We are Growing Together!

Our Growing Together week was a huge success, with all age groups coming together, including the staff, to celebrate our theme of Space and Exploration. Mid-week the children buddied together across older and younger forms to take part in a morning of Space Prayers.

Each ‘pair’ of forms was given a prayer with an individual theme, such as Love, Patience, Tolerance, Generosity and Humility to contemplate and discuss, then each group member stamped the prayer with his or her thumbprint, ready for all the prayers to be taken up into space by none other than Farleigh’s own intrepid explorer, the Farleigh bear. Of course, he had to have an astronaut’s name. Potential names were nominated by everyone inside the form groups, then a favourite was put forward for each paired form – at this point, high hopes rested on ‘Apollo’ and ‘Ted Peake’. The names were all given to Mr Matthews and on Friday he announced the winning name, which was - Jupited! For more news on Jupited’s adventures, see Part Two of this Growing Together story.

There can be no better symbol of lasting growth and permanence than a tree, and on the last morning of Growing Together Week each year group gathered to plant its own tree in the Farleigh grounds. This ties in with the Woodland Trust’s Big Climate Fightback, in which they aim to get one million people to plant a tree across the UK by the end of November.

Species were carefully chosen to enhance the Farleigh landscape, from Sweet Chestnut to young Oak, and we look forward to seeing them flourish along with their gardeners! A good bit of vigorous spade work was performed (admittedly with some preparation by our excellent Grounds team) and a lot of joyful faces marked the huge circles around the trees as each form took part in its own ceremony. The children talked with their teachers about the fact that the trees they have planted are likely to be here for them to visit for the rest of their lives, and that they will grow and change along with them as they leave Farleigh and head off to branch out on their own.

The complete list of trees planted (one by each form and one by Pre-Prep) were:

Acre Campestre - Field Maple
Carpinus Betulus - Common Hornbeam
Castanea Sativa - Sweet Chestnut
Fagus Sylvatica - Common Beech
Fagus Sylvatica Atropurpurea - Copper Beech
Quercus Robur - English Oak
Tilia Cordata - Small Leaved Lime