I cannot believe I am sitting here at the end of term having broken up for the Christmas break! It has certainly been a busy one and being the Headteacher has been harder than I could ever have imagined but equally, it has been so rewarding and I want to thank you for all of the support and kind words that I have had from so many of you.

Little Heath really is a lovely place to work and we do all we can to ensure that our children feel happy and secure in their time with us. The Christmas build up is one of the times in the year where we get to do so many fun and exciting things and this last couple of weeks has been no exception to that. The Foundation Stage and KS1 performances and the KS2 Carol Concert were both very well attended and were a joy to watch the children perform and sing in. I wish to thank all of you who contributed to the collection after the Carol Concert as we have been able to send off a donation to the Make A Wish Foundation of just over £293 which is a fantastic amount of money and will no doubt be very well received! It never ceases to amaze me how generous you all are and I am very proud to say that as a community we help to raise such large amounts of money to support so many good causes.

Thank you for all of the cards and presents that I have been given –I did tell some children earlier today that I will be coming back at least a stone heavier after the break!

I hope that you all have a lovely Christmas and New Year and we will see you all on Tuesday 7^th January.

I want to start by saying how awesome everyone looked in their Christmas jumpers today! There were lots of amazing looking jumpers on show and lots of money was no doubt raised for Save the Children; I will let you know how much in total was raised in my blog next week.

Although officially, Christmas Jumper Day was actually yesterday, we chose to do ours today as it coincided with our Christmas lunch and it feels much more festive wearing the right attire whilst tucking into our turkey and sprouts. For those children who had the Christmas meal option, I trust that they enjoyed it –there was certainly not much left at the end so this is always a good sign. Getting everyone sat and fed on time is always a stretch, but I’m pleased to say that everything went like a well-oiled machine today and we managed to get the film started on time in the afternoon, which the children then got to enjoy watching. On that note, I wish to thank the parent volunteers for their help on the playground and then in the hall this afternoon. You know who you are and without you, it would not have been possible to get the staff together for their annual sit down meal (brilliantly served by the Year 6 children as ever) so thank you very much for giving up your time and I hope you enjoyed watching the film too!

Next week, we have lots of festivities taking place, from the EYFS and KS1 performances on Tuesday morning and Wednesday afternoon, to the KS2 carol concert which takes place on Tuesday evening. Before these shows, we will start the week with our second sharing assembly of the year on Monday morning and you will have been invited already if your child is taking part. Tuesday afternoon will see KS1 having their Christmas party so do make sure that your child has their party outfit in school to get changed into for that. The KS2 party will be on Thursday afternoon and once again, children will need their party clothes in school for this.

Whether you will be in school already watching the show or not, all parents are welcome in school from 3pm onwards on Wednesday for our Open Afternoon, where you can come in and look at all of the learning that your child has done so please do join your child if you are able to.

Have a lovely weekend.

Has another week really passed by that quickly?! Although I was not around for the first part of the week, I am pleased to say that while the temperatures may have dropped dramatically, it has not dampened the children’s spirits and it has been another week of hard work and enjoyment from the children of the school.

I want to start by saying what a pleasure it was to welcome the families of our Year 3 children into school this morning for what was the first of our class assemblies for this academic year. In my opening paragraph, I have mentioned the hard work that has been going on in school and this was clearly demonstrated by the Year 3 children today. They shared their learning in a wide variety of subjects and presented it using humour, clear, confident speech along with drama and dance with a conversation taking place in Spanish that would put fluent speakers to shame! The key thing that came across was how much fun the children have had with their learning and this is something that we strive to achieve here in all that we do. Well done to Year 3 and to Miss Davis and Mrs Proudlove for putting on such a great assembly.

There are no big events planned in next week for once, but I’m sure that the hard work and good learning will continue across the school. I will not be on the gate much next week but I promise it is not because I am avoiding the cold and Mr Chanter will be there to greet you when I am not!

Have a good weekend.

 

So here we are at the end of the first week back after the half term break. Although it probably feels like a distant memory already, I trust that everyone had a good break. I know that some of you managed to get away to sunnier climes but even if you did not, for the most part, the weather seemed to hold out here and so I hope that you managed to get out and about.

For those of you who managed to make it to our Fireworks event, I am sure that you enjoyed the fantastic display as much as I did. That last firework in particular was amazing and seems to have stuck in other people’s minds too because I have spoken to many people about it this week! I know that an email went out from the PTA earlier today, but I am very pleased to say that the total money raised was £9616.81 which is an absolutely incredible amount of money that will really help to make a difference to the children in the school. We will be sending out some information soon about how the money raised is spent in school to improve the provision and outcomes for all of our children. I want to say thank you to all those who came along and supported the event, but in particular I’d like to say a huge thank you to all of those involved, who gave up their time to ensure that the whole thing was such a success –you know who you are!

There are 3 significant events happening in school next week. First of all, Monday is Remembrance Day and we will be following a minute’s silence with all of the children in the school to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in armed conflicts over the years. We are very grateful to all those children who have donated to the RBL Poppy Appeal so far and there are still some poppy related items left to purchase for anyone who has not managed to do so yet. I will inform you all about the amount raised once we find out from RBL after it has been sent off to be counted.

It is also anti-bullying week next week, which will involve the children taking part in activities in class to learn all about the issue to help to try and stamp bullying out in school once and for all! As part of this, on Tuesday, we encourage all of our school community (parents and teachers included!) to wear odd socks for the day. This is an initiative which was started in 2017 by Andy from CBBC and will be discussed with the children in school.

Finally, next Friday is Children in Need day. I know that a message has gone out already about this but the children are all encouraged to wear their own clothes –with a spotty theme –in return for bringing in a donation of a pound. I am always very aware that we regularly ask for donations for various charities, but I am always equally impressed at how generous everyone is and it makes me very proud to see how much we are able to raise for such good causes and I thank you in advance for your continued support with this.

That’s all from me for now. Have a great weekend and we will see you all again on Monday.

 

As I sit here looking out of my office window at the beautiful autumn crisp afternoon with the sun low in the sky casting shadows across the playground and field, it is unbelievable to think how different it looks to just a couple of days ago when once again we were battered by the torrential rain that hit. Such is the changeable nature of our weather right now, it seems almost impossible to predict what it will be like over the course of the day. Fortunately, however, apart from one ‘wet play’, the children have been able to get out and about still at break and lunchtime which is always a bonus at this time of the year and I hope that this continues next week.

As many of you may have seen last night (or at least got to view through your phone camera lens), the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, made another appearance last night and this morning I received an amazing picture of the school that was taken by one of our Co-Chairs of Governors, Michelle Corneby. The photo is attached below, and I am sure you will all agree how stunning the sky looked behind the trees at the back of the Foundation block.

I mentioned last week how successful the Harvest Festival coffee morning had been and I am very pleased to say that now the money has been totalled up, I can tell you that £554.79 will be headed off to support Cancer Research which is a huge amount of money. Thank you once again to all those involved –from those who baked/brought in the goodies to those of you who bought them and especially to those who gave up their time to ensure that the whole thing was such a success.

Next week is yet another week where I will not be around much. I am out from Tuesday until Thursday on STEPs training and whilst this means yet more days offsite, I can assure you all that I will still be keeping a close eye on the day-to-day running of the school in my absence, even though I am extremely confident that Mr Chanter and Mrs Robinson have everything under control. If you do need to contact anyone on those days though, please do direct your questions/queries their way.

Have a good weekend and we will see you all on Monday.

 Dear all,

Whilst I wasn’t around a lot this week, I was delighted to hear that in my absence, plenty of good learning took place and the school all ran smoothly under the watchful eyes of Mr Chanter and Mrs Robinson. Having just returned from the Hertfordshire Headteacher’s Conference, I am pleased to say that I have brought back lots of ideas for ways to further develop and improve our offer to all of our pupils and I cannot wait to feed this back to all of my teaching staff over the coming weeks which will then be seen in our classroom practice.

As I mentioned in my blog last week, the one thing that I was the most disappointed about being out today was the fact that I missed the Harvest Coffee morning. This is always such a lovely event for everyone involved and I am told that this morning’s gathering was no exception to that, with the children in fine voice and lots of parents in attendance. I want to thank all of the parents who sent in donations of cakes and biscuits as well as all of you who then bought these to raise money for charity. I also want to thank all of the parents who volunteered their time to sell the sweet treats. I do not know how much has been raised yet, but I do know that a significant amount will be going to a good cause. I do apologise for not advertising the chosen charity sooner, but as I had spoken to the children in assembly on Monday, I had left it up to them to make suggestions and the majority of them involved donating to cancer charities of one form or another, so we are going to donate the money to Cancer Research. We have donated to this charity before but as cancer affects 1 in 2 of us over our lifetimes then I’m sure you will agree this is a very worthwhile cause in order to try to reduce this awful statistic.

Our Book Fair has been a resounding success so far, with many of our children exploring new reads and there will be lots of new books coming into the school soon as a result of all of the books sold. The Book Fair will continue on Monday and Tuesday next week, providing even more opportunities for our children to find their next favourite book.

Monday will also see our first Sharing Assembly of the year. If your child is taking part in this assembly, you will have been notified already and if you have not attended this assembly before then it is an opportunity for your child to share the learning that they are proud of in any area of the curriculum that they choose; the breadth of subjects/topics that the children choose to share is always very diverse and I can’t wait for you to see the creativity and hard work they will share!

Thank you to everyone for making this week so special.

Well what a strange few days weather-wise it was at the end of the week. I sat looking out of my office window on Thursday afternoon watching the trees swaying all over the place with some of the worst driving rain that I have ever seen hammering down on the concrete and fields! Fortunately, by Friday morning, the 'ponds' that had gathered in the corners of the playground quickly dispersed and the children were able to go out for break time and lunch which I know the teachers were very grateful for as the dreaded ‘wet play’ is not always the most conducive to learning. Apologies to those parents of Nursery and Reception children though who had to duck as they dropped their children off on Friday morning –I’m glad to say that Rudi jumped into action as soon as he could to remove the offending branches!

Earlier this week, Mrs Robinson, Mr Chanter and I welcomed some of the parents from Reception and Year 1 to a phonics meeting after school and it was lovely to see those of you who were able to attend. I was going to say at the beginning of the meeting how strange it was going to be not leading the meeting as I have done for the last couple of years, but Mrs Robinson did a grand job of introducing the scheme and passing on information to best support your child at home learning to read –and more to the point, learning to enjoy reading! If you were not able to attend the meeting but would like further information on how best to support your child with their phonics, please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Robinson who will be happy to help.

As was mentioned in the newsletter yesterday, it is our Harvest Coffee morning on Friday morning and we would like to request donations of cakes and biscuits to be sent in on Wednesday and Thursday that can then be sold at the event to raise money for charity. We always like to involve the children in helping to choose the charity to donate to so I will discuss this with them in assembly next week so that we can announce which good cause will benefit. The Harvest morning is a lovely opportunity to hear the children singing the Harvest songs that they have been learning –I’m just gutted that I won’t be able to be there this year due to a Headteachers' conference that I am attending. Mrs Robinson and Mr Chanter will be leading the event this year in my absence and I know that it will go as smoothly as ever.

I won’t repeat everything here that I mentioned in the newsletter, but I did want to end with the request that I wrote in it about the children’s belongings. Please do ensure that all of your children’s belongings are clearly marked with their name and class so that in the event of them getting lost, we can return them as soon as possible. Also, please do be vigilant about any items that your child brings home and return anything that does not belong to them if/when you notice it. I discussed in Thursday’s assembly this week how some items had gone missing despite being clearly labelled and asked the children to look out for any such things and also to bring in any items that are left outside when they come in from break and lunch. I was very pleased to see a few girls then doing exactly that yesterday –I won’t name them on here but they know who they are and so I wanted to say well done to them and to remind everyone to do the same so that I can praise you too and ensure that the problem of missing belongings doesn’t continue.

Due to a course and the Headteachers’ conference that I am attending on different days next week, I am not going to be around on the gate much, so Mr Chanter will be out there on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and once again, if you have not had the chance to speak to him, do pop by and say hello if you can.

Have a lovely weekend everyone and see you all again on Monday.