Family Learning in 3B, February 2007

After attending a Family Learning Conference, Mrs Bell was very excited at the thought of taking some of her Year 3 pupils and parents to a residential adult college for Family learning activities. She discussed it with her head, Mrs Hunter who was also keen on the idea. Upon further research she found there was not going to be any funding available for our school! Disappointed but not to be put off, she did a quick costing exercise and then put the suggestion forward to the Home School Partnership Committee. They found the idea very interesting but on reflection felt it was too expensive. The cost for one adult and child at the adult college would be enough to take the whole family away for the weekend.
Mrs Bell was very disappointed but planned the 'normal' Family Learning for her class for the Spring term. Parents would get the opportunity to become involved in a series of curriculum workshops with their children. William Shrewsbury Primary School in Stretton, Burton-on-Trent offer this for at least two year groups annually and they are always very successful and popular.
Just before Christmas, Mrs Hunter was told about an opportunity to bid for some funds from Staffordshire for a residential family learning weekend. Remembering Mrs Bell's eagerness to do this, she immediately filled in the paperwork and HOORAY, the school were SUCCESSFUL! There was great excitement and some urgent planning to sort out.Two of the venues were too busy to fit us in, but David Evans from Pendrell Hall, Nr Wolverhampton gave us a choice of two weekends in March. The only date to really suit the school was March 16th, the weekend of Mothering Sunday. We decided to go for it.

Letters were sent to 3B. From the thirty one children, ten were interested but sadly two dropped out for unavoidable reasons. The maximum number was ten, so eight was not a problem at all. On Friday 23rd March, the group met in the large study and discussed the weekend. Should we go for one or both nights, should we stay for Sunday lunch as it was Mothering Sunday, how shall we get there, what does the place look like? All these thoughts were whizzing in our minds but everyone agreed that it had to be both nights. Excitedly, we looked at the website of Pendrell Hall. It looked great and the images of the building made us look forward to the weekend.
Decisions were made with the help of pupils, parents and teacher. Mrs Hunter and Mrs Bell will visit Pendrell Hall on Wednesday to discuss activities with David Evans. The office will ring coach companies to find out the cost of a coach. Next Friday the first curriculum workshop will be science, but the first session was considered very successful.
Look out for next week's science results!