Our Word for Wednesday theme for December is Christmas decorations. A decoration is something that is used to beautify a space. The word comes from the Latin ‘decorare’. Over December we’ve looked at the words nutcracker, bauble, mistletoe, and stocking. Though Christmas might be over, there are still a few days left to enjoy the festive decorations and, with that in mind, our final word of the month is poinsettia. A poinsettia is a small shrub with scarlet petal-like leaves. The star-shaped leaves symbolise the star of Bethlehem and their blood red colour symbolises Christ’s sacrifice. The story of the poinse...
Easter, the holiday festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In other European languages, the festival has names derived from Jewish Passover or ‘pesah’. In English, curiously, the name for this Christian festival has origins in Paganism. Easter or ‘Eostre’, in Old English, possibly relates to the Germanic goddess of spring by the same name or variant, ‘Ostara’. Venerable Bede, the first writer of an English history, suggests that the Pagan Eostre celebrations included eggs and hares. Perhaps these familiar symbols of Easter may have non-Christian origins. Considering hares are native to the British Isles; and rabbits or the Easter bunnies, were introduced by the Romans. Thes...
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One of the students has put in a huge amount of effort in completing Spellzone at least 3 times a week since his arrival with us in January. Looking at his scores after the latest GL testing, his standardised score has risen from 99 to 131. This is a truly phenomenal result. I just wanted to share the best result I have ever seen.
Terrie Penrose-Toms, Casterton College
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