Headteacher blog 11th June 2021

It has been a lovely week at school – obviously, the warm, dry weather helps. It has been particularly heartening to see school trips restarting with Y4 visiting Murton Park this week to live like Vikings, and Years 1 and 2 visiting Rodley Nature Reserve and Skelton Grange Environmental Centre respectively next week. After that, Y5 go on residential to Ribblehead in the Dales and Year 6 are off to How Stean Gorge for a residential in early July. We have also started using some off-site facilities for PE too this week: 16 Y6 children enjoying a half term of tennis sessions at Rawdon Tennis Club. It is fantastic to see our minibuses heading out again so regularly, bringing enrichment to our curriculum.

The week started with a Training Day for teachers. Nursery-Y3 did training on Google Workspace and Chromebooks whilst teachers in Y4-6 did a three hour exam to be accredited as Level 1 Google Educators. Our roll-out of 1:1 devices with the older children and the steep learning curve of remote teaching and learning, has the potential to be a very significant step-change in the way we deliver our curriculum and learning. I do NOT want to see children on screens 24/7, but I do want children making routine use of these fantastic tools for research, practice, collaboration and active engagement with their learning.

On Monday, the senior leadership team and pastoral team also had the first of six sessions of training with Carr Manor School on relational, restorative practice. This has been a cornerstone of the culture and practice of Leeds Children’s Social Work Services for nearly a decade, and we are keen to learn about how this works in a school context.