Headteacher blog 3/2/23

It was a sad week with our first major strike by teachers for decades. About two-thirds of our school was closed due to the strike and attendance was relatively low in the classes that were open – especially the afternoon-only KS2 classes. I sincerely hope that there can be some movement, compromise and negotiation around matters of pay so that we don’t have to make arrangements for the other strikes penciled in for the end of this month and the middle of March.

More positively, we have had children running in the city cross-country finals this week and 4HB have gone to the Viking village over by York today.

I have been looking at school football this week. There are about 250 primary schools in Leeds but it seems only about 60 of them are in the Y6 football leagues, half of that number in the city-wide U11 cup and many fewer in the Y4, Y5 and girls’ leagues. I couldn’t see any other primary school in the Calverley, Farsley and Pudsey areas routinely playing competitive football. Farfield have teams in each of these competitions and age groups and we feel it is a valuable experience for the children. This lack of teams, especially amongst younger year groups, means that too many league matches end up being a long way away, making the whole thing more onerous in terms of travel time.