It has been another very busy and productive week, here in school.  On Wednesday, I spent the afternoon with our reception children and their families at the wonderful welcome service.  It was such a treat to welcome our new reception children to the school and church communities and for each of them to have a go at ringing the church bell, in celebration. Thank you to the Home School Association who funded the beautiful bibles that were gifted to each child. The children’s singing was phenomenal and we are all very impressed by how confident our youngest children already are, so early in the school year. Well done, reception!

All of our Pupil Voice groups have now been elected and are ready to help support the school’s progress and development.  The first job for our School Council and Worship Committee will be to organise and communicate our Harvest Festival Celebrations, which will take place on 16th October. School Council will be in touch soon, with further details.

I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon with year 6, this afternoon, talking all things Nepal.  The children listened very carefully and made some very thoughtful responses about daily life in Nepal, as well as the risks and dangers of tourism in the mountain areas.  Thank you for having me, year 6.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.  Sounds like it will be a weekend for avoiding Storm Amy!

This week we have focused on another of the key elements of our School Vision and Curriculum Driver – Independence.  We thought about what it means to be alone and explored the quote, “Independence isn’t doing your own thing; it’s doing the right thing on your own”. We read the story, ‘Gary’ and learned about how Gary the racing pigeon who couldn’t fly, had to think creatively and act independently to find his way home.  This week, children have focused on what and who give them strength and independence.

Thank goodness for a week in the sunshine! It has been another busy and productive week.  Our year 5 and 6 pupils carried out a geography field trip to the local area to consider the impact future developments might have on the village and the school.  I had the pleasure of walking with 5/6M and was very impressed by the children’s responses and critical thinking.

Attendance this week has been really positive, with one day this week being very nearly 100%!  We talk about the benefits of consistent attendance in assembly each week.

Our new phonics scheme, ELS, is well underway and the children are responding very well to the new lessons.  Thank you for all of your support with reading at home.

Congratulations to all of the children who have successfully achieved one of our pupil voice and representative positions.  All of our House Captains, School Council Reps, Wellbeing Buddies and Worship Committee are in position and raring to go to help our school community.  Thank you to all of those involved.

Please could we ask for your continuing support regarding water and drinks bottles.  We are very grateful for the support with the size of the bottles that children are bringing.  It really does make a difference to storage in the classrooms and there is a noticeable reduction in spillages.  Plastic bottles are preferable, please as metal ones are hard and heavy and can cause incidents.

This week’s focus has been on resilience, which is both part of our school vision and one of our new Curriculum Drivers.  We have reflected on what resilience means and there were some excellent suggestions from the children.  In the end, we decided that resilience means the ability to bounce back.  We thought about how we have already shown resilience this year by moving to new year groups, lots of new learning and of course, the literal bouncing, on the inflatable assault course!  Children found it very amusing that I had needed help from Miss Cottam to complete the course.  We then considered how we all need help at times, and that it is ok to ask for support.

We finished our assembly with the following:

Matthew 11:28​

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

We have finally managed to have a go on the inflatable assault course!  I am so grateful that it has finally stopped raining and the wind has dropped enough for us to be able to fulfil our promise to the children.  It has been a lot of fun watching the children having a good go at the challenge and competing well with each other.  We have really enjoyed ourselves – thank you to the HSA for funding such a fun end to our Dot focus fortnight.

Thank you to all of those who attended the HSA meeting, this week.  A lot of exciting events have been planned.  Some dates for your diaries for this term:

Autumn Discos – 14.10.25 further details of times and ticket purchases to follow

Christmas Discos – 18.11.25

Christmas Festival and Grotto 5.12.25

As part of our vision to Aspire for Higher, we have introduced the 5Bs to our classes.  The 5Bs are strategies that children can use if they are stuck or struggling for ideas to get started: Brain, Board, Book, Buddy, Boss.  It is great to see our children working with increasing independence.

This week, our Collective Worship focus was our school value of Thankfulness.  We all thought about what we are thankful for and how gratitude can be very beneficial for our wellbeing.  We thought about a talent that we are grateful for as well as things in nature and things that money can’t buy.  It has been a great week of children coming and telling me things that they are grateful for.

I am very sorry to report that I have had to re-schedule the inflatable assault course again, to later next week.  With strong winds predicted for the beginning of the week, we felt that it was safest to delay.  I have never known the weather to be so unsettled at the beginning of the school year and it is typical that this unpredictable weather coincides with when we are trying to organise an outdoor event!  Many thanks for your support and patience with this.

AIP, our school food provider, will be on the main playground from 3pm on Tuesday 16th September.  They are looking forward to meeting our families and answering any questions that you  may have about our school lunches.  I  believe that they may also be bringing some sweet treats.

The children have done some fantastic responses to our focus book, The Dot.  I am so impressed by how inspired and creative the children have been.  We shared some examples of poetry in Praise Assembly, this morning.

Many thanks to all of you who attended our phonics and early reading evening, this week. We have never had such a positive turn out before. For those who did attend, please could you take a couple of minutes to complete our feedback form?  https://forms.office.com/e/ZfteS15WYJ

A quick reminder that our HSA meeting will take place on Monday 15th September, at school, at 630pm.  I look forward to seeing many of you, then.

Despite the rain, we have had a wonderful first week back at school.  After two staff INSET days of lots of thinking about and preparation for the year ahead, it was lovely to welcome the children back to school on Wednesday.  We have been so impressed by the confidence that the children have returned to school with.  Our youngest, new reception children have also been super confident and we are amazed by how quickly they are settling in to school life.  Thank you for all of your support, in what has been a very positive start to the school year. 

Your child will be coming home with a Data Collection sheet, next week.  Please could we request that these are checked and any amendments made and returned to school, as quickly as possible please.  We are hoping to move all of our school communications and payments over to Arbor and a quick return of this information will really help with a smooth transition.

I will be sending out a separate letter regarding provisional dates for the school year.  Just a quick reminder that we have a couple of parent events coming up over the next few weeks to provide information about our new phonics scheme + supporting reading at home and another evening regarding supporting your child with times tables:

Phonics and reading evening – Tuesday 9th September at 630pm (Reception, Year 1 & Year 2)

Multiplication evening – Tuesday 23rd September at 630pm (Year 3 & Year 4)

Another important date for your diary is our first HSA meeting of the year on Monday 15th September at 630pm. Our sincere thanks to the HSA who are funding our Inflatables Days, at the end of next week.  Hopefully you have all received the letter regarding all pupils having the opportunity to complete an assault course as part of our Aspire for Higher initiative.  If you have any questions or concerns, please do get in touch.