13th November 2020 — On Wednesday 11th November, Northbourne Park School held its annual Remembrance Service. With the current guidelines making it difficult to hold the service in the church, it was held in the grounds of the school.

Every member of the school community planted a cross with the name of a relative who had served in wartime. The Headmaster read out the Roll of Honour of those from the Betteshanger and Ham locality as well as the school who had fallen in the First and Second World Wars. The school then observed the two minute silence. The Headmaster’s address to the school also included remembering those in the present who are doing so much to serve us, in particular hospital staff all around the world.

Headmaster, Sebastian Rees said: “It is just as important as ever to mark Armistice Day with our respect and gratitude for others. In such a tough year, it has helped us as a community to be united and remember those both in the past and the present who have made such enormous sacrifices.”

7th December 2019 — On Friday 29th November, the senior pupils of Northbourne Park School visited Ypres in Belgium for the Christmas Truce tour.

The pupils met a WW1 ‘recruiting sergeant’ who was keen to persuade them to sign-up for the British Expeditionary Force followed by another sergeant who talked them through a new recruit’s kit including rifle, puttees, helmet and the famous trench coat.

For lunch they tucked into a trench meal made up of vegetable stew and Belgian sausage. Later at Plugstreet Wood cemetery, the tour guide showed us the location of trenches where the truce between German and English soldiers took place. At the Hooge Crater Museum, they re-enacted the truce and our pupils joined in with a rendition of ‘Silent Night’. After an evening meal in Ypres town, the tour culminated with the Heads of School laying a wreath in the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate, the memorial for over 54,000 soldiers who died in Belgium and have no known grave.

Christie Riley, Head of History said: “All the children were exemplary throughout the day and I am sure this tour has had a powerful impact on them, often raising more questions than answers.”

23rd October 2019 — South & South East in Bloom shows its support for our native wildlife and sees an increase in the opportunities for learning about the environment around us. This year's School's Environmental Challenge was to find the schools that contributed the most to caring for our fragile environment, using the school grounds to encourage and support wildlife and the wider educational value this brings to children and pupils.

From January to June this year, all the children at the Pre-Prep were involved in completing many different tasks to support the challenge. The evidence was documented in a detailed portfolio.

Some of the many tasks the children completed included how the school seeks to encourage wildlife such as bird feeders, bird boxes and planting appropriate plants for wildlife. Also, what actions are taken to reduce the school’s environmental impact such as recycling, conserving energy, water harvesting.

Gillian Rees, Head of Pre-Prep, said: “We are very proud to have achieved the 2019 Gold Award in this challenge. The children and staff all enjoyed taking part and are already looking forward to next year’s Challenge”.

23rd October 2019 — On Monday 14th October, Northbourne Park School welcomed a life size baby blue whale made from waste plastic packaging, to highlight the school’s intention to work towards ‘plastic free school’ status. The 'Plastic Free School' status scheme, co-ordinated by Surfers Against Sewage, encourages pupils to take the lead on tackling the use of plastic across the school. A current parent remarked, “What a fantastic visual impact the whale has. It was a great discussion point for our children."

The newly formed Northbourne Park School Eco Team have been investigating areas of the school where plastic could be cut down. The Eco Team plan to talk to the school's catering department as well as contacting school suppliers and raising awareness among other pupils and parents. Year 6 Eco team member Lily Sainsbury says, “I think the whale is a great way of getting the message out, and lots of parents have been taking photos of it so hopefully this will get them thinking.” The whale was created by local environmental group East Kent Climate Action, and is going to appear at various local events to raise awareness across the district of the hazards of plastic ending up in the ocean. It has already inspired pupils from the Nursery, who visited the whale and practised reading words they could recognise on the packaging, while Year 5 pupils were inspired to write about it in their English lesson.

Liz Hayes, Head of Geography and co-ordinator of the school Eco Team is passionate about helping young people take action for the environment. “Our pupils are aware of the problems our planet is facing, but are frustrated they can’t do anything. Working towards ‘Plastic Free School’ status will help them achieve something tangible within our school.” Eco Team members have been making plastic-free decorations out of recycled comics, to show the possibility of decorating for parties without the need for plastic balloons and banners. Next term they will turn their attention to Christmas, sharing ideas on how we can cut plastic use in the festive season, both at school and home.

12th September 2019 — What better way to start a new academic year than to hold an Olympiad. On Saturday 7th September all the children at Northbourne Park School took part in this annual event. It is a great opportunity for all the children old and new to work together and make new friends.

This was the 11th Olympiad and is always the first Inter-House trophy up for grabs in the school calendar. The event is always eagerly anticipated and the school was buzzing with great excitement as the children represented one of the four school houses; Drake, Marlborough, Nelson or Wellington.

As always, the children took part in a wide range of activities: Welly Throwing, a Maths Quiz, Science Challenge, Design & Technology, Hit Ball, Netball Shooting, Outdoor Challenge, Poetry Writing, and a Languages Challenge. After a keenly contested and terrific morning of competition, the winning house this year was Nelson. Congratulations go to all the competitors – a truly wonderful team effort.

Craig Riley, Director of Sports said: “It is always superb to see how each child forms a mutual bond and is able to bridge gaps regardless of age or culture, in order to achieve great success with a team environment. As in the past this was a wonderful morning of Inter-House competition, with each individual having the opportunity to contribute towards House spirit and learning what it is to work as a community.”

23rd May 2019 — On Thursday 16th May the Northbourne Park School Pre-Prep orchard was filled with some amazing scarecrows all created by the Nursery and Pre-Prep children for the annual scarecrow competition.

Over the past few weeks children in each year group have been working very hard to design and make a scarecrow for this competition and they did a fantastic job scaring off the crows in the school orchard.

Parent and local farmer, Mr Ledger, who arrived by tractor had a very tough job choosing a winner this year as he thought all the scarecrows were wonderful and would all do a fantastic job in his fields, and therefore chose four winning scarecrows.

Gillian Rees, Head of Pre-Prep, said “The children look forward to our Scarecrow competition every year. It is wonderful to see how much effort goes into each one”