Happy New Year! This morning we held our first all-school puja of the Spring Term, with the theme of beginning the year anew. We began by chanting ‘Om mani padme hum’ together, a mantra associated with the bodhisattva of compassion, then each class read aloud a poem about the new year before we closed with a few moments of silence.

This term we have a number of exciting activities to look forward to, culminating in another visit by our friends from Plum Village in March (dates tbc) before we break for Easter. We are preparing to take part in Brighton’s Children’s Parade in May, and as part of our 20^th Anniversary celebrations, we will also be launching an all-school project this term, focusing on Random Acts of Kindness (RAK), a global initiative which is in alignment with our Buddhist ethos. More details will follow and we hope the entire school community will get involved.

Across the school each class has been preparing for the new term - here is an overview of some of the exciting activities that will be happening over the coming weeks:

Our Nursery children in Sunflower will be learning all about the weather and about feelings, and are also taking part in a Healthy Early Years (HEY) initiative being run by Brighton and Hove council. TA Julie has been on an HEY Healthy Choice course about food and nutrition, which aims to raise awareness about healthy school lunchbox food.

Dragonfly (Reception class) will be learning all about transport and are going on a bus trip. Another planned topic is ‘growing’ and they’ll be planting seeds and also learning about how children grow. The class is also looking forward to celebrating Pancake Day and Chinese New Year.

Mountain’s key topic this half term is Early Peoples and the children will be making a prehistoric cave dwelling in the classroom and decorating it with their own pigments made from natural materials. They will be learning about multiplication and division in Numeracy and comparing the properties of different materials in Science.

Japan is Ocean’s main topic and they will be making bento boxes (for sushi) as part of learning about shapes and space in Numeracy. In an ICT lesson they will also create their own ad campaigns for their bento boxes and will write haikus as part of Literacy. A visit to the British Museum (to view the Japanese collection) is also planned. Ocean teachers Ross and Gill will also be teaching some new sports activities - Ross will be teaching the children squash at Withdean Leisure Centre and Gill will offer Gymnastics and Movement.

Lotus class are studying Ancient Greece this term and will be making pottery and reading some of the Iliad. This week’s ‘junior reporter’ is Kip from Lotus class, who explains more about what they’ve been up to this week:

“This term we are starting a new topic which is all about ancient Greece. I did some homework on Greek gods and myths and we did a timeline of when everything happened which was a long time ago. In our class puja we talked about New Year’s resolutions. We came up with things like helping more around the house, walking the dog more often, learning to cook things instead of just beans on toast, and doing more sport and exercise. My New Year’s resolution is to work harder and to try new things. I am quite fussy with food and I’m not a big fan of tomatoes, potatoes or salad, but this year I am going to try ratatouille. Our class is also going to learn how to play squash, Ross is going to teach us, so that will be another new thing to try.”

This week’s ‘junior reporter’ is Summer from Ocean class: “For ‘Talk for Writing’ we wrote down the story of Noah’s Ark and we are now doing our own stories to represent Noah’s Ark. It’s a helpful way of learning because we think it, say it, write it, then read it. My favourite lesson this week was art; we made shadow stick puppets for the ‘Buddha’s Life’ play we are doing for the Xmas Factor at the end of term. Soon we are going to a museum to learn more about the Buddha’s life. We are also doing sessions about what meditation can help with. When you close your eyes to meditate you notice your breathing and can send good thoughts to people. We learnt that meditation can help us not see things through angry eyes; if we want to change how someone is behaving to us then changing ourselves and how we are towards them could help them change too.”

Phil, our Acting Teaching Head, discusses the learning technique, Talk4Writing: “If you attended a Friday puja a few weeks ago, you would have been entertained by Lotus children’s spirited oral account of the notorious Manchester Ridgeback dragon. And if you had been present last Friday, you would surely have been impressed by their writing on subjects such as the various other dragons they have spotted, or the industrious habits of the beaver. These presentations are the result of a technique called ‘Talk for Writing’, which aims to show how the quality of children’s written work can be transformed through their participation in meaningful oral activities before the act of writing. This approach is well established in Ocean and Lotus classes, and is being incorporated into the curriculum in Dragonfly and Mountain. Staff members will happily give an equally spirited demonstration of the process to all who may be interested. Let us know if this appeals to you!”

Photo: Ocean class self-portraits of meditation practice

This week in brief…

Now that Autumn is well and truly here, we have all been busy sweeping up the leaves in the school grounds…and making Autumnal artwork! Mountain class are now visiting the woodland site in Pyecombe for Eco-Play every Wednesday and we’ll be holding our ‘Community campfire, food and songs’ event at the site soon.

This week’s ‘junior reporter’ is Rory form Lotus class: “This week as part of RE we studied Noah’s Ark, read some of the Bible and learnt about Judaism – in art we made a collage of a dove and the sea, the dove is a symbol of peace. In Maths we are doing equivalent fractions which is challenging but quite fun. In music we started preparing songs for our end-of-term ‘Xmas Factor’ and in yoga we did sun salutations which really stretched our bone structure. In literacy we had to pick a place and then write about that scene – what you can hear, smell and see. I picked a river with rapids flowing up and down. I really did like the fractions, that was my favourite thing we did this week.”

Other news

New Trustees
We welcome two new members to our board of trustees - Kris Fernandes and Jeanette Adair. Read their bios on the Trustees page of the school website.

Mindfulness in Education
On Tuesday, Bea (Acting Administrative Head) and Alison (Head of Nursery) spoke at a national conference in London, Mindfulness in the Curriculum about our school’s ethos. They are writing a brief report about the event which we will post on the school website.

Media Coverage - ISA Journal
The latest edition of the ISA Journal (the magazine of the Independent School Association) includes an article about Mindfulness in Education which features the school.