Extracts from Cross Talk

This page features interesting events that have been included in the Cross Talk magazine.

 

From the December edition:

News from Dishforth Church of England School

Wow! One class has been looking at ‘Creation and Thanksgiving’ in their Religious Education lessons this term. They’ve not just been ‘learning the facts’, but have been encouraged to consider the awesomeness of creation, to wonder, to be inspired to give thanks … and to ask some ‘big questions’. Here’s a selection of some of their questions:

Who made God?

How did God make the world just by speaking and without any tools?

Why do God’s things always happen and ours don’t?

Were Adam and Eve Christians?

Which God made the world?

Where did God live when he was making the world?

The age of these children? 5 – 7 years! So, come on – what sort of things would you be saying if you were engaging in discussion with these children? They’re asking these questions … they know that most of them don’t have ‘right and wrong’ answers … but they want to discuss them. We can’t let them down.

The older children spent time in November thinking about Remembrance Day and wrote some very thoughtful and moving poems.

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News from Baldersby St James Church of England School

It has been a busy time at Baldersby St James C of E school. We ended our year with the purchase of a school mini bus because, as a small school, we want to make a firm commitment to using our local area as a teaching resource. Already we have benefitted by taking our junior class to their weekly swimming lessons in Ripon; taking them to see a French play; participating in a dance festival and football tournament; and the infants will be enjoying a trip to the York Railway museum to continue their learning about transport.

We don’t stop there. Our parents have been extremely helpful in helping us swap classrooms and, as a result of this, our early years provision has been greatly improved.

Our thriving Friends of Baldersby St James have been busy too, led by parent Jackie Avison who collected the apples in our orchard and took them to be professionally made into apple juice. We now have 170 bottles of Baldersby St James School apple juice that you can buy directly from school or by visiting the Baldersby farm shop.

To continue with this theme, we have had 4 new additions to the school family in the arrival of hens. The school hens were kindly donated by school governor David Potter and we now sell free range eggs. In addition to all of this, one of our parents Mr & Mrs Burrell have built the most amazing cart for school to be able to sell this produce. This whole project will be run by the children who will be shown how to financially manage a business as well as ensuring our live stock are well looked after.

If you are interested in seeing what we do in school, please ring 01765 640277 to make an appointment where the headteacher, Mr Stewart, will be happy to show you the changes that are making a real difference to the school.