Headteacher weekly blog week beginning 29th January
Date: 4th Feb 2018 @ 11:59am
It is hard to believe that January has gone already!
At last Phase 1 of the building work is completed. We now have our front entrance back and some new doors (but they sadly need tweeking as the sensor isn't working yet). The staff are happy in their new staffroom which is far more spacious! And Mrs Knight and Ms Diamond are, needless to say, thrilled with their new office. And of course the stuido hall is now complete and Mrs Higley has taken residence in there with her Year 6 class. The acoustics are amazing - even the Wifi doesn't get through! The architects came in on Wednesday to see the progress and when they heard the pupils share how happy they were in their new space, it brought a tear to their eye!
The shed and the mobile classroom are of course now gone. In a way it was sad to see them go as it was a part of history, but it is fair to say that the mobile had seen better days and we can't wait to see the new extension start going up - the concrete foundations start going in on Tuesday.
Our school newspaper is going from strength to strength. Mrs Barnes is the Editor in chief and for our February edition,Hannah and Tilly interviewed the architects. They were hugely impressed with their questioning and they asked about their thoughts and their designs for our new school. They also asked them what they thought schools in the future will look like. Our architects think there will be robot teachers with interactive walls and VAR headsets - the mind boggles.
Year 3 had their first yoga session this week. This is part of our programme, using the Sports Premium money, to promote a healthy lifestyle and a healthy mind. It is a 6 week programme to promote well-being and mindfulness. I spoke with the children afterwards and they all felt so much more relaxed and calm. I think I might attend the next session! I am now looking to roll this out to other year groups in the Summer term as the Year 6 pupils were itching to have a go.
Sports wise we continue to do well. The netballers sit top of the Chester league and have some crucial games coming up. The footballers in Year 5 and 6 won their last match against Belgrave 4 -1 and so they sit top of the league. However, we cross our fingers and hope results go our way for us to win the league yet again. Mr Bond took his Year 3 and 4 athletics teams to compete in the Broxton tournament. They did incredibly well, winning several races. However, it was runners up this time with Bickerton winning - they are always strong in athletics.
On Friday, the parents from Reception were invited in for a science afternoon. They were given the task of using a range of materials to make a chair for the 3 bears. There were some fantastic chairs that Big Bear would be proud of!
Next week is safer internet day. We will be doing some on-line safety work in class onTuesday and we have also invited in Mark Aspden to lead a talk to parents on how to keep their children safe when on-line at home. I thoroughly recommend this talk as technology is developng all the time and he will be talking about snapchat, facebook and instagram. All his materials will be made available on line on our website under the on-line safety tab. Mr Orford is in the process of appointing some digital leaders across the school who will help us work towards the On-line safety accrediatation. They will share their updates in the monthly edition of the school newspaper.