29th March 2022 — Milly Duggin and Penelope Crane-Baker were moved into action after watching the news and learning about the war in Ukraine at school. Knowing that the sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine, they decided to sell the seeds from the sunflowers growing in Penelope’s garden to friends at school and within the local community. The girls sorted the seeds into homemade envelopes and distributed them around Haslemere and Grayshott in shops, cafes and doctor’s surgeries and at St Ives, selling them for £3 an envelope. In the space of two weeks, the girls have raised just over £650 and have now sent the money off to the Disasters Emergency Committee.

St Ives School has also been involved with the Petworth Ukraine Appeal and asked its families to donate from a list of much needed items to be sent over to Ukraine. The school’s families donated with huge generosity and the school filled two vans of supplies which are now on their way to Ukraine.

Kay Goldsworthy, Head Teacher at St Ives School, said “I am very proud of the way the school community has responded to the plight of the Ukrainians and the generosity they have shown. I am especially proud of Milly and Penelope for using their initiative to come up with such a wonderful idea to raise much needed funds for the DEC Ukraine Appeal – not only have they raised over £650 but they have encouraged many local families to plant sunflowers in their gardens in solidarity with Ukraine. They are a perfect example of responsible citizens which is exactly what we educate our pupils to be and I’m sure this fantastic initiative will inspire them to continue to help others throughout their school years and beyond.”

29th March 2022 — Awards were gained in a variety of disciplines, from Drama to Art to Cricket and Swimming to all rounded Academics and Maths, including a Top Academic Scholarship to St Catherine’s in Bramley and an Honorary Head’s Award to King Edward’s Witley. The diversity of the scholarships proves the breadth and depth of the education that St Ives offers and the strength of character of its pupils.

Mrs Kay Goldsworthy, St Ives Head Teacher, said: “We are so proud of all our pupils who have done so well to gain places at their chosen senior schools and to have received so many scholarships is excellent. These accolades prove that our unique offering of small class sizes and specialist teaching ensure our pupils reach their potential in all areas of school life, giving them an excellent grounding for senior school and beyond. They will thrive in their new schools and St Ives wishes them a really bright future.”

15th March 2022 — The children spent the three days exploring all things Shakespeare, from finding out about his life, his writing, the differences between his four types of plays, the period of history in which he wrote as well as the history of the Globe Theatre. The children performed lines from his plays, explored some of Shakespeare’s forgotten words, studied Midsummer Night’s Dream and were even allowed to insult each other in Shakespearian language, which they all found hilarious, of course!

Day two of the festival was a dress up day, where pupils were allowed to come to school dressed as any of Shakespeare’s characters. There was a huge array of costumes from Juliet to Richard III, Cleopatra to Puck, Titania to Roman soldiers and even Shakespeare himself. The children loved dressing up and felt that it really brought the subject to life!

On the third day of the festival, the children enjoyed Shakespeare-inspired workshops run by Divergent Drama, a company who specialise in drama and dance workshops for primary and secondary schools. Pupils enjoyed a range of activities which included creating and performing a mini scene based on a well-known nursery rhyme, acting out scenes and freeze-frames from a "Midsummer's Night Dream", and hurling Shakespearean-inspired insults to each other as part of a fun team competition. Finally, the children enjoyed a Midsummer Night’s Dream Forest School afternoon, which rounded off the three-day festival in superb fashion.

Kay Goldsworthy, Head Teacher at St Ives, said “Our Shakespeare Festival has been a fantastic and fun way of introducing Shakespeare to all of our pupils and to give them a good understanding of the period of history in which his plays were written. All of them will study his plays at secondary school, and we are sure this three-day introduction will give them an excellent grounding on which to enjoy watching and studying his plays in the future.”

11th February 2022 — The week began with a whole school assembly, led by St Ives’ newly appointed Wellbeing Champion, Mrs Cooper, who encouraged the children to think about how we all grow, both physically and emotionally, and how much of the way we grow emotionally is down to the people who surround us and support us. The children were then asked to draw a support balloon and fill it with the names of everyone who supports them and add to it throughout the week. The children were also encouraged to see every knock back or failure as a learning opportunity, on which to build and improve until they eventually succeed. These disciplines are already very familiar to the children at St Ives, who have been working under the Building Learning Power Model for several years, in which Resilience, Relationships, Reflectiveness and Resourcefulness are taught in all disciplines.

St Ives has always had a very strong pastoral provision, which has only increased in the last couple of years, as children have had to cope with the challenges of Covid, with remote learning and school closures. St Ives is a small school, where every child is known as an individual and kindness is the most revered characteristic. Since Mrs Cooper’s appointment as Wellbeing Champion, she has introduced a Wellbeing Club that runs every week, as well as Wellbeing Drop-ins and one-to-one sessions for any children that need them. In addition to their friendship bench and worry box, she has introduced a ‘gratitude’ box where children can post messages of gratitude and appreciation, which are read out in Friday’s assemblies. There is also a thought for the week placed on tables in the dining room for the children to consider. This week’s message was ‘Don’t wait for the opportunity, create it!’

Children’s Mental Health week ended with a ‘Dress to Express’ day, where the children could wear whatever they liked to express their unique personalities. There was a huge array of different colours and themes on display. Mrs Cooper even came to school dressed as a unicorn!

Head Teacher, Mrs Kay Goldsworthy, said “Children’s Mental Health Week is a fantastic initiative and one we always support. However, we know that looking after our children’s mental health is our most important job and that’s why we nurture it all year round, not just during Mental Health Week. One of our mottos is ‘Happy children are the best learners’ and that is evident in our excellent academic results, but most importantly, in the way we turn out kind, caring, bright and community-spirited individuals.”

10th February 2022 — Pupils’ recent STEM lessons have centred around forensic science and the skills needed within the subject. Pupils have learnt to recognise and classify fingerprints by looking at fingerprint ridge patterns and zooming in on microscopes to see individual ridge characteristics within each pattern type. They have learnt to analyse hair and fibre sampling, by looking at visible characteristics, such as colour and thickness, as well as magnifying hair samples by one hundred with a digital microscope, enabling them to look at the structure of the hair and see how the nature of different parts, such as the cortex, helped identify hair of different species and identify humans. Lastly, they have been learning how to test synthetic blood using mock Anti-A serum, Anti-B serum, and Anti-RH serum to determine the b​lood type of each sample to build a picture of a possible scene and the victim / suspect.

With all these newly acquired skills, St Ives’ Head of STEM, Miss Smith, decided to create a murder scene and challenge the children to work out who committed the murder! Pupils were split into 4 groups with each group working together to gather as much evidence as possible from the scene, including fingerprints, fibre traces, hair and even blood for blood group testing (thankfully, synthetic!), as well as a rogue earring! Each group was given 5 minutes to examine the crime scene before they headed out to interview key suspects. Many of the staff were questioned – it was most disconcerting for them! When the children had finished their enquiries, the groups re-gathered to consult each other and the school’s ‘Chief of Police’, Miss Smith, before making their arrest. Two of the groups were convinced Mrs Owen, St Ives’ Head of Maths, had committed the crime, but the other two groups believed it was Senora Clutterbuck, St Ives’ Head of Spanish. On consultation and guidance from the school’s Chief of Police, the evidence was conclusive that the perpetrator was Senora Clutterbuck. Needless to say she spent the weekend in the St Ives County jail and was back teaching Spanish as usual at the start of this week!

Head Teacher, Mrs Kay Goldsworthy, said “STEM is a new subject within the St Ives curriculum and is already proving an excellent way of teaching teamwork, problem solving and critical thinking – all skills the children will need at secondary school and beyond. The topic on forensic science has proved especially popular and the murder mystery afternoon was a huge success. I was a little horrified that so many of the Year 6 pupils questioned me over the murder, but I have managed to forgive them …..mostly!”

20th January 2022 — The children and their parents enjoyed many different activities together from rope swinging to den building, to making bird feeders to playing in the mud kitchen. Everyone had a fantastic morning and all the children left with a goodie bag and a homemade St Ives cookie!

St Ives school believes passionately in the value of Forest School and all pupils from Nursery to Year 3 enjoy Forest School on a weekly basis. The school has a dedicated Forest School Leader, Mrs Greatbatch, who organised the Toddler Tuesday event. She said “It was so lovely to hold our first Toddler Tuesday event and see so many families enjoying the forest together. Being in nature is a fantastic way of helping children develop social and communication skills along with confidence and self-esteem and, most importantly, it’s great fun!”

St Ives is holding Toddler Tuesday Forest Fun events on the second Tuesday of each month during term time – 8th February, 8th March, 10th May and 14th June. They are also holding a Forest Fun day on Saturday 12th March which is open to 2-7 year olds.