The 10 year anniversary of Cliftonville Primary School’s pre-school was celebrated this week with a fun filled Pirate Day. The successful, 52 place pre-school was opened a decade ago with Maureen Baker at the helm and has grown from strength to strength since. Marguerite Tuffs, the Preschool manager explained, ’Our preschool is so successful and the children are so happy here that we all wanted to celebrate its 10th birthday and felt there was no better way than asking the children what they wanted to do – they came up with the super idea of a Pirate Day to fit in with our topic of journeys.’ With balloons, banners and pirate themed party games, the children had a blast.
Their role play area was turned into a huge Pirate Ship and all the children and staff enjoyed dressing up as their favourite pirate. They even had two special visitors – Captain Mason and Pirate Clayson – the school’s ICT manager and caretaker - who got into the spirit of the day by dressing up and pretending to steal the children’s treasure. The pre-schoolers ventured over to the main school to hunt them down and bring them back to class to walk the plank. The festivities didn’t end there – with pirate biscuit making, a treasure hunt, singing pirate songs and experimenting with an exploding volcano.
One of the pre-school Teaching Assistants, Tammy Brown, made a wonderful cake which saw all the children sitting around to sing Happy Birthday. Assistant Head Teacher and Early Years Leader, Louise Wilson explained, ‘We are all so proud of the success of our pre-school over the last 10 years and of all the hard work the adults put in to making such a wonderful place to be. Most importantly, we are proud of the children who come to us every day.’