On Friday 27th May, Bevois Town Primary School celebrated the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee with our very own day of festivities. Luckily, the weather was fabulous so allowed us the chance to hold a whole school ’Pupil of the Week’ assembly outside in the playground. At the end of this, children selected from each year group sung a verse of the National Anthem before all the rest of the school joined in.

In class, children engaged with a range of learning tasks which had been carefully designed and sequenced to build on their historical or geographical skills. At the end of the morning, children were summoned to a banquet, with Southampton City Catering providing a very tasty lunch, fit for royalty!

In the afternoon, the school once again came together, but this time to share their learning from their PE lessons over the half term. The Queen’s 70 years on the throne was celebrated with each year group performing a dance to a song taken from each of the 7 decades, demonstrating not just how Music had changed over this period of time, but also styles of dancing. The event finished with the whole school dancing to the song ‘Wavin’ Flag’. It’s not often I am left speechless, but the spectacular sight of over 400 children dancing in unison certainly succeeded! Originally written as a poem, and later made famous as a football world cup anthem, the story behind this song is about a family having to leave their home country of Somalia due to war and the aspirations of its people for freedom. To end on this song, as we journeyed through the decades, reinforced the importance of Bevois Town Primary School being a School of Sanctuary - a welcoming and safe place to all who attend and where diversity and culture is truly valued and celebrated.