THORNERS CE VA PRIMARY SCHOOL
Litton Cheney, Dorchester, Dorset, DT2 9AU
Tel: 01308 482410
Email: office@thorners.dorset.sch.uk
Web site: http://www.thorners.dorset.sch.uk/
Head Teacher: Jyotsna Chaffey
SCHOOL NEWSLETTER - FEBRUARY 2012
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The Spring Term saw the children returning happy and relaxed after their Christmas break.
We had a lovely service in church on our first Thursday back, 5 January. The children enjoy walking to church and it is heart-warming to see the older children helping the younger ones along the road. Our Year 6 children have the privilege of being bellringers and were in fact complimented on their bellringing by those present. The bellringers get to church ahead of the rest of the school and it is a beautiful sound, hearing the bells ringing out as we approach the church. The children enjoyed seeing the Christmas tree and decorations in church. We are so lucky to have this warm and strong support from our local community.
We have a feast of sports this term – volleyball in school, swimming lessons in Bridport and various cluster events including a dance festival, a golf festival, netball, football and cross country running! |
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Bredy have ten weeks of music lessons in wind instruments – flute and recorder. We now have a range of instruments being taught in school – violin, viola, guitar, saxophone, recorder, clarinet, flute, keyboard and, our latest addition, drums. Our orchestra is going strong and plays at most of our concerts and services.
Our drama club has started – more than half our children have joined and we are looking forward to their end-of-term performance. |
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Eggardon walked round Litton Cheney as part of their History topic – the History of the Bride Valley. The walk sparked off good discussion on how old the houses were, what they were made of and how their use had changed over the centuries. We would welcome anyone who could come in and talk to the children about their memories of the area.
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SCHOOL NEWSLETTER - MARCH 2012
The children have been busy!
The Eggardon children made Christingles for the church service at Puncknowle on Sunday, 22 January. They had a great time making the Christingle oranges and we kept an eye on the sweets!
The children had a ‘shoebox’ assembly on Friday, 27 January. A slide show and presentation showed them how their contributions to ‘shoeboxes’ (collected at Christmas) are used across the world.
Staff from Monkeyworld came to school to appeal for spare towels, sheets, blankets, duvet covers, pillowcases, anything that is not stuffed or crocheted – to help keep the monkeys warm!
The children have been learning new ICT skills: Chesil have enjoyed learning how to move and control ‘Roamers’ - wheeled directional gadgets. Eggardon have been recording ‘TV interviews’ related to their literacy work.
Chesil had a great time measuring trees in the Discovery Area!
The Farmhouse Breakfast in LATCH, on Saturday 21 January, was a huge success, raising over £600 for the TSA. There was a book stall, the school Gardening Club sold plants and trees they had raised and the children provided live music.
The following Monday the whole school had a breakfast of porridge and muesli prepared in school by our parents and helpers – thank you. The children enjoyed it so much they asked for more! And so… the next school breakfast will be on Monday, 23 April. This being St George’s Day, it will be the full English! Any donations of eggs, bacon, and sausages welcome nearer the time!
In order to raise funds for TSA, Fledglings and Dementia UK, two of our parents - Kate Smith and Sandy Burton - are running the Bath Half Marathon on 11 March. All money raised will be split 50-50.
Jyotsna Chaffey, Headteacher
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BRIDE VALLEY FLEDGLINGS
Bride Valley Fledglings Preschool
Thorner’s CE VA School
School Lane
Litton Cheney
Dorchester
DT2 9AU
Tel: 01308 482410
Email: office@bridevalleyfledglings.com
Website: http://www.bridevalleyfledglings.com/
In September 2005 the ‘Bride Valley Fledglings’, a playgroup for 3 to 5 year olds, formerly in Puncknowle, began operating from Thorners School. The stated aims of the Group are listed under three main headings:
· Personal, Social and Emotional Development
This underpins all the areas - it is about confidence, self-esteem, control, relationships, attitudes and dispositions for learning and a sense of community.
· Communication, Language and Literacy
The majority of this area is about communication , there is a strand for language for thinking, a strand for reading and a strand for writing.
· Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy
This is concerned with the concept of numbers and how it is applied in everyday life, it includes numbers for labels and counting, calculating, shape, space and measured.
Fledglings is based at Thorner’s School with its own dedicated playroom - plus lots more facilities. We are open on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays all day with hot lunches possible, or children can bring their own packed lunch. If you have a child ready to come to pre-school ring Fiona Evans on 01308 482410, or just drop in to have a look around.
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FLEDGLINGS NEWSLETTER - FEBRUARY 2010 |
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I missed the BVN deadline last month so, to fill you in:
In December the children made snowmen for the Four Seasons display and a Postman Pat van to deliver Christmas cards, Christmas crackers and lanterns.
We had our party on the last day of term and played lots of games, after going to the church service. On 9th December parents organised a Christmas sale in LATCH with stalls, bottle tombola, face-painting, nearly new clothes, refreshments and a raffle with really good prizes. For example a meat voucher from Kingston Maurward, which I actually won!
On Tuesdays, when Fiona is at college, Emma Green has been helping out and enjoying working with the children again.
Spring term started on January 5th and 2 new children came along to play. In January, we have been talking about Spring coming and we have tidied up the garden - everybody helped. We had fun with lots of messy play too.
Fledglings is open on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays all day with hot lunches possible, or children can bring their own packed lunch. If you have a child ready to come to pre-school ring Fiona Evans on 01308 482410, or just drop in to have a look around. Fledglings is based at Thorner’s School with its own dedicated playroom - plus lots more facilities. |
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OUR COMMUNITY PROJECT NEEDS YOU
Please can you help our voluntary project at Thorners School?
We are a very small group of families who have been working for a year now to tackle the thorns and regenerate an acre of land at Thorners School into an outdoor learning and conservation Discovery Area. The project, once cleared and completed, will be also available for use from the other Bridport Cluster Schools.
Last month we won the Dorset Wild Life Trusts second prize as a community wildlife garden, so we must be doing something right! We have planted an orchard, funded by the Dorset AONB, a living willow Story Dome, and an Edible Forest Garden, where all the plants have been donated from Freecycle. We are sowing a wild flower meadow area, building study decks, a wetlands area, butterfly and bird gardens, history and science zones, and much more.
How can you help us?
There are many ways in which we need your help. So far we have relied on word of mouth but, wanting to push the project onto its next stages, we felt it time that the Valley know about our cause.
Firstly, we are falling short of many materials for the project, and still need paving slabs, bricks, wood, cut hazel and willow, fruit bushes, native plants, bulbs, plastic one litre drinks bottles, car & tractor tyres, wooden posts, broken tiles, garden tools, wheelbarrows, tree slices, sand, gravel and so much more !
Secondly, if you are someone who likes being outdoor, and would like to help us develop the plans, we would love you to join us - everyone welcome, any age !
Lastly, we need woodworkers to help us make structures and benches, and people who would like to try their hand at wildlife gardening too.
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SCHOOL HISTORY
Grateful acknowledgement is made to Mr Jack Bailey, a former Head Teacher of the school, for all his hard work in tracing the history of both the school and its benefactor Mr Robert Thorner.
Thorner's is one of the oldest surviving village schools in Dorset. It was an independently endowed school founded in 1690 by Robert Thorner of Baddesley, near Southampton.
In his will of May 1690, Robert Thorner bequeathed all his real estate in the City of London to his executors and the rents were to be used for 'the maintenance of a free school in Litton, to teach the male children to read, write, cast accounts and grammar from the age of 6 to 15, the schoolmaster to be nominated by the Trustees'.
It is not certain when the school was set up but it is probable that a Thomas Davies, buried in the churchyard in 1746, was its master. By about 1750 a house 'for the habitation of the schoolmaster' and a small schoolroom 18ft. by 27ft. had been built by the Trustees.
The Rev. Mr Kirkup was at the Charity School in 1793, followed by the Rev. R. Seward in 1816. They were followed by a master who 'disseminated Unitarian Principles in a manner so offensive that the parents refused to send their children to his school'.
In 1834 the Charity Commissioners found that no money had been spent on repairs and recommended that the schoolroom should be rebuilt - this took 40 years! In 1868, as the result of a visit by the School Enquiry Commission, the villagers raised the necessary £230 to provide the schoolroom which is still in use today (Class 3).
From this time on Thorner's Trust was the legal owner. The school was managed by six governors and the education side taken over by the Board of Education, later the Local Authority, but the village had to maintain the buildings. Soon after it became the junior and infant school which it remains today. In 1952 it was known as Litton Cheney Voluntary Aided Church of England School, but a few years later, after negotiations, it became Thorner's Litton Cheney Church of England Voluntary Aided School.
In 1968 two new classrooms, a dining room/hall and canteen kitchen (no longer in use as a kitchen) were added at a cost of £20 000. The following year Hill Close was converted into a playing field and the School Parents' Association provided a heated swimming pool. John Foxwell became Head Teacher, being the last of the 'Masters' to live in the house.
Stephen Mason, who left in 1999, was the first Head Teacher not to occupy the house During his time numbers increased and it was necessary to incorporate the schoolhouse into the teaching area so, in 1995, the fourth classroom, spacious staffroom, library and staff toilet/shower room were opened.
In September 1999 Alison Johnstone took up the Headship.
In September 2005 the ‘Fledglings’, a playgroup for 3 to 5 year olds, formerly in Puncknowle, began operating from the school.
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