admin's blog

The first few weeks at a new school are crucial, for educators as well as for pupils. All those rules you thought you knew are suddenly overturned, and you have to learn new ones: new names, new faces, new ways of doing things. Every June, Refugee Week celebrates contributions in the arts made by those who have made it to a safe country. One of the ways in which routine can gradually be restored is when children are in a position to attend school in their new host country. 

Mantra Lingua dual language Books: some questions answered, namely, what, when, where, who, how, and why.

After a warm and sunny Easter, we had high hopes for a similar kind of summer - but so far it's been a bit of a washout, as they say. I know it's a cliché that we talk about the weather such a lot in Britain and many other countries, but to be fair, it's because we have such a lot of it. The fact that I have had to dig out wellies and waterproofs (and a sturdy umbrella or two) in the last few days really got me thinking about how we talk about the weather, in general. While we all know that climate change is now a reality, the daily weather remains a popular topic of conversation.

Even if you’re not much of a sports fan, or you just prefer to watch sport from the sidelines and cheer the players, you’ve probably noticed that there’s a World Cup going on. Just like the FIFA World Cup, the Women’s Football World Cup is regulated by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, and takes place every four years. The first Women’s Football World Cup took place in 1991, when the United States of America won; just a dozen teams took part. By 2015, the number of teams competing had doubled and for the 2019 contest, 35 teams were in the initial qualifying rounds.

When I was buying our groceries this week I found out that it’s week 2 of British Tomato Fortnight (it ends on 2 June 2019). For years, I mainly associated tomatoes with summer salads. I actually grew up thinking I hated tomatoes: every time I was given a salad, it had tomatoes on it. (Along with the obligatory boiled egg and limp lettuce leaf.) (I grew up thinking I hated salads too.)

Green fingers don’t exactly run in my family, but we love visiting gardens and learning how to grow things, and like many of us, we’ve noticed how we don’t see as many bees and butterflies in the garden as we used to.

Last weekend in the garden I was overjoyed to hear one of our bushes buzzing, actually buzzing, there were so many bees enjoying the flowers. I still believe the very first lavender bush I ever grew flourished at least in part because my local bees were so active on it.

As we’re now well and truly into this year’s exam season, heads are down throughout the land (and further afield): SATs, GCSEs, ‘A’ Levels, Ebacc, and so many more – it can seem endless. And while exams are certainly important for some professions and walks of life, academic intelligence is not the only intelligence out there.

So we’re half-way through Share-a-Story month 2019, and this year’s theme is travel.

You might think that travel only means getting on a plane or a ship or a train to go some place other than where you usually live: but actually, whenever you read or tell a story, you’re also taking a journey.  You can explore different ways to see the world, taking a journey without physically going anywhere. Many stories are about journeys, inner or outer.

So what makes a story, anyway?

On Monday April 15, 2019, Paris made news headlines around the world, as millions of people looked on in disbelief. After more than 800 years at the heart of Paris, it seemed that the iconic cathedral of Notre Dame was about to go up in flames. While the damage was extensive, and the rebuilding work will take many years and highly specialised skills, much of the building of Our Lady of Paris was thankfully saved for future generations, thanks to the co-ordinated and careful efforts of Parisian officials.