Queen's Jubilee Celebrations At Stoke Row School

On Thursday 30th May, 2002, Stoke Row C.E. Primary School held a big celebration and party to rejoice for the Queen's Golden Jubilee. The children enjoyed the party thoroughly and were rather upset to find a Friday of work planned for the next day! Although, they've always loved a good, tiring Friday morning!

To celebrate even more, the headmistress, Mrs Glithro, allowed the whole school to dress in non-uniform. But they were only allowed to wear red, blue and white clothes, the same colours as the Union Jack. A lot of the school wore wonderful costumes; all you could see was a mass of red, white and blue! For the oldest children, years 5 and 6, that included hair colour too! Almost everyone in Red Class sprayed their hair red, white and blue! It was very entertaining with all of the colours, hairdos and bright clothes!

Also to celebrate, each child in the school was also given a white cloth triangle to decorate with red and blue and black markers - there were crowns, balloons, dates, patterns, '50's, Corgis and flags. These were then sewn together to make a unique string of bunting which was hung round the school for decoration!

After breaktime, from 10.30am till 11am, the whole of the school was in a hat-making frenzy! They were all hustling and bustling about! Hurrying and scurrying to get together all the materials needed to make a unique hat for the hat parade. There were all kinds of hats… tiaras, top hats, beefcake hats, crowns and many different creations. It was a scene like no other - pipe cleaners, glue, tape, stars, tassels, pens, newspaper, paint, feathers and everything else you can think of! It was organized chaos!

By lunchtime, everyone was chatting and getting ready for the afternoon party! But, the rain came, so any teachers who were available, rushed to get the Stoke Row Village Hall ready for the big celebration! Later on, (when it thankfully, had stopped raining), all three classes trudged in pairs to the Village Hall. On arrival, they were sorted into their classes then beginning with the youngest class, all the pupils paraded their hats in a circle. Teachers and helping Mums judged them. From Yellow Class, Alexander Gass won; from Green Class, Beth Crane won and from the older pupils in Red Class, Chrissie Gillespie won. They were each awarded a bag of jelly beans!

After that, the classes were divided into 10 teams named after Royal Residences. A Year 6 pupil would lead their team around the room looking at the Royalty Quiz questions, set by the teachers. The teams each had a clipboard that they wrote their answers on. The winners of the Quiz were called 'Clarence House'.

After this, came the races - lots of cheering and fun! First four teams, then three other teams, and then the last three teams all took part in the relay race. They lined up behind their year six leader. On the whistle, they set off. The first person ran to the chair that was theirs and as quick as they could, they put on the waistcoat provided and a small jubilee party hat. They then ran back, took the accessories off and tagged the next player. They then put the accessories on and ran back to the chair, took them off, and so on, until everyone had been. The winning teams were awarded with small packets of Haribo sweets.
 

Back at school, Gill Munoz had organized a lovely, yummy 'tea' of sandwiches, crisps, biscuits, cakes and bright red jelly! A Royal Raffle, also organized by Gill, gave the children various prizes including a Jubilee Teddy, a pair of Corgis and golden coins - chocolate of course! Before leaving, each pupil was presented with a real commemorative coin and scroll to certify that they were there on that special 'golden' occasion! These were made by Ingrid Piercey and were wrapped up nicely in ribbon by Julie Maunder. The day ended with a clapping, cheering and thanking session for the teachers and School Association for all their hard work. The day was a great success!

By Polly-Anna Piercey