A huge thank you to the year 2 and 3 pupils who have volunteered this week to help to keep our school site clean and tidy.  They have given up their own social time to pick up litter from the playground and paths.  We appreciate the dedication that they have shown to respecting our school site.

Well done to all of the children who have participated in BikeAbility.  Feedback from the team is that children are listening carefully and following instructions to keep themselves and others safe.  Well done and we look forward to hearing how the children participating next week, get on.

Thank you for attending parents’ evening, this week. It was a pleasure to see so many of you.

This week I shared one of my favourite picture books with the children, ‘No Matter What’ by Debi Gliori.  The story introduces us to the characters of Large and Small and reminds us that we are loved, no matter what, even when we are tired and grumpy. We reminded ourselves of the term Agape, which means the highest form or love, God’s love.  For Christians, this type of love is a constant and unconditional support and comfort.

Thank you for your support, this week.  As you know, we had our OFSTED inspection on Tuesday and Wednesday.  We are very grateful to those who completed the Parent Survey to let the inspectors know your thoughts about our school.  Thank you also to the children, who represented our school brilliantly!  We are very proud of their behaviour and contributions.  It was a long couple of days but the inspectors were very complimentary about our children and the welcome that they had received from them.  We look forward to sharing the full report with you, in the near future.

We look forward to seeing you at parents’ evening on Wednesday and Thursday 345 – 615pm. A quick reminder that if you haven’t booked your appointments, the link will close at 6pm on Monday 26th January.

Father Chris came in to lead assembly, this week.  We love to sing along with Father Chris and his electric guitar! The theme of our assembly this week was linked to our vision “appreciation of God’s wonderful world”.  We were reminded that we are surrounded by goodness in the world in which we live; the beauty of the earth with its light, darkness, land, water, ice and snow.  We also thought about the plants and creatures, large and small.  Father Chris reminded us all of our role in taking care of and respecting our wonderful world.

Help us, O lord, to see the beauty of Your creations and respect and look after the gift of this wonderful planet.

Thank you so much for the lovely photos sent into school of the snowmen/ snowwomen/ snowdogs and other creative sculptures that were produced on our snow day, last week.  It was a lot of fun looking through them and clearly a lot of hard work and effort went into them!

Well done to our Year 2 pupils who had a wonderful time at Forest School, in the rain, this week. Despite the weather, children really enjoyed the opportunity to be learning outside.

We have had a very busy and productive week thinking about our school vision, in particular about aspiration and what that looks like in our daily lessons and behaviours.  The children have been giving me lots of examples throughout the week, of how they have been “the best that they can be”. This has been our assembly focus this week, and the children have really taken it on board.

Hopefully, you will have all received a letter regarding the NSPCC “Speak out; stay safe” campaign, that was sent out with children, yesterday. We will be participating with  age appropriate assemblies and some classroom based activities.  Years 3, 5 and 6 will have some follow up workshops as part of Good Health Week.  Should you wish to know more about the programme, please follow this link – www.nspcc.org.uk/speakout. 

This week in assembly, we revisited our Curriculum Drivers.  So far this year, we have looked at how we can be resilient, independent and aspirational in our learning and daily lives.  Our focus this half term, is aspiration.  We recalled our physical challenge on the inflatable assault course, at the beginning of the school year, which set the tone for a year of “Aspire for Higher”.  We reminded ourselves that even though that challenge was tough for some of us (and some of us got stuck on the ladders!), we showed the resilience and determination to complete the challenge.  This half term, we are focusing on being the best that we can be.  We talked about what this will look like in our classrooms and on our playgrounds.  Children came up with some excellent examples, and have reflected on it throughout the week. We have considered that Christians believe the Bible encourages believers to aspire towards our goals and dreams, emphasising trust in God and alignment with His will.​

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Happy new year!  I hope that you all had a lovely and fun filled Christmas.  After this week, I am sure that it feels like a distant memory for us all.

It has been lovely to welcome the children back to school, this week.  I am very grateful for your support and patience as we have muddled through a week of such difficult weather.  We have worked hard to try to keep the site open for as much of the week as possible. This has meant that the children have had to spend more time indoors than usual.  The children have done us proud with their sensible and thoughtful behaviour.  Thank you to our year 6 Buddies, who have done a sterling job in keeping our younger children entertained during indoor lunchtimes.  I have thoroughly enjoyed looking at the photos of the snowmen that have been made, today.

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you next week, when hopefully we will have less disruption!

This half term’s school value focus is ‘respect’.  We recalled what we learnt last term about self-respect and not being too hard on ourselves for mistakes that we make.  When we make mistakes in lessons, we talk about ‘my favourite mistake’ and what we can learn from it.  We also recalled what we learnt last term about the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is put back together to make it stronger and more beautiful.  It was a good time to remind ourselves that Christians believe that we are all created in the image of God and are inherently valuable.

On Thursday, Mr Bradley carried out our Behaviour Reset assembly.  We reminded ourselves of our 3 simple, school rules – be ready and responsible to learn; use kind and respectful words; use kind and respectful feet.  The word ‘respect’ features heavily in our school rules so we considered what respectful behaviour and attitudes looks like in our daily lives.

This has been a week that has made me incredibly proud to be part of such a wonderful school community.  Key Stage 1 performed a wonderful play, The Innspectors and kept us all very entertained with their singing, dancing and comedy.  The play also reminded us of the true meaning of Christmas.  Our Key Stage 2 Carol Service was truly wonderful and allowed  calm and peaceful reflection during this very busy season.  Today, our Worship Leaders led a fabulous service for us, in church.  The service gave us a lovely reminder of the true meaning of Christmas.  Well done and thank you to all of our children, from reception to year 6, who have participated so well in our Christmas events over the last few weeks.  We thoroughly enjoyed joining in with the Dudley Performing Arts Christmas sing-a-long today, too.

We sadly say goodbye and good luck to Mrs Walley, today.  We are extremely grateful to Mrs Walley for her unrelenting service to the school.  The dedication and compassion that she has shown to our whole school community is very much appreciated and will be missed greatly.  We know that Mrs Walley will continue to thrive in her new role and we wish her all the very best at her new school.

On behalf all of the staff, I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and look forward to seeing you on the 5th January, in the new year.