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• The Children of Green Knowe

  Fri 12 Jan 2024 S Talmage

  "You are another Toseland like your grandfather... I used to call him Tolly."

   

  Toseland is the name of a village near The Manor at Hemingford Grey, where Lucy Boston wrote her ghost story, The Children of Green Knowe, and it is the name of the main character. The book is set at the manor house, on the banks of the River Ouse and you can still visit the house today. You can see where the river might flood the garden and the topiary deer that Tolly and Linnet loved.

   

  https://www.greenknowe.co.uk/

  

• Christmas at The Vine

  Tue 09 Jan 2024

  The festivities began with a film and craft evening for the pupils, enjoyed by everyone.

   

  On Thursday 7^th the pupils took part in a ‘Rudolph Run’ to raise funds for the Arthur Rank Hospice.  All the pupils were invited to run 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 laps of the playground sporting Rudolph antlers to get them in the festive spirit.

  We were joined by Arthur Bear who created great excitement when he arrived to the special worship that day. The school raised an amazing £913 for this worthy cause.

   

  Year 2 performed their Nativity on Tuesday 12^th and Wednesday 13^th December – ‘The Inn-Spectors’.  Six inspectors visit Bethlehem to check that all the inns are up to scratch.  They are horrified to find that a baby has been born in one of them.  However, as the story is told to them by Mary, Joseph and the Donkey, they realise that this is a very special baby and that the stable is fit for a king.

   

  With soldiers, baaing sheep, talking donkeys and stern inspectors, the play was thoroughly enjoyed by all.  The children sang their hearts out and worked so hard to learn their lines.  All the adults in Year 2 were extremely proud of them.

   

  There were many more festivities enjoyed including the Early Years Choral Nativity, Year 1 Festive Singing, Carol Singing around the Christmas Tree for Years 3, 4, 5 and 6. It’s been truly wonderful to hear the practising around school and to invite the parents to enjoy this too. The pupils concluded their activities with creating their own Christingle, the annual visit and service at Cambourne Church and of course Christmas Dinner.

   

  Hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas break and best wishes for the New Year.

  

• Here be dragons!

  Thu 04 Jan 2024 S Talmage

  It is said that on medieval maps, cartographers drew pictures of dragons, with the legend hic sunt dracones ('here be dragons' in Latin) in unknown territories where they thought that what was actually there might be dangerous.

   

  Dragons have been part of mythology for thousands of years, in tales from all around the world. The oldest stories dates from the ancient Near East about 4000 years ago. No-one really knows where the idea of dragons came from - it might be because of people's fear of snakes, or because they found dinosaur bones that they didn't understand.

   

  What do you think? Did dragons really exist?

  

• Year 2 Love Reading!

  Wed 15 Nov 2023 C Gawthrope

  We have taken inspiration from Little Red Reading Hood, a book written by Lucy Rowland and Ben Mantle. This is all about a little girl who loves reading in any and every nook and cranny she can find. She spends all day and all night reading, which eventually gets her in trouble with the Big Bad Wolf in the woods on her way to the library. Luckily, she uses her quick thinking to rescue herself and the librarian from him, by letting him know that he can let his imagination take him anywhere he wants and create his own stories and happy endings. 

   

  We followed Little Red's example by finding nooks and crannies around our school that are perfect for reading in, and were surprised by just how many there were! We also took a trip to the woods to help us imagine what it would have been like on her journey through the woods to get to the library. Finally, we reenacted parts of the story to help us imagine what it would have been like in different character's shoes. It was great fun and the children impressed and entertained us with their acting skills.

   

  To conclude our unit, we used our experiences to write a parallel story about Little Red Writing Hood - all about a little girl who loves writing anywhere she can. We really enjoyed this topic and have been inspired to keep up the reading anywhere we can!

   

  

• Year 4 Burwell House Residential

  Fri 20 Oct 2023 A Foster

  On 2^nd-4^th October 2023, Year 4 went on their first residential visit to Burwell House, Burwell, Cambridgeshire. Burwell House is a grand, beautifully decorated house which sits on 3 acres of land. It was built in 1787 and was enjoyed as a family home for many generations. In 1964, it was bought by Cambridgeshire County Council for £15,000 and today, it welcomes around 80 primary schools on residential visits each year. Year 4 were ecstatic to be one of these visitors this year.

  During their 2-night visit, Year 4 completed a range of teambuilding and Geography based activities. These included:

  • The Snail Game which helped pupils to acclimatise to the environment.
  • Smugglers Mystery where pupils had to use map reading skills to find clues and solve the mystery.
  • The Great Eggscape Challenge where pupils completed a range of teambuilding games to collect points. These points were then used in the evening to build contraptions to protect real eggs which were then dropped off the fire escape. A cracking time was had by all!
  • Meet a Tree, a blindfolded challenge where children had to guess which tree in the grounds they had been guided to meet.
  • Burwell Challenge, a tricky obstacle course.
  • Shelter Building and Fire Lighting which were great fun and helped the pupils to learn essential skills.
  • Burwell Orienteering Challenge where teams went out around the village and competed against each other to earn the most points.
  • Burwell Fox, a firm favourite where the farmers (teachers) had to try and catch the foxes (children).

   

  Whilst there, Year 4 also enjoyed a quiz night and a cozy film night. They also thoroughly enjoyed the delicious food served during family-style mealtimes.

   

  “I loved Burwell House. It was extremely fun!” - Aya

  “My favourite activity was the fire lighting because it was really interesting.” – Leon

  “The food was amazing and the staff were very helpful.” - Somaiyah

   

  A huge thank you to the wonderful staff at Burwell House and The Vine for ensuring Year 4 had an unforgettable residential trip!

  

• The Enormous Turnip

  Mon 25 Sep 2023

  Garden Club have been harvesting this week. In the Spring term, After School Club read the story of 'The Enormous Turnip', where lots of people including some animals helped each other to pull up a particularly large turnip.  Sadly, we didn't need a team of helpers to pull up our turnips this year, but we did grow some impressive marrows and sweetcorn.  If you want to see some huge vegetables this Autumn, then don't miss the Gransden Show on Saturday 30^th September.  gransdenshow.org.uk/Gransden_Show/

  

• A fabulous donation of books!

  Thu 14 Sep 2023 Sarah Talmage

  A huge THANK YOU goes to one of our Vine families, who donated a massive selection of books to augment our Accelerated Reader library. Fans of Dirty Bertie will be especially delighted with a full set of his horrible exploits, and anyone who loves Jacqueline Wilson will have plenty to enjoy.

  

• Warm welcome at The Vine School

  Tue 12 Sep 2023 P Hynes

   

  I am delighted to have been appointed as the new headteacher for The Vine and I am very much looking forward to getting to know all the pupils, parents, carers and staff. I feel extremely honoured and privileged to have been chosen to continue to develop this fantastic school onto the next stage of its journey. 

  As a parent, my goal has always been to ensure my children are happy in life, try and provide as many opportunities for them so they can achieve their potential. This is the same philosophy I bring to my role as Head Teacher.

  At The Vine we aim to develop their: academic ability (Head), their character and wellbeing (Heart) and problem solving and creative skills (Hand) and this holistic approach to education will allow each child to flourish.

  I look forward to developing the important relationships The Vine holds within the local community and meeting more families over the next few months.

   

  Peter Hynes

• Accelerated Reader

  Tue 05 Sep 2023 Sarah Talmage

  Welcome back!

  Hopefully everyone has read some brilliant books over the summer and is looking forward to sharing them with their friends. Don't forget that AR quizzes can be done on any book that's on the system, so let's get all that summer reading to count towards this term's target.

   

  Renaissance Place have updated their website and we have a new URL:

   

  https://global-zone61.renaissance-go.com/welcomeportal/6700951

   

  If you would like to find out whether a book is on the AR list, or if you would like to go and choose/order particular books from the public library, please visit this website:

   

  https://www.arbookfind.co.uk/advanced.aspx

• Final Accelerated Reader Update

  Thu 20 Jul 2023 Sarah Talmage

  The final update for this year, and these are the children who have reached their Summer 2 target this week:

  Ben, Emily H, Erin, Holly, Jacob, Jasmine, Jenson, Leon, Parnika, Ralph and Sienna (Y3)

  Isha, Ishita, Jack C, Leo, Natalia and Noah (Y4)

  Jessie, Pihu and Sophie (Y5)

   

  Congratulations to our final word millionaire of 2022-23 – Hannah (Y6).

   

  We have some special awards to give for the end of the year. Some children have managed to reach their AR target every half term:

  Amelie, Annabelle, Aya, Chloe, Emilia, Emily H, Esme C, Evelyn, Finley, George G, Holly, Isabelle, Jacob, Leon Z, Lydia, Michael, Penelope, Peter and Vishruth (Y3)

  Anu, Benjamin, Ebrahim, Jacob and Nakshtra (Y4)

  Ankita, James, Jessie, Krithik, Pihu, Robert and Sophie (Y5)

   

  The class with the highest word count is Tanzanite Class with over 25 million words!! The children with the highest word counts are:

  Year 3 - Lydia

  Year 4 - Ebrahim

  Year 5 - Robert

  Year 6 - Maryam

   

  And a special mention for Jasper Class – every single child reached their target this half term!

   

  Finally, a huge thank you to families who have donated books, we will have some fabulous new stories for the children to read in September.