Head teacher blog 16th November 2018

It was a startling sight at times today at school: staff and children dressed as ‘Rock Stars’ as part of Children in Need and to raise the profile of our big push on times tables through the ‘Times Tables Rock Stars’ website and lessons.  Many thanks for everyone’s support.

I have been showing lots of prospective parents around recently. We take our time and really try to give families a full picture of what the school can offer. The feedback we get is always positive: adults are always impressed by the breadth of the curriculum that we offer – “it wasn’t like that in my day,” they say – and by the standards that are being attained in modern primary schools. Of course, they are always amazed by what we can offer in our grounds. Yesterday, I announced before entering a Y1 class that there was likely to be an English lesson going on (as I had seen that the yellow books weren’t outside the class as they often are). What we saw on entering was magical: a bed in the centre of the room, three medievally-costumed children providing actions and dialogue and a teacher regaling the rapt class of five and six year olds with a fairy tale. I assume it was a prompt for some story-writing; whatever it was, the engagement was fantastic and it showed a teacher and her team at the top of their game.

This week also saw all our Reception children off on a school trip to Blackhills Woods. They were lucky with the weather and had a super time. I was amused by the photo of a child carefully toasting a marsh mallow during the trip: such a contrast with the same activity during our annual Camp-Over!

Careful marsh mallow toasting Reception

Risk-assessed and supervised, but marsh mallow toasting on a somewhat different scale at Camp-Over!