00:00We're here at Clive Church of England Primary School in Grinshill and we're with Assistant Head.
00:05Hello, Madam.
00:06Hello, welcome to our school.
00:07Thank you. So what's your name again, just for a moment?
00:09My name is Mrs Watts.
00:10And Mrs Watts, I'm not 100% sure I've been to Grinshill before.
00:15It's quite a unique, got a unique character about it, hasn't it, the village?
00:19It has, it has. So we take from Grinshill and Clive, both of the villages for our school.
00:26We've got 91 children who join us coming up the hill.
00:30So yes, we are a unique school. We've got to climb the hill to get to us.
00:34A little workout in the morning, doesn't it, anyone?
00:38And Grinshill, you were telling me, I mean, because you're looking to your playground there with the stone coming through.
00:43And it feels like I'm in Yorkshire. But you were saying that Grinshill Stone is actually quite famous.
00:48Grinshill Stone is quarried on our hill and our school is made out of it.
00:531873. And our stone was also used for various locations in Shrewsbury, Bridges.
01:02But also, I understand that the plinth across the top of 10 Downing Street is also Grinshill Stone.
01:10It's a nice little clown to fame, isn't it?
01:11Absolutely.
01:11Yeah, yeah. So the school's been established a long, long time then. Just tell us a little bit about your school.
01:19Obviously, you're setting lovely surroundings. But just, you know, describe the character of your school a little bit and what happens here.
01:26The most important thing is that we are a family. We are a church school.
01:30We are a family and we are welcoming and everyone is included.
01:32And that's really important to us, that everybody has a part in the school. Parents, children, governors.
01:39And we've got a very unique setting to be able to explore, get out onto the hill and make sure that we're doing the best for our children to make them ready for the world around us.
01:51We have a couple of pupils here. Introduce yourselves. What's your name?
01:54Hi, my name is Bea and I'm nine years old.
01:57Hello Bea.
01:57Hi, my name is Bardy and I'm ten years old.
02:01Bardy. That's a lovely name. How do you spell Bardy?
02:04B-A-R-D-Y.
02:05That's a great name. So, do you like your school?
02:09Yes.
02:09Yes, we do.
02:10Cool, that's good then. We've got the right pupils. So tell me a little bit about what you enjoy doing here. Is there any particular favourite lessons?
02:18Music and my cornet lessons.
02:20Oh, you play the cornet?
02:22Yeah.
02:22Oh, wow, that's fantastic. And how are you getting on with that then?
02:26Good. I'm grade two.
02:28Wow. Do you play any other instruments or is it all about the cornet?
02:31Um, piano as well.
02:33Do you?
02:34Yeah.
02:34Oh, fantastic.
02:35Yeah, yeah. Do your parents play the piano then?
02:39No.
02:40So you'll be teaching them. You'll have to charge them for a lesson. And what about you, young lady?
02:45Um, I like doing math because it helps me with my numbers.
02:50Yeah, yeah. The, um, the little lad I met with the mosaic, he said he liked maths funnily enough. You must have a quite a good maths teacher.
02:59Yeah.
02:59Very inspiring. And what do you think of your outdoor spaces here? Your playground with the rocks? It's, it's very interesting.
03:07Yeah.
03:07Yeah, look, it's really fun. Yeah. And there's like a little bit where you can like sit on it.
03:14Yeah.
03:14Ah, and you can skip on it. Ah. And what about your garden area? Do you get involved down there, do you, and help out?
03:22Sometimes, yeah.
03:23Sometimes.
03:23Yeah. Yeah. What, are you growing anything down there?
03:27Um, I don't know at the moment. I've got some potatoes.
03:30Vegetables?
03:31Yeah, I think so.
03:32Oh, wow. Do you know any, have you, have you tasted any of the vegetables you've grown?
03:37No.
03:37Well, maybe you have, maybe chefs been down in the night and snuck them into the dinners the next day.
03:42Yeah.
03:43Any other particular favourite lessons then? We know you enjoy maths and music. Anything else come to mind at you?
03:49Art.
03:50Yeah.
03:50DT.
03:51D, what's DT? Is that like woodwork and stuff?
03:53Design technology.
03:54Yeah.
03:55Ah, fantastic. And what do you, what would you pair like to do when you're older and have left school and you're old like me?
04:01A vet.
04:02You'd like to be a vet?
04:03Yeah.
04:03Oh, wow, fantastic.
04:04I'd like to be a dance teacher.
04:07Would you?
04:07Mm-hmm.
04:08What sort of dance? Disco? Ballet? Pop?
04:11I'd always go with like ballet.
04:14Yeah? Well, we wish you all the luck with that and thank you for speaking to us today then. Thank you.
04:19You're welcome.
04:20You're welcome.
04:20Bye.
04:21Bye.
04:21Bye.
04:22And you've got a lovely little garden area that we're going to explore. The kids get to go out and have a rummage and grow a few things there, do they?
04:29They do. We've got our own little school plot, but also we also go and use the hill for woodland school.
04:37So, environmentally, we are really thinking carefully about our sustainability and so teaching children about the importance of looking after the world around us and starting with that soil and starting with growing.
04:50And so we've just been growing our potatoes for the village. Oh, wow. Okay, okay. Fantastic. The little play frame at the front. Did you say that was a bit of the parents coming together?
05:01Yeah, we've got a fantastic friends of Clive School who do a great deal to support us. They will host events throughout the year and the money raised goes towards buying equipment within school, our frame, but they also pay for half of our coach travel, which is always very expensive.
05:18And all schools will know how much coaches cost. So, for visits, going swimming, going to sporting activities, they pay half of those coaches.
05:27Yeah. And have you seen the community change? The pupils that are coming to the school, are their parents kind of long-standing village people?
05:36Or have you kind of seen this exodus from the big cities into Shropshire and you've got a lot of new people?
05:41Sure. We've got some children who've come from New Zealand, Australia. We have got some children who join us from outlying towns and villages because they want to have a small village school.
05:54But likewise, we've also got some long-established families who have parents and grandparents who come to our school as well. So, it's a real mixture.
06:04Well, the children here seem delightful. They're very nice and polite. And thank you for welcoming the Shropshire Star into your school. Thank you, madam.
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