We are not full in Reception this year – the first time in the 18 years that I have been headteacher – as birth rates have declined in this area. It might also reflect the fact that we did less school tours over the COVID period. This year, we seem to be doing huge numbers of school tours and we got some fabulous feedback from a tour last week:
“I would…. like to thank all of the children for creating such a wonderful atmosphere that was full of a thirst for learning. We could tell how much you all loved being there and a rich and well-rounded curriculum and an experience of a life-time was evident throughout.
We were left speechless!”
It is great to get this sort of feedback. We don’t do set-piece ‘Open Evenings’; the tours that we do are ‘ordinary’ days in school, confident that every day is an impressive show. We have a low number of siblings in Nursery this year, so we do need to recruit widely.
This week we had a sound workshop for Year 4 supporting their science and DT curricula and we have competitive football matches on three consecutive evenings. Our pitch is beginning to look a bit worn, but that isn’t all bad – at least it’s getting lots of use both during the school week and at the weekend.
Rehearsals for the Junior Christmas show have started and yesterday I saw something I had never seen before. In the trees at lunchtime, a crowd had gathered in a large den area and a show was being performed. Whilst I was there, a Y5 boy and a Y5 girl were both singing loudly and confidently to their peers and the audience was rapt. I didn’t interrupt to find out what was going on as they were having a lovely time. Something to do with, or inspired by, their Aladdin show perhaps…?
