4 days ago
Posted on 10th May 2026 by Emma Noden

The Enormous Turnip talk for writing unit

This term we have been learning the Enormous Turnip traditional tale and then we have innovated and written our own version of a vegetable story with a repeated phrase. We were sent some seeds in a special gardening bag from the fairies, we looked at some books and talked about traditional tales; sorting the books. After we had planted lots of seeds, including some turnip seeds we were really shocked to find one turnip seed had grown much bigger than the rest! We explored the text by role playing using props and using the small world items to retell the story. We also read lots of different versions of the traditional tale.

4 days ago
Posted on 10th May 2026 by Emma Noden

Earth Day 2026

It was world Earth Day on April 22nd, a day when we are all encouraged to think about our impact on the earth. We read a book called Our planet, a simple story about how we can help look after our Earth. Also the fairies set us some challenges:

E – to explore the planet Earth (we used magnifying glasses and the microscope to explore our Forest Schools site)

A – Art ( we were encouraged to create some art using items in forest schools)

R – Recycle – the fairies left us lots of bags of rubbish and we were encouraged to find ways of reusing it. We used the nets from our morning fruit and some yoghurt pots for some planting.

T – thank you – we created leaves on paper and wrote thank you messages for things on this earth we were thankful for.

H – help (the fairies left us some wild flower seeds which we planted to help the creatures that live in forest schools and some herbs which we took cuttings from)

4 days ago
Posted on 10th May 2026 by Emma Noden

A letter from Fairy Blossom Brightwing

Dear Forest School Friends,

I need your help! Last night, a wild twisty wind blew my spring potion right out of my hands, and it spilled into the mud.

Without a new potion, the flowers in my forest might stay closed, the leaves may stay curled, and the whole forest will just stay sleepy for far too long! Has Spring started in your forest? How do you know?

Please could you help me by making a brand-new spring potion?

You can use:
✨ fallen petals
✨ leaves
✨ rainwater
✨ sticks
✨ mud
✨ anything the forest offers you (as long as it’s already on the ground).
Mix them together gently — forest magic works best when made with kindness. When your potion is ready, label it and leave it in a special spot so I can collect it at sunset. I’ve left everything you need in the special bag.
Thank you, brave potion makers.
I believe in you.
With sparkles and sunshine,
Blossom Brightwing
Spring Fairy

We had a wonderful morning making spring potions for Blossom Brightwing. We had been left a letter in the woodland so we used the ‘signs of spring’ clues to locate it. Following this, we worked with our partners to create sparkly potions from fallen treasures.
In the videos you might be able to hear us waking the ingredients with the words, “Spring is here!”

4 days ago
Posted on 10th May 2026 by Emma Noden

Woodland Wednesday – creating fairy gardens

Our morning began with an invitation to predict what might lie behind this small door. We shared our ideas firstly through drawing and then we talked about them together.
We were surprised to then find that our Woodland Wednesday bag had been filled by the forest fairies. They had left a letter thanking us for the wonderful potions we made a couple of weeks ago to wake up the forest. The fairies also told us that they would like to visit our woodland but to be able to do this, they needed somewhere safe to stay within it. Using the instruction manual left by Blossom Brightwing, we worked hard to create some safe fairy homes. Have a look at our creative ideas- some homes had ponds, doors, paths, archways and much more.

4 days ago
Posted on 10th May 2026 by Emma Noden

Reading around the world

The May challenge in our “year of the reader” calendar is to “read around the world”. We have created a read around the world basket of books in our class book nook and the May book in our book calendar was a book called: A Gift for Amma, a story about a young girl who is looking in an Indian market for a gift. We really enjoyed the colourful illustrations in this book!

4 days ago
Posted on 10th May 2026 by Emma Noden

David Attenborough’s 100 birthday celebrations

We had a wonderful day celebrating the 100th birthday of Sir David Attenborough. We could not believe what 100 looked like when shown on ten 10-frames!

We started the morning looking at a giant map of the world’s continents and talking about how David Attenborough has visited all 7 of them. We talked about some of the animals he has been fortunate to work so closely with and looked at where these were on the map of the world.

In our woodland, we made seed bombs with Shropshire Wildlife Trust. We were also lucky to have students from Thomas Adam’s helping us too. I wonder where you will plant your seed bomb?

We shared a thought provoking story called Love Our Earth. We talked about what we love about our world and what we can do to protect it. We sorted pictures of different everyday actions into those that would make Earth happy and those that would make it sad. Each of us then used drawing, and added colour with watercolours, to show what we love about our planet.

2 weeks ago
Posted on 01st May 2026 by Laura Bessant

Year of Reading – April – Reading outside!

2026 is the National Year of Reading. At Hodnet School, we have created a Year of Reading moment for each month and April have children the opportunity to read outside. The weather has been glorious and perfect for enjoying a book in the beautiful grounds of our school!

2 weeks ago
Posted on 27th Apr 2026 by Emma Noden

Year of reading April challenge

This month’s reading challenge was to read outside – we took our Friday end of the day story outside in the sunshine!

3 weeks ago
Posted on 24th Apr 2026 by Penny Lyall

Summer term events

The key dates for this term are:

April:

Tue 28th – Whole school painting with local artists (MD calendar)

May:

Fri 1st – DEAR 3pm (no phones please)
Mon 4th – Bank holiday, school closed
Fri 8th – David Attenborough Day
Mon 11th – Thur 14th – Y6 SATS testing week
Mon 18th – Y4 Pentecost Workshop
Wed 20th – YR Class assembly 9am, YR parents welcome
Fri 22nd – break up for half term.

June:

Mon 1st – School re-opens
Tue 2nd – YR visit to Shrewsbury Museum
Fri 5th – DEAR 3pm (no phones please)
Mon 8th – Y1 Phonics screening week
Thur 11th – New YR (26/27) parents evening 5.30pm
Tue 16th – Y4 trip to Cadbury World
Wed 17th – Y1 Class assembly, 9am Y1 parents welcome
Wed 17th – Y2 Trip to Chester Zoo
Thur 18th – Y5 Taster day to Thomas Adams School
Fri 19th – Father’s Day lunch & Sports Day afternoon
Mon 22nd – Armed forces week TBC
Thur 25th – New YR intake in school 9-11am
Fri 26th – Y5&6 London visit
Mon 29th & Tue 30th – Y6 move up day to Grove School
Mon 29th – Wed 1st – Y6 move up day to SJT
Tue 30th – Local governing body meeting
Tue 30th – New YR intake in school 1.15-3.15

July:

Fri 3rd – DEAR 3pm (no phones please)
Mon 6th & Tue 7th – Y6 move up day to Thomas Adams School
Mon 6th & Tue 7th – Move up sessions for each class
Tue 7th – New YR intake in all day. KS1 full day move up.
Wed 8th – Y1 Art trip to Shrewsbury Museum
Mon 13th – Y6 church retreat day
Wed 15th – Y3 Egyptian workshop
Thur 16th – Church service, 2pm at St Luke’s, Hodnet
Fri 17th – End of year reports out to parents
Mon 20th – Rock Steady concert
Mon 20th – Optional drop in parents evening
Mon 20th – Y6 play at 6.30pm
Tue 21st – Y6 end of term trip
Wed 22nd – Leavers assembly 9am
Wed 22nd – School closes for summer. Reopening on Wed 2nd Sept.

2 months ago
Posted on 10th Mar 2026 by Emma Noden

Inventing our own bird feeders

The Forest Schools Fairies sent us a letter asking us to invent some tasty bird pizzas that they could serve at the new Hungry Beak Café. We learnt about the imperative verbs we would need to include in our instructions and that sometimes we can sound a bit bossy when we are using them (cut, press, spread, tie). As we were inventing we took photos of each stage so that we could write the instructions down later on in the week.