Headteacher blog 17th October 2025

We had sad news this week as the LCC Exec Board confirmed that the children’s centre based at our school is one of a slew of CCs across the city to close. It is branded as ‘realignment’ but it is really a cost-cutting exercise. For the past ten years or so, the CC has had to reduce its services more and more as budgets have stagnated and costs have risen. Now CC services for the area are due to be based at Swinnow CC – a couple of miles away and two buses. Not good.

We have had lots of road safety lessons across the school this week delivered by a team from LCC. Sadly, child road casualty figures are rising and Y&H appears to be the worst region: preventative education is essential. Just a couple of weeks ago, a Y3 Farfield child ran across the road in front of my car at 6pm on Farfield Avenue (his friend, not from this school, was even worse – just messing about on the road). I would hate for one of our children to be part of the grim statistics.

Much more positively, I have been doing tours this week with prospective families for Reception 2026. Our visits to Nursery and Reception have been particularly lovely: happy, engaged children playing and learning together. They do seem to be very good cohorts of children. The teachers are going to invite families into the Reception classes next half term to come and see some phonics lessons in practice – a very confident and positive new idea.

Happy Diwali to all our Sikh and Hindu families that are celebrating on Monday!