Sir David Attenborough Day!

A super exciting day in school with classrooms bursting with cross curricular learning; art, history, geography and communication skills flowing through the school. A brilliant atmosphere, with children immersed and engaged in their learning.

The day was organised largely by Mrs Johnson and Mrs Huxtable, our humanities leads, in conjunction with all staff.

The Shropshire Wildlife Trust led outdoor learning sessions for all classes, a big hit with KS2, who a really keen to have more regular Forest School sessions. All children made seed bombs and sustainable bags for planting. Thank you to Thomas Adams school pupils and staff who came in and supported our children with this experience.

We started our day listening to our live broadcast on BBC radio Shropshire (see separate post) and continued our fascination by researching Sir David Attenborough, creating art work, writing pledges, finding out about animals and places on our planet, participating in the national live assembly delivered by Picture News and we even made time to sing happy birthday and eat cake at lunchtime. A wonderful celebratory day at Hodnet.

See class pages for more class photos.

318 Trust Art Attenborough project

To celebrate Sir David Attenborough’s 100 Birthday, our Headteacher, Mrs Lyall is leading a Trust wide art project which will feature on the wall in the main trust offices in Shrewsbury. Our Trust Inclusion Director, Mrs Howson, and 12 pupils from Thomas Adams school came to Hodnet school today to work together creating the artwork. The painting will be made entirely from handprints from the pupils in all of our 10 Trust schools and will feature a set of giant hands holding our world with a sapling growing from the top of the world. Today the children worked together to paint and print their hands. The Thomas Adams pupils supported our Hodnet pupils, they talked about their favourite animals, discussed Sir David Attenborough and thought carefully about how to mix colours to represent our world and skin tones. They thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to work together, many showcasing values of resilience and compassion, a wonderful morning!

More pictures to follow.

 

 

 

BBC Radio Shropshire live broadcast

Adam Green – Mark Elliott sits in (08/05/2026) – BBC Sounds

This morning Mrs Johnson was live on BBC Radio Shropshire to introduce our Sir David Attenborough day. The broadcast also featured a pre-recording of some of our Y6 children who spoke about Sir David Attenborough, they were all amazing! The team from BBC Radio Shropshire came to school with their equipment and recorded the children yesterday, they thoroughly enjoyed their broadcasting moment and should be very proud of themselves. It was wonderful to listen to the live broadcast in Breakfast club this morning with some of the children and staff.

Our school is on at 2 hours and 7 mins into the show, which you can listen to using the link above.

 

Water only in water bottles please

A gentle reminder that as a Healthy School we can only permit water in water bottles, not juice or other sugary flavoured drinks. We are proud of our Healthy School status and are passionate that children learn to make healthy choices. Juice in water bottles contributes to poor dental health and can be an irritant to bladders, causing frequent toilet trips, this is not something we encourage.

We ask that parents/carers kindly support school by only sending water in water bottles, following our school policy.

Healthy Eating & Drinking policy 2025 28

Mrs Bustin

Sadly, Mrs Bustin will be leaving our staff team at May half term. We will miss her greatly, we wish her the very best of luck and many happy times in her new volunteering role.

Nursery information published

Our School Nursery offer guide, booking forms and registration forms have been published on our website this week and shared with eligible current pre-school families. Please see our website page for information.

Nursery & Hodnet Pre-School Playgroup – Hodnet Primary School

We are delighted to be opening our term time Nursery provision from September, we will have 20 available daily places for children aged 2-4 years, offering a wraparound provision to support working families.

Please share with families who may be interested in joining our school Nursery. Thank you for supporting us as our school grows.

Purple up for Military Children

April is the Month of the Military Child. Today, 24th April, we wore purple to acknowledge this national event. Our children have shared their knowledge of their family experiences, including plotting postings on a world map in Y6, which we plan to do in assembly next week for other classes.

Classes have found out about the meaning behind the logo – a dandelion depicting ‘strong roots grow wherever they go’, and enjoyed learning about military connections and roles both past and present.

We have 36 military children in our school, a number which has grown exponentially in the past few years. We have families representing all services, Army, Navy and RAF with the majority being at RAF Shawbury. We also have military families and civilian members within our staff community and wider local school community. We value our partnership with RAF Shawbury, working with them to ensure high quality education and support for our children and families.

Termly House Points – Spring term 2026

Termly house point totals are:

Owls = 990

Badgers = 1018

Squirrels =1173

Foxes = 993

Well done to the Squirrels   team for their tremendous efforts last term.

 

Sir David Attenborough Day 8th May

On Friday 8th May we are celebrating David Attenborough’s 100th Birthday!

The Shropshire Wildlife Trust are coming to school work with all classes, leading sessions in our forest school area based on sustainability. We are also welcoming some children and staff from our partner Trust schools, Thomas Adams and St Martins to participate in these sessions, so we are really looking forward to collaborating.

On the day we will be celebrating the life of Sir David Attenborough, learning about his many adventures and achievements as he hits this tremendous milestone. We will be participating in a live national assembly, making planet pledges and of course eating birthday cake!

We will monitor the weather and keep you posted with regards to any outdoor clothing requirements.

Art Calendar competition

We are once again taking part in the Market Drayton calendar competition. This year our month is April. So far half of our school have worked with the local artists to create their paintings, the other half will complete these next Tuesday. A great opportunity to work with local community members, showcasing their artistic skills and sharing their knowledge with our children.

Every child creates a painting, a long list is selected by the artists, followed by a short list of winners to go through to the final selection panel, then an overall winner is selected and their painting is used for the April picture in the printed local calendar. All shortlisted children are invited to a presentation, usually in October.

It has been delightful to see so many beautiful paintings around school this week – so much drying space was needed, they have literally been everywhere! Well done to all involved.

CEOP
Safer Schools Award
Platinum School Games
Eco Bronze award
Asthma Friendly Award
Ofsted Good Provider 2018/19
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