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Headteacher blog 24th November 2017
I have been head teacher here a long time: 13 and a half years. I was reminded of this on a school tour earlier this week when a prospective parent that I was showing round announced that she had been in Y6 when I first came to the school in 2004. I had also Read More
Read newsHeadteacher blog 17th November 2017
It was an interesting week of contrasts in terms of my experience of co-operation between schools and partners this week. As a member of the Leeds Safeguarding Children Board, I have been involved in a dispute between schools on the other side of the city where an academy is trying to withdraw from ‘cluster’ Read More
Read newsHeadteacher blog 10th November 2017
Staff absences can be difficult to cover, especially when we have such an ambitious and creative curriculum, but if it falls to me to cover a class or group, at least I have the pleasure of working directly with children again and I get to experience life ‘at the chalk face’. I really enjoyed Read More
Read newsHead teacher blog 3rd November 2017
I had a good half term break but I am nevertheless pleased to be back at school spending time in classes and looking at books. I have been focussing on ‘Behaviour and Engagement’ in my first round of monitoring visits this academic year and what I have observed was overwhelmingly good. This week I Read More
Read newsHeadteacher blog 19th October 2017
It was an absolute pleasure covering an absent colleague on Tuesday, leading a group of twenty immaculately-behaved and motivated Year 5 children for an afternoon of coding using an application called Scratch. Children in Years 4-6 have two full afternoons of coding each half term and it is a really good amount of time Read More
Read newsHead teacher blog October 13th 2017
Speaking with head teacher colleagues earlier this week, I commented that I was working hard on, and a bit worried about plans for, Harvest Festival. My concerns were met with incredulous looks; Harvest Festival is clearly a much bigger event at Farfield than in most schools. And so it should be: food, cooking and Read More
Read newsHead teacher blog 6th October 2017
It has been good to see children enjoying the school grounds this week: it was Y3’s week for the den-making area and I have never seen such large numbers and obvious enthusiasm and delight up there. The children have started a topic around ‘Stone Age’ and there was a lot of tool making and Read More
Read newsHead teacher blog 29th September 2017
This week our extensive programme of after-school clubs started and it is an important part of the Farfield offer. There are literally hundreds of club places, ranging from arts, crafts, singing and sudoku, to football, athletics and karate. I am grateful to all the staff and others that run the clubs, especially those volunteers who Read More
Read newsHead teacher’s blog 22nd September 2017
Next week, Mr Cooke is presenting at a major PE conference in London. Having won a couple of important PE-related awards last academic year, news of some of our innovative approaches to PE is spreading and it will be an honour to share our ‘physical activity’ story so far with colleagues from across the Read More
Read newsHead teacher blog 15th September 2017
We are trying hard to live up to our award of ‘Healthy School of the Year 2017’ and this week has been no exception. The KS2 PE curriculum had a successful kick off this week with new teacher Nick Little leading our ‘Speed, Agility and Quickness’ sessions and children engaging in a wide range Read More
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