On Wednesday 5^th February 2025, we celebrated the 10-year anniversary of our primary school building at Swingate Lane. There was lots of excitement, reflection and some surprise amongst staff that we have had our building for 10 years! Time really does fly when you are having fun.

We marked the day with a range of activities to celebrate. All classes were invited to create and collate items to put into a time capsule which will be buried on our site at Swingate lane, to be dug up in the future and look back at what classes and staff had contributed in 2025. There were a wide range of items that went into the time capsule – these included: photographs, artwork, self-portraits, and much more! We even added in contributions from our school dog, Milo.

Callum in Pheasant class really enjoyed thinking about what should be put in the time capsule. Because he was so inspired by the idea of the time capsule, he asked Mary, his teacher, if Pheasant class could plan and create their own time capsule.

Next up on our itinerary for the day was our celebration garden. Our wonderful Compost Crew from Sixth Form identified a patch of land at Swingate Lane and got to work preparing the ground for the planting of some seeds. They worked hard to identify flowers that would grow and ordered the seeds. The seeds were beautifully packaged with personalised stickers designed by the group. On Wednesday, the Compost Crew were on hand to welcome our families and support them in planting their seeds. We look forward to seeing our Celebration Garden grow and bloom!

Lastly, every child and young person in the school got to work using pieces of willow to create a masterpiece to take home to commemorate the day. Children and young people were able to turn their willow into a wreath, a heart or a wand. They were then encouraged to take these home and add further decoration and memories to their sculptures.

We have received some lovely feedback from our school community about our day of celebration, with one parent commenting on how impactful the experience was, and what a wonderful school community we have!  There was also some amazing feedback about how helpful, welcoming and supportive our fantastic young people in our Sixth Form were on the day.

We cannot wait to see what the next 10 years at Willow Dene brings.