WICORMEDIA
Number 1 September 2016
Don’t forget to follow school life via twitter (@minihorts) or our blogs; Wicor Grounds, Old Joe’s
Blog, Buzzin’ and Cluckin’, Wicor Poets and Wicor’s World. All of these can be accessed via our
website www.wicor.hants.sch.uk .
“I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be
crowded on a velvet cushion.”
Henry Thoreau
Dear All
Autumn has slipped into the room unnoticed and provides its brilliant backdrop to our
first month back at school. It’s been great to see the new children settling in so well
and the new Year R children have started school with a spring in their step and
oodles of confidence.
The first few days back to school always seem strange to me. I feel like an outsider
watching everyone else get on with their work (not that I’m not working I hasten to
add!) – everyone has their place, their focus. But, gradually as the days pass I catch
up with the children and learn what they got up to over the summer and then it’s like
we’ve never been away. There is nowhere quite like a school for this process. Even the
new Year R children are getting to know me. As one of them said to me the other day on
the playground, “Hello Mrs Knight!” With the very young children there really is
nowhere to hide. Mrs Knight and I are still wrestling with that one trying to work out
who has come off worse…no brainer really.
One of the first things I like to do on returning to school is to take a walk around
the grounds and I usually find myself ending up in the orchard.
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This year it’s just undergone its annual scything; part of its journey to becoming a
wildflower meadow. As the flowers and shrubs have taken hold so we have created a
fantastic wildlife area, home to a growing range of beetles, butterflies, moths and
spiders. Our orchard is becoming a top quality learning resource.
Autumn always brings to mind Keats’ poem.
To Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
John Keats
18th September 1819
Penned after a walk along the River Itchen near Winchester, Hampshire
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Out and About
Thank you to Jasmin and Isabelle for the first email of the year and some smashing
pics to go with it. Does life on Earth look different from the trees I wonder?
Dear Mr Wildman
During the summer we went to Go Ape and completed an hour long adventure course in the trees for the
first time. From Jasmine Cotton 6NA and Isabelle Cotton 2M
Thanks also to the Harrison family for their email. Like Sunderland during a General
Election, the Harrisons are usually one of the first families to declare – in this case
what they have been up to over the summer, although sadly it’s without George who is
now discovering Cams.
Dear Mr Wildman
I just wanted to send you this picture of Jack. He had just received his final
page in his booklet for the Summer Reading Challenge at Portchester Library
along with his certificate and medal. He was so pleased with himself! He
really enjoyed getting stuck in to the Reading Challenge this summer; he was
certainly inspired by the brilliant Roald Dahl theme. He did make a couple of
book choices which didn’t really suit but that in itself was a great lesson about
reading and the choices you make. But he stuck at it and went on to read
some great books and completed the challenge last week.
Nice one Jack. Roald Dahl continues to stand out for me as
one of the greatest ever children’s authors although his
adult work is equally compelling.
Happy autumn everyone.
The Wicor Man
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