Community Information

 

Our school is part of the village of Chilmark and our local church is St Margaret of Antioch, which is a short walk away along The Street. We often visit the church and the end of each term is marked by a church service run by Reverend Elaine Brightwell, who is also one of our school governors.

We enjoy participating in village events and inviting our local community to join us and learn from them and their experiences.

Chilmark village have many societies that continue to support the school whether by inviting us to participate in a events or by making very welcome donations of money, time and/or other resources.

Please look out for notifications in our newsletters, and social media, not to mention our calendar for the next event within our local community.

In the last few months our Chilmark pupils have enjoyed the following:

 

January 2024

We had a great unveiling of the beautiful lectern cloth kindly designed and made for the school by Emily of the Chilmark Social Stitchers. It will be a very welcome part of our collective worship and celebration assemblies. We thanked Emily for all of her time and her brilliant interpretation of her conversations with the children about what they would like to see represented on the lectern.

Martin Wallis from Fovant Parish Council presented a prize to one of our pupils who had designed an eye-catching road sign for their recent road safety competition. All of the children who entered received a certificate and the winning design will be on display in Fovant to deter speeding motorists.

 

December 2023 – Christmas Festivities!

Last week of term – December – Year 6 children joined members of the Forbes Field Working Party. Ten enthusiastic planters beavered away to plant seven whitebeams midway between the field entrance on Hops Close and the Orchard. This plot, known as Coronation Grove, commemorates the crowning of King Charles III earlier in the year.

 

13^th December - Carol Singing – starting at school at 5.30pm we made our way around the village stopping at various points to sing carols, finishing at the Reading Rooms where local resident, Chrissie Eden’s annual Christmas Wreath Workshop, was taking place. We entertained the room with not only popular Christmas songs but also several hand bell tunes, played by members of Elm Class. We returned to school by for hot chocolate and a Christmas cookie.

We are also very grateful to Chrissie for donating the money she raised from her wreath-making workshop to the school again this year as we continue to invest in new ipads.

 

13^th December – Christmas Lunch – we welcomed Father Christmas to our school this afternoon and we would like to say a special thank you to Jane Allen who worked her special magic transforming the grotto. We also appreciate the hard work of the Friends who assisted serving lunch in the hall and provided the crackers. Alex Hawkins gave great support to Father Christmas as her helper.

 

3^rd December 2023 - Village resident Mrs Eden came into school this week to work with the children to make decorations for the church. We really value the enrichment work that members of the wider community do with the children. You will be able to admire their work at the carol service next Friday

 

November 2023 – Mungo Melvin judged our Hedgehog themed Christmas Card Competition

We welcomed Mungo Melvin into school to judge our competition. Mungo has been heavily involved in securing the future of Forbes Field which has become a village asset by improving the local living environment.

Did you know, Hedgehogs have been spotted at Forbes Field on their cameras too - could they be the same ones that visit us?

We had an amazing forty entries for the Christmas card design competition and Mungo had the tricky job of identifying a winning design from every year group. Mungo found Year Three the hardest to judge.

It was extremely difficult due to the high standard of cards. I am pleased to announce all entries received a certificate and five house points. The winners earned a hedgehog pin badge which they can wear at school and the designs are currently being made into Christmas cards to be sent out to our community. I'm proud to announce Chilmark's Christmas hog friendly card winners are.... Lincoln (R) Finley (Y1) Ruby (Y2) Phoebe (Y3) Skye (Y4) Alfie (Y5) and Archie (Y6) Congratulations to everybody! We certainly have some talented artists amongst us.

 

July 2023 – Forbes Field, Chilmark – Outdoor learning environment

On Monday 17^th July our classes visited Forbes Field. Forbes Field was gifted to Chilmark by the late Diana Forbes as a village open space and woodland area. The field is an attractive and thriving environment in which people of all ages can enjoy and discover nature. Thank you to Neil Pattenden and Mungo Melvin for introducing the school to this amazing space.

 

June 2023 – Maypole Dancing and FoCS stalls at Chilmark Church Fete

Thank you so much to Wendy Spencer-Smith and Catherine Potts for their support with the maypole dancing. The children did incredibly well on such a hot summer afternoon. Mr Smith was a good sport and went into the stocks and the children and staff, who attended the fete, paid to throw wet sponges at him.

Thank you to all FoCS volunteers who helped run stalls selling ice-creams, soft drinks, lucky dip, guess the number of sweets in a jar. The money raised from our stalls was retained by Friends to help fund school trips and other resources.

 

February 2023 – Visit from local astronomer Rod Greening

Elm Class have been truly inspired by village resident and astronomy expert Rod Greening. His recent visit which has given them so much enrichment regarding their space topic. Mrs Hale & the class were excited to have a dry, clear evening enabling them to have a closer look at the night sky. The children wrapped up warmly to come back into school and afterwards enjoyed hot chocolate. Thank you so much to Mr Greening for giving his time to come and work with the children. Further enrichment is also taking place in Wendy’s dance lessons. They are choreographing a routine to David Bowie’s Space Odyssey.

 

February 2023 – Christopher Wren Exhibition, East Knoyle

This month marked 300 years since Christopher Wren’s death. Christopher Wren, was born in East Knoyle, was an astronomer, mathematician and physicist as well as one of the most highly acclaimed architects in the history of England - best known for designing The Monument to the Great Fire of London and St Paul's Cathedral.

Our school was lucky to be asked to contribute to an exhibition about his life and interests. This gave us a great opportunity to supplement our local history links and other subjects including Elm’s current science topic about space. We are so impressed with the models produced for homework by children in Elm and Sycamore. Oak have also contributed insect models, made with our school art teacher, Vivienne.

 

January 2023 – Local residents visit to talk about history of Chilmark

Visitors from wider community come into the school to talk about local history, we had access to documents that date back to 1916 and others, from the Second World War period, giving details of evacuees who joined the school.