Natural Thinkers & Harmony

Natural Thinkers has ten commitments:

• Children have access to a range of natural areas and materials outside.
• Children have opportunities to grow, pick and taste produce.
• Children have access to gardening and digging.
• Children care for their natural environment.
• Children engage with the weather and seasons.
• Children have opportunities to engage with wildlife.
• Children have daily access to the outside.
• Settings ensure no child is excluded from outdoor activities.
• Settings ensure parents have opportunities to get involved with Natural Thinkers activities.
• At least 1 member of staff must have attended Natural Thinkers training.

This year, we will be embedding these ten commitments into our weekly learning, bringing our broad and exciting curriculum to the natural environment.

To this end, we will be developing our outdoor learning environments.  In particular, with the support from our amazing PTA we will be creating an onsite Forest School.

All children will have opportunities to visit local areas, such as The Lees,  Church Plantation, Badlesmere Court Farm and The Sondes Estate to foster their appreciation of the natural environment and learn more about different plants and how to look after them.

We are all excited about the launch of our Natural Thinkers programme and we are looking forward to seeing the children’s learning blossom even more as we continue to move our learning outside.

National Meadows Day

St. Laurence Church Leaveland

It was with great pleasure that we accepted an invitation to sketch what is living in the churchyard at St Laurence Church.

Our images of flora and fauna are going to be displayed with professional artists in the church from Sat 2nd July.

We are extremely fortunate at Sheldwich that our school is set within a truly beautiful environment. An environment that enables us to support and develop our curriculum for inspirational learning.  During the past couple of years we have been researching how we can embed 'Nature's Principles of Harmony' into our teaching and learning.

Staff have attended training sessions at school and have taken part in The Prince's School of Traditional Arts workshops.  Harmony is an innovative approach to education that puts creativity and sustainability at the centre, exploring the world from a local to global scale through the process of enquiry and engagement with the natural world.  It helps children explain, inspire and address curiosity about Earth and our responsibility to look after it.

So our 'Harmony' journey began, from Little Hedgehogs in our Pre-School to Badgers in Class 6 and the 'Principle of Geometry'.  Nature's geometric patterns and forms are all around us and they remind us that the natural world has an order, a rhythm, and a symmetry to it that creates balance and harmony.

We were one of 13 schools who were part of a research project conducted by Canterbury Christ Church University.  Over the years as our curriculum has developed so too has the embedding of Harmony principles to enable pupils to experience an innovative and exciting curriculum which prepares them for life long learning.