Cobham Montessori School

End of Year Newsletter July 2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

NOTICES

Thank you

A huge thank you, as always, to you, our wonderful parent and carer community. Once again, we have been blown away by your generosity (and great organisation skills!) in your end of term gifts. Teaching has many rewards and a highlight is feeling so appreciated by a supportive, kind and thoughtful bunch of people!

A Fond Farewell

It has come time for us to bid a fond farewell to some of our friends. Firstly, to our leaving students who are heading off to different schools we wish you well and every success in the future.

Secondly, we must say bon voyage to a teacher who has been at the backbone of our community for many years.Miss Ashley,... what can we say? Her steady presence in the Children's House, her joy and creativity and especially for her baking and cooking via zoom during lock-down make her a remarkable teacher, and an extraordinary human being, she will be greatly missed. The Elementary children (some of whom have known her since they were 2 years old) collaborated on the following poem which expresses much (but not everything) we'd like to say:

An Ode to Miss Ashley

A is for Ashley and for ATH!
B is for Beautiful Christmas earrings, Baking cakes and Best Teacher Ever!
C is for Cooking every week and Cooking online during Covid and Camping, Cares about children, Cares about everyone.
D is for Dedicated and time in Dubai
E is for Easter holiday club 2016 –Miss Ashley’s first time in Cobham Montessori School and for Elvis and Bailey
F is for Fish – keeping them alive! and for Friendship and Farewell (for now)
G is for Garden – Growing things to cook and Got the Great Bench
H is for Happiness and Hedgehogs and Helpful and Helping us to write and Helping us when we don’t know what to do.
I is for I can’t think of anything
J is for Jam from chia seeds
K Kindness and naturally good at Knitting
L is for Laughing and Lovely and Loyal
M is for Miss Ashley, Max the Chef Timer and Montessori and Makes us feel like a Star.
N is for Nice things
O is for Oh, she’s a wonderous woman!
P is for Pencil thief and Plays great football and Plays with us
Q is for Queen of Cobham Montessori
R is for Ready for a Rest! and Reliable
S is for Spencer Road and ‘So Sad to see you leave’ and ‘Set us in tears when we come back’
T is for ‘'Teaching lots of children’ and ‘Teaching us to read’

U is for ‘Unbelievably Amazing
V is for Very kind with us
W is for Watering the garden in the holidays and for ‘We love her’
X is for XXXXXXX (kisses)
Y is for Yellow, Miss Ashley’s favourite colour

Z is for Zoia’s Bells

Marvellous Makers Summer Reading Challenge 2024

We encourage all of you to continue to read regularly with your children throughout the school holidays. If you visit your local library you can sign up for the Marvellous Makers reading challenge for free. Children can set their own goals but to complete the challenge they will need to read 6 books before Saturday 14th September. The challenge is open to children aged 4-11 with a library card; of course there's nothing stopping under 4s joining in too!!

Requests for Feedback and Suggestions

The summer is a time of reflection for us and it is when we take the chance to review our policies and procedures. we welcome feedback from our parent community and any comments are gratefully accepted in our aim to constantly strive for improvement. If there's anything you think we could be doing differently, or better; or indeed, are doing well so don't change it! Please just send an email through to office@cobhammontessori.co.uk

Autumn Term 2024

Teaching staff have two inset days on Monday 2nd and Tuesday 3rd September. We look forward to welcoming the children back on Wednesday 4th September. New starters will join the following week to allow the Children's House community to settle after the break.

THIS WEEK IN SCHOOL

Children's House

This week the Children’s House has been full of excitement, mainly due to it being the end of term and the joy of the forthcoming summer holiday!

The children have continued to enjoy working outside, sweeping, searching for snails, and watering the plants. Now that the term is at an end, it was lovely to notice some sunflowers had eventually bloomed, bringing joy to some of the younger children. We finished off our bunting to decorate the garden for Sports Day, together with a friend stringing it altogether. Within the Children’s House, some children enjoyed ‘care of the environment’, dusting the shelves, watering the plants and polishing before the end of term.

In yoga, Miss Hayley entertained the children with games. First up was ‘object permanence’ enabling the children to use mental representations, such as symbolic thought and language. This was followed up when Miss Hayley asked the children to close their eyes as she loosely draped a sheet over one child (consent given beforehand), and then asking the children to open their eyes and say which child was missing and describe their hair colour, style and clothing. Whilst they could not always identify correct clothing, all the children were able to name the ‘covered’ child and describe their hair colouring and style. At the end of the session the children were asked to say something kind about their friends; we had some lovely comments such as “she plays games with me”, “makes metal insets to share at home time”. The session concluded doing a slow ‘moon walk’.

The ballet class was small this week as some children left after the picnic but nevertheless the children who were present had fun practising skipping and gallops.

The highlight of the week had to be the Sports Day and thankfully the weather was kind to us. It was wonderful to see such a large audience. All the children did really well and judging by the cheering and whoops of delight appeared to enjoy it immensely. This year we had no ‘runners’ to join their families after the CH participated and the children respectively remained in their places to watch Elementary participate.

We wish you all a lovely summer break with your family and friends.

On a personal note, as I sign off writing the final newsletter for the Children’s House, I would like to say what a privilege and pleasure it has been for me to work at Cobham Montessori School and how much I have enjoyed spending time with your children. To spend so much time with them each day is a blessing. Many families have shared those eight years with me, and I have watched your children grow; many of whom are now in Elementary. I will remember many comments and quirky remarks made to me over the years, mainly relating to my age (well I am the senior (in age) mummy here); such as ‘are you still alive, as you’re so old’. ‘I know why you can’t do the yoga movements as you are not very flexible when you are old’ and ‘when you take your glasses off you look like an old lady’. None taken of course. It is an immensely emotional time for me, and the decision was a difficult one to make. However, it is time to hand over the baton to Miss Blanca and I am sure you will all support her as Lead Guide in the Children’s House. I believe CMS is a wonderful school which fosters great independence, values and of course offers an education for life. On Sports Day, you will of course witnessed my overwhelming emotional outburst (I hope the children were not upset by this), but as much as I tried to hold myself together, the thought of the lovely children not greeting ‘Miss Ashlerley’ every day, and the addition of the ‘ode to Miss Ashley, the thoughtful homemade gifts etc’ just completely overwhelmed me. Your amazing warm wishes, comments, cards, and beautiful thoughtful gifts I will treasure. The amazing recipe book has brought me to tears again when I composed myself and read at home. I will enjoy working my way through the recipes, and displaying them on the most amazing beautiful cake stand. It seems I have inspired many children in many things! It is with heartfelt gratitude to parents, carers, and of course the children who, at the end of the day is why we do the job we do. I thank you all for allowing me to share those precious moments with your children. They truly are amazing! Each child is unique and we strive to inspire them all. I hope your children will continue to grow into adolescence and adulthood as happy, kind, inspirational and thoughtful people. Thank you all so very very much. I will miss you all. I have so many fond memories…

lots of love (Miss) Ashley xx

Elementary

The children have worked like Trojans to get their projects brought to a conclusion before the summer holidays; which resulted in lots of presentations over the last days of term. The children revelled in the opportunity to lay out all of their work from the year, remembering projects, marvelling in the sheer volume of work that has been produced in a mere 10 months. On packing their work into a bag for going home one child was heard to exclaim "layers upon layers of hard work!".What was striking too, was the number of different work partners throughout the school year and how personal relationships have developed and matured. It is not always easy to negotiate the freedoms that the children have in the classroom but it is this very freedom which allows the social skills to develop and strengthen.

in Yoga, the final focus part of the body was the head, face and mind. Miss Hayley got the children thinking about the power our mind has over our body, but also the reverse being true as well. She reminded the children that one powerful way of slowing your heart rate is to practise slowing your breath, specifically ensuring that the exhale is longer and slower than the inhale. Hayley did a guided imaginary mindful eating exercise; encouraging the children to think about the colours, sounds, scents, textures and flavours of our food. By mindfully connecting with what we put in our bodies we can feel much more grounded and connected to our experience, The children played their favourite game "friends and enemies" which is always high energy; before joining Miss Hayley in a guided candle-gazing exercise.

Sports day was such fun; the children had practised very little but it was joyous to see collaboration both in the team races and the paired races (3-legged & wheelbarrow). However, some children still need to work on their communication styles and we will be helping them in the coming year! We enjoyed seeing all the children playing together and to have all the families picnicking together is such a highlight of the school calendar.

We had a number of lovely presentations before the end of term. Subjects as diverse as: Coral reef research, Wild Cats, Politics and Transport were shared with the class. With so much to get finished off, this year many of the children chose to work quietly whilst listening respectfully to their peers' presentations, asking questions at the end. The buzz in the classroom has been wonderful and we hope to build on that positive energy after the break.

The children's annual publication was a highlight for many, with everyone gleefully spotting their own work in print. This year we had to be very selective as there were so many poems, stories and ideas submitted. The children were involved in the editing process and some friends have thought to self-publish a book of their work exclusively next year.

As we look toward the long break no doubt you have many plans in mind - topmost being time spent together as a family. We hope you all have an opportunity to rest, relax and reset, creating memories and strengthening family bonds. Consider how you might involve your children and use some of their independent spirit to your benefit over the holidays. Give them opportunities to plan activities, you can support by scaffolding some planning prompts :-

• Where are we going?
  
• How long will it take to get there?
  
• How much are the tickets?
  
• How are we going to get there?
  
• What time will we need to leave?
  
• What will we need to take with us?
  
• What would we like to find out about before we go? or whilst we're there?
  

If you can, use cash, allow the children to handle money, work out how much they need to pay and what change they might get - these practical skills need more practice than you realise.

Some children would enjoy writing a little about each day of their holiday, perhaps they'd like to draw pictures, write poems or stories about their adventures.

Above all, please READ! read with your children, listen to them for a few minutes every day, read to them if you can - even if they're already reading fluently to themselves - everyone loves to listen to a story read by a voice they adore. Let them see you lost in a book!

We hope you have a wonderful summer and we look forward to seeing you on your return in September, we will need scooters for the Friday sports.

Finally, I have to extend huge thanks to the whole team for their dedication, commitment, patience, hard work, creativity, tolerance, kindness, humour and love throughout the last year. Now it's time to rest and relax......

Very best wishes,

Yvonne