Merry Berries

Hello and welcome to Merry Berries

Merry Berries is an after school tea time club. It is currently open, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday  from 3.30 until 5.30pm. Merry Berries is part funded by Children in Need, The Georgia Fourie Butterfly Fund and parental contribution.

Merry Berries is run by Nick Barrett (Family Liaison and Behaviour Management Leader at Holly Grove.) and Clare Clarke (Teaching Assistant Level 3).

Children are split into small groups. Each key group concentrates on key life skills to promote independence skills matched to the ability of the children.

The groups may cover such things as:

• Cooking: helping our chef to prepare the balanced tea for the group
• Plant to plate: Planting, caring for and harvesting fruit, vegetables and herbs to eat.
• Blog: Taking photos and videos of the activities and putting them on the website.
• Setting tables: children set the tables with cutlery, plates, cups etc for the whole group.
• Etiquette/communication group: Children concentrate on sitting at the table, using their preferred method of communication and eating in a socially acceptable manner.
• Washing up group: Children wash up/stack the dishwasher, dry up and tidy the kitchen.
• Children are encouraged generally to tidy up after themselves and to help each other during each session.
• If there is any time left after tea and clearing up, the children can let off a bit of steam before travelling home at 5.30pm.

Happy Birthday Merry Berries!

What a fantastic day we had to celebrate our 10th Birthday of Merry Berries.

We had an egg decorating competition followed by an egg rolling contest in the morning with lots of prizes won.

We had a huge picnic at lunchtime and of course a birthday cake to remember 10 years of fun!

In the afternoon we had party games like pass the parcel and musical chairs and a a guest appearance from one of our retired berries EJ, who helped us think about all the good times we have had.

We even had time to enjoy the sunshine, everybody had such a great (and merry) time!!!

Here’s to the next 10 years.