News

News from the Head

There has been a tremendous sense of purpose and focus, as one colleague put it, this week at school culminating in much excitement today with children in Year 5 getting to use the iPads for the first time. In Early Years the children enjoyed a trip to Polka theatre for the Ugly Duckling and we began our EY parent and child visits for Nursery 2012 places. In KS 1 we enjoyed thinking about Roald Dahl’s books and hearing about the favourite books of children in 2L. Rehearsals started in KS 2 for the play "The Wizard of Oz."

Staff News

Congratulations to Michael and Olivia Waller who were married over the Christmas holidays. The sun shone on their special day and Michael has been smiling ever since! I am delighted to announce the safe arrival of Miss Fawzia's healthy baby boy Nael. Congratulations to Fawzia and Mohammed. We look forward to meeting young Nael soon. Nathalie Glennie is expecting a baby in five weeks time. Nathalie was our Year 6 teacher for many years. We look forward to sharing the news when the baby arrives.

I am sorry to tell you that Julie Skipworth and Nicola Pepper are both leaving in February. Julie has always enjoyed creating special library moments for the children with authors and illustrator visits and the very successful book week. I think she must win the prize for the range and impressiveness of her dressing up in the short time I have known her. She has a great sense of fun and has provided intelligent and thoughtful contributions to all aspects of school life. Nicola came to us when Julie went part time and has shown quiet dedication to organising and welcoming children in the library. My fondest memory will be in the book week pantomime when she sprang to life as one of the ugly sisters in Cinderella. We all laughed so much as the story unfolded. We will miss them both very much.

This week, the children were involved for the first time in staff recruitment. For the librarian interviews the school council discussed and put together questions they wanted to ask and then the school captains came to interview all six candidates. At the close of the day their views were sought as part of the decision process. I was so proud of their maturity, insight and confidence.

Parent Workshop

We are looking forward to the Parent Reading Group Workshop on Tuesday morning at 9.00 am. If you are interested in hearing children read here and have not yet said so do come along to the meeting anyway and we can take your details there

School History

We have been learning about the history of our school building and were interested to know that from the plans of the properties in 1914, our library used to be the dining room whereas my office and the main office was known as the smoking room!

Jill Aisher