Headteacher blog Friday 6th December

At this time of year, I do lots of school tours for prospective parents. If it is a morning tour, we typically see English and maths lessons and the school seems calm and orderly. In the afternoons, the curriculum is usually more varied and we see more science, PE, topic, cooking, farming, music, art and much more.  It is ‘pot luck’ as regards timing of our visits to classrooms but sometimes we hit the jackpot: so it was on Wednesday when we walked into the Junior hall just as a Y3 group with Miss Ellis and a dance teacher were about to perform the piece that they had been working on for weeks. Our guests and I watched spell-bound as the children morphed into different shapes and kept to the rhythm for a surprising extended dance routine which was brilliantly impressive for 7 year olds.

Often our tours at this time of year bump into rehearsals for nativity and Christmas shows. All the performances seem to be progressing well; Year 5, in particular, seem to have a lot of words to learn. This week we had new audio equipment installed in the halls, including new microphones, which should ensure that we can all hear well this year. Many thanks to the PTA for funding this!

Finally, the countdown to Christmas began for me on Tuesday evening as I attended the Leeds School Music Association Christmas Concert at the Leeds Town Hall. Eight of our children were performing in the schools’ festival choir again this year and this event always makes me feel proud to be the school’s headteacher and to live in Leeds. The music is provided by a range of youth orchestras and I have been proud, in the past, to see Farfield alumni in those orchestras. This year, one of our former pupils was part of the Leeds Youth Choir who also performed.  We are fortunate in Leeds to still have a strong schools and youth music infrastructure in the city and we should make use of it – and enjoy it – as best we can. Thanks to Mrs Hawkhead for leading our choir and congratulations to George, Srihan, Serena, Sophie, Sally, Erin, Zahrah and Brooke for their singing and commitment to rehearsals and learning the words.