Headteacher blog October 12th 2018

Today we have had wet, soggy Barclays volunteers helping us to get ready for the expected arrival of our farm pigs next week and helping us to rebuild cutting garden willow beds at the front of the junior school. We also welcomed back regular Lloyds Bank volunteers joining us again to support our coding curriculum in Years 4-6. On top of that we have other regular volunteers and students on placement across the school supporting in class, hearing readers, supporting our cooking curriculum and sports provision. These volunteers make a huge contribution to our school and the curriculum that we can offer to our children; many, many, many thanks to them all!

This week class RK went on the train to Leeds to visit Leeds Central library. These are our youngest full time children, doing a “walking – train – walking – library – walking- train – walking” visit in their first half term in school. I bet that they were exhausted! It says something, though, about the confidence of our school and its teachers, and the high expectations that we can have of our children. Apparently, the ‘best bit’ was having a biscuit on the train!

School Council began again this week but it is a bit different this year. Miss Bray and Mrs Du Preez are facilitating the school council after school on Mondays and over 40 children turned up! I look forward to hearing their plans and proposals over the coming weeks.

Finally, Farm Club was lively and a bit different this week. We were using the new fruit press again, but this time we were pressing a bumper harvest of grapes! As you can see, the children were very interested and engaged: what colour would it be? All the children – and many family members and siblings – had a cup of the freshly squeezed juice and it was a big hit!