Headteacher blog 20 September 2019

It has been glorious at school this week and we have certainly enjoyed the weather. With the Climate Strikes in the news this week, we have discussed Greta Thunberg and listened to her messages in assembly with the older children. Greta famously travelled to New York by sailing boat and Y6 children this week have had lovely days up at Yeadon Tarn experiencing sailing as part of their work on the book ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’.  I was asked by a child on the field if the sunny weather on Thursday was a sign of climate change. Of course, I replied that no single day’s weather can be attributed to climate change but that unusual weather is more likely now and in the future. As a school we need to do better at lowering our emissions and operating more sustainably and this is a challenge for all the school leaders, governors, staff and children going forward.

I was out in front of the school on Thursday morning monitoring traffic and parking. Use of the Civic Hall car park seems to have helped and there is plenty of room in there. We have issued 50 permits, but other families can park in there as well half an hour either side of the school start and end times without fear of a ticket (let us know if there is a problem).  Infant families could use the car park to ‘Park and Stride’.  Whilst I was out there, I saw a lady that I didn’t recognise walking along the pavement towards the infants pulling a trolley behind her packed methodically with all sorts of different things including a broom, dressing up clothes and artefacts. Later I discovered that she was ‘Florence Nightingale’ from the museum coming to work with Y2. This was another great example of someone travelling sustainably even though her journey wasn’t easy or straight-forward.