Bicker Preparatory School and Early Years

It is with great sadness and an extremely heavy heart that Tuesday 18th July will be our final day at Bicker Preparatory School & Early Years.

The decision to close our wonderful school has not been entered into lightly and has been both incredibly difficult and heart-breaking for us all.

We would therefore like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all our loyal parents, staff and our incredible pupils for making this Term such a positive and memorable time for us all. We would also like to extend our thanks and best wishes to our amazing PTFA and to all of our past pupils, families and staff.

Finally, we would also like to extend our sincerest thanks to the wider Bicker community and to the staff and volunteers at St Swithun’s Church, Bicker Village Hall, the Methodist Chapel and Bicker Parish Council for all their support and amity over the years.

We loved meeting our special guests, Joe and H, who belong to Miss Goodacre and live at her house! �We spent ages observing them and watching how they moved, feeling their bumpy shells and we loved holding them. It was interesting to find out that Joe and H love strawberries. Luckily we had a box of strawberries for them that Miss Goodacre had brought in. They also like eating salad. �Did you know that tortoises have beaks? �We learnt that they hibernate in the winter months. �Spending time with the tortoises was so much fun!

The whole school have really enjoyed taking part in our weekly reading buddies afternoons this term.
We look forward to continuing with this after the Easter break.

In STEM club recently the children have taken part in many different activities, they have used Lego to design vehicles, we have then tested these using the force of a hair dryer as well as using magnetic force. The children discovered that the lighter the vehicle the faster it went, one child said that they needed to make their vehicle more ‘aerodynamic’.
We have also used different materials to design and construct our own marble runs.

In PE recently the children in Nursery and Reception have been learning about chasing and fleeing games, they have learnt the rules of tag and played this successfully. Homies where then introduced, this was extended with a new rule where the children could only stay on the homies for 3 seconds.
The following the week we changed the game slightly so that there were 2 homies at their side of the boundaries, the children had to get from one side to the other safely without being tug.

Gardening club this term has been a huge hit, the children have really enjoyed preparing our planters, transplanting strawberry plants and planting their own seeds. Such as basil, lettuce, runner beans and an array of different flowers.
We loved finding different creatures in the soil and observing them closely.
We look forward to watching these flourish in the coming weeks.

We had a great time on our walk around Bicker. We spotted flowers growing, including Japanese quince flowers. Some of the children took their own photos of flowers and also the name of a house that they read together.
Our final aim was to get to the vegetable stall. When we arrived, we saw a lovely display of vegetables and we then had to make decisions about what we would like to buy. We read the price list together and used our money to buy 2 cabbages, 2 cauliflowers, carrots, parsnips and onions. Our vegetables look great in our ‘farm shop’.

What a celebration!
The whole school took part in a Holi celebration, Holi is a Hindu festival that celebrates spring and new life. It is also called the festival of colours.

At school we held our own Holi festival celebration by throwing brightly coloured powder paint at one another, it was lots of fun and lots of mess.

The PTFA kindly provided some traditional Indian snacks and refreshments for us to enjoy afterwards.