Community Week
To launch the week the Life Education Bus was parked on the playground, offering the children workshops based on aspects of the Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education curriculum. Being so ‘hands on’ and interactive these sessions brought this sometimes difficult subject area alive for all the year groups and parents also had the opportunity to be involved in their own workshop.
On the same day the Fire Brigade brought one of their appliances for the children to investigate and clamber all over, which was enormous fun for the children (and the staff!).
Wednesday arrived and so did everyone else - the local Police Liaison Officer – with all his gear and a panda car;
a Nurse who came to talk to the Reception class about his role (and demonstrated his bandaging skills on Miss Marjoram); a Surgeon complete with x-rays;
a local farmer - Paul Mills who drove his big red tractor onto the grounds and discussed farming and animal issues with the children;
school’s house captains, head boy and girl and representatives from the school council. Having been waited on and entertained by the children, the pensioners (some of whom were ex-pupils of the school) were then treated to a guided tour by the children, followed by tea and biscuits and a look at the displays of children’s work and the local clubs and organisations in Chiddingfold. As one local resident wrote in a letter to the children immediately after the event, “The meal was lovely and it was a real pleasure to meet such charming, well-behaved and articulate children.” The warmth of the relationships that were made was typified by
one pupil who said, “I liked spending time with the older generation because they asked a lot of questions and they told us about how naughty they were at school and how the school had changed since they were here!”
During Thursday the Reception and Key Stage One classes were treated to a series of dance, drama and movement workshops based on a Space adventure, which certainly took the community theme to the extreme!
The finale to the week happened on Friday whereby for a pound each (donated to local community projects), school uniform was abandoned for the day as all the children, staff, governors and parents dressed up and donned their wellies ready to ramble around the delightful Chiddingfold countryside.
In the afternoon the inaugural Haslemere TEAM Pupil Council engaged in ‘live’ debate with local Councillor Andrew Povey. 
School Council representatives from all the schools within the Haslemere Confederation posed questions on environmental, financial, social and educational issues. Particular attention was paid to Mr Povey’s answers regarding the hot topic of Youth culture. Having had a taster of what is open to them the Haslemere TEAM Pupil Council will meet on a regular basis, offering youngsters in this area greater opportunities to have their collective voice heard by influential and public figures. As Mark Clayton, the St. Mary’s governor who facilitated the meeting highlighted that, “This is a great opportunity for our school children to consider the issues that matter to them and their peers.”