Headteacher Blog 17th September 2021

After the excitement of last week’s reopening, this week has felt more relaxed. I have been in every class this week and there was a happy, focussed working atmosphere in every room that I visited. Playtimes have been fun, with cricket nets and tennis courts busy on the junior side, and infants using all the different areas of their grounds with such gleeful enthusiasm. We have made an appointment with a playground specialist for the start of October to help us to further develop our plans for a big new play installation for the Foundation Stage (Nursery and Reception) by the end of the year – we can’t wait to enhance that area too.

This week was the end of an era. After 7 brilliant years, Diane Walton has stepped down as chair of our PTA. We are so grateful to Diane for her wonderful commitment to the school and she must go down as the most long-serving and successful chair of the PTA. During her time, she has led the way in brilliant events such as camp-overs and fairs, and has raised tens of thousands of pounds towards some of the Farfield provision that makes our school a special place. Thank you Diane!

Another development this week has been a provisional agreement to make White Rose Maths our partners for maths tutoring this year as part of the National Tutoring Programme. This tutoring will be targeted towards children that may have made less progress over Lockdown or are in receipt of Pupil Premium funding. Typically tutoring for 45 minute sessions for groups of 3 children, WRM are a great partner for us as we use their maths resources and planning framework already and the tutoring will closely complement our work in class.