury make a visit. He thoroughly enjoyed listening to our choir sing and after the service, the children loved having the opportunity to speak to him.
Tuesday 23rd April
St George's day
In honour of St George, the patron saint of Scouts, children who are part of a Scouting group came into school wearing their uniform. It was lovely to see the different groups represented across all year groups and for them to have the opportunity to tell us more about what they do outside of school.
Wednesday 22nd May
Maidstone united visit senacre
We were really lucky to have Maidstone United's first team player, George Fowler come and lead our assembly. The children had the opportunity to ask George lots of questions and he even signed some shirts and memorabilia!
He explained that through hard work and dedication, anyone can go far in sport!
Friday 24th May
animate art day
We invited Jo from Animate Arts into school and she did an assembly, showing us lots of work by artists that create installations out of cardboard. She then set us a whole school challenge to make a doll’s house out of cardboard and other recycling. Each class were given two rooms that they had to design and make and also a mystery room which they could design themselves.
o showed us all lots of ideas of how to make different items for the room such as mini books for the library and chairs made out of toilet rolls. She also showed us different ways to join parts together. In addition to creating the rooms, we also had to make flowers out of cardboard, brick walls to go down the sides and year 6 had to design and make the lettering for the display.
We all had a very busy day of art, with lots of innovation and collaboration taking place, and by the end of the day there was a huge Senacre Wood doll’s house on display!
Thursday 13th June
drama workshops with the hazlitt theater
Years 2-6 thoroughly enjoyed taking part in a drama workshop. The workshops lasted for one hour and consisted of drama based activities that explored confidence building, teamwork, improvisation and devising skills. These workshops were led by an excellent team of facilitators from the Hazlitt Theatre.
Thursday 13th June
Year 6 Magistrate Talk
Alvin Shaw and Clive Parry visited from Maidstone Magistrates Court. They spoke to the Year 6s about the court system, why we need rules and what happens if you break them. The children were all very engaged and asked some insightful questions.
Friday 21st June
World music day
During World Music day we enjoyed lots of musical activities taking place around the school. From singing new songs to making our own instruments, it really has been good fun celebrating together. The children were treated to instrumental and vocal performances in assembly today and a special thanks to our school choir, Willow, Sunia and Fedora for your amazing performances. You all rocked!
