We seem to have had all weathers and seasons, this week!  As winter is moving into spring, this week we considered how spring is the time of year when we notice new beginnings.  We thought about how bare the trees have been through winter but that during this time, the trees are resting, the nutrients from the leaves are going back into the ground, and the tree is preparing the flourish again.  Easter is a time of new beginnings and flourishing for Christians and we considered the significance of Jesus’s last supper with his disciples and the new commandment that was shared – “to love one another, as I have loved you.”

Our thanks to New Life Church who visited us today and delivered their Easter assembly.  The Easter story was told through the familiar puppet characters that our children enjoy listening to and learning from.

Hasn’t it been lovely to feel some warmth and sunshine, this week? We have really enjoyed noticing the signs that spring is finally on its way.  Thank you to our Eco Committee who visited church this week, to meet with members of Wall Heath in Bloom.  We had a lovely visit and really enjoyed looking at the fabulous bug hotels, new bird boxes and all the wonderful plants and flowers that are now coming into bloom.

Well done and thank you to our year 5 pupils who behaved brilliantly on their visit to church for Experience Easter.  You listened carefully and gave some very thoughtful responses – you have made us all very proud.

We have really enjoyed the Funtime Theatre Company visit, this afternoon and their performance of Oliver Twist.  It was great to be able to watch a live performance in our own school.  Thank you to the fundraising efforts of the HSA which allowed us to be able to have such a great experience.

Neurodiversity Celebration Week has been a great success at Church of the Ascension. Children have made thoughtful observations and sensitive responses to all that we have learnt about and celebrated.  The colour and celebration in school today for non-uniform day has been great!

This week, we have been celebrating similarities and differences, in our assemblies. As it is National Neurodiversity week, we have been thinking about how our differences can bring talents, strengths and sometimes difficulties.  We thought about how we all want to feel that we belong and that we are valued.  Jesus set the example of this by ensuring that people pushed to the edges of society were made to feel included, welcomed and a sense of belonging.  We used this example to think about ways that we can be helpful at school in making sure that everyone feels happy, safe and a sense of belonging.  We talked about how sometimes we all need personal space, peace and quiet, support and friendship.  The children offered some excellent contributions and we have concluded the week with a lovely celebration assembly today, where we all wore our own clothes representing what makes us happy.  It was great to see children in different uniforms, kits and own clothes that represented where they feel that they are happy and that they belong.

Mrs Peters and I thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Summerhill with the girls’ football team.  The team have been participating in a tournament and this week was round 2.  Both games played were very exciting and there was some great skill demonstrated. The end results were a loss and a win meaning that we are through to the finals!  The girls finished the afternoon with an impressive 8 goals! Well done to our girls’ football team.,

Our school council representatives have been helping me to establish the pupils’ views on behaviour in our school.  I am very grateful to the representatives and how sensibly and thoughtfully they have carried out this task. A particular thank you to the year 6 representatives who have supported our younger children to express their views.

This week I met with Wall Heath in Bloom.  Their plans for the village are very exciting and we are happy to be getting involved. Our Eco Committee will be getting actively involved in both school and the local area.

Huge thanks to our HSA who have held our annual sale for Mother’s Day, this afternoon.

One of our favourite visitors to Church of the Ascension, Lindsey Brown, led our assembly, on Monday.  Her clever and skilful use of art, helped us to understand the value of forgiveness.  Lindsey told us the story of creation and temptation.  She then reminded us of the significance of Easter,  and how for Christians it is a time of forgiveness, new beginnings and moving forwards.  Lindsey left us with a wonderful painting to display and remind us of how Christians believe that Jesus came to mend relationships.  Thank you for a thought provoking assembly, Lindsey.

This week, we held our termly Eucharist Service.  It was lovely to welcome visitors from the church and school communities to join us for the service and share communion, together, for those that wished to. Father Chris led us through a service that made us consider The Lord’s Prayer.  This is a prayer that we say regularly in school, and refer to as our Family Prayer.  Father Chris explained that it is called the Family Prayer as it brings all those of Christian faith together, in the unity of one prayer.  We considered what each part of the prayer means and what we are asking for when we say this prayer.  The children listened and engaged very well and as with all of Father Chris’s assemblies, very much enjoyed the musical responses and joining in with familiar and new hymns.

We have had a lovely week, enjoying the sunshine of Spring and celebrating World Book Day. We have all had a great time talking about our favourite books and book characters. The activities were a huge success and there was lots of healthy competition in the literary orienteering.  Thank you for all of the donations to the Book Swap – it was great to see so many children going home with a different book to read.  Football books were particularly popular, this year! We had some brilliant costumes – please do visit the year group pages for their photographs and updates.

I am very much looking forward to meeting with school council representatives, next week, to talk about behaviour in school and our behaviour policy.  This will complement the work that we have been doing with parents and staff to help inform our new behaviour policy, that we hope to launch before the start of next school year.  Thank you to all of those who contributed their thoughts and observations via the parent survey.

Hopefully you have all received the OFSTED report and my accompanying letter.  It is great to be able to share the report with our community.

Thank you to those of you who attended our Behaviour Coffee Morning, today.  You have provided me with lots of input when we review the Behaviour Policy.

We are very much looking forward to World Book Day, on Thursday 5th March.  Mrs Peters has planned lots of reading activities for the day and the Great Book Swap will mean that everyone will have some new reading materials for the weekend.  I look forward to seeing the creative costumes but please don’t worry if you don’t have one – children are welcome to come in comfy clothes to read in.

To start the new half term, we have focused on our core value of Forgiveness.  We considered what friendship looks like and feels like.  We acknowledged that we sometimes have ruptures in our friendships and that sometimes we fall out.  The children gave me lots of brilliant suggestions about how we can repair a friendship, including forgiveness.  Jesus’ message to Peter about forgiveness, Matthew 18:21-35, made us reflect on forgiveness in our daily lives.