Headteacher Blog 16/9/2016

Our first full week of the new school year has been a good one. Children and staff are settled and working hard. Our Muslim families celebrated Eid-ul-Adha at the start of the week and we trust that they enjoyed their festivities.

On Monday we had special visitors: Nile and Joanna Wilson. Nile showed us his Olympic bronze medal and Joanna spoke to us about her hard work at high school and acceptance at Cambridge University. Hopefully, these two great former Farfield pupils will inspire our current cohorts to great things in their futures too.

On Tuesday, we celebrated what would have been Roald Dahl’s 100th birthday. There were special assemblies in each building and lessons based on Roald Dahl’s books and Quentin Blake’s illustrations.

On Thursday and Friday, Year 6 classes have been sailing at Yeadon Tarn: 6CH got sunny but calm weather; 6T got wet but windier conditions. This trip is part of our Outdoors and Adventurous curriculum, but also provides some stimulus and experience prior to the children studying a text called Kensuke’s Kingdom (that includes sailing). A broad education is essential and exciting experiences such as this are an important part of our curriculum offer.  This week has also seen a new range of activities for Years 1 and 2 as part of revised arrangements for teachers’ Planning, Preparation and Planning time. Children are now taking part in a wide range of smaller group activities on Friday afternoons including ‘Food and Cooking’, computer coding, farming and short local visits (this half term, a short trip to the Aire Valley to explore the difference between a river and a canal and the changes over time down at Rodley).

Finally, we have welcomed six new volunteers to the school this week, all workers from Lloyds Bank near school. These volunteers are coming in to support the coding curriculum in Years 4-6 and they have proved to be a valuable addition to these sessions in the first week. We look forward to this being a mutually-rewarding partnership moving forward.