I mentioned in my blog last week that we had some children taking part in a football tournament and I am pleased to announce that one of our teams won the shield competition. I would like to congratulate all of the children who took part for giving a hundred percent effort in all of their matches and I would like to thank Mr Mills for all of his work in training and organising the teams.

Unfortunately, we have had some children absent this week as we have a number of viruses going around the school. This can happen at the beginning of a new school year when the children are all back together and their immunity has to build up again. May I remind you that children should be off for 48 hours after their last bout of sickness or diarrhoea. eg. if they are sick on a Monday the earliest they should return to school is Wednesday. Being a working mother myself I know that organising this is not always easy but it does help keep sickness in the school down to a minimum which benefits the whole community in the long run.

The children all looked very smart today in preparation for their individual school photographs. The process all went very smoothly today and hopefully you will all be pleased with the proofs when you see them.

The Book Fair has been with us in school for a couple of days. I really get excited when I see a load of new books and I look forward to looking through them all. Thank you to all those people who have already purchased a book but to those of you who have not purchased one you still have plenty of time -  the Book Fair is with us until Tuesday 1^st October. If your child would like a book but when you go to purchase it you find it is sold out, please let us know and we will order it for you. Remember the more books we sell the more books we can purchase for the school library.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend – I think the autumn has definitely arrived so I will have to start preparing my winter wardrobe in readiness for the cold weather. I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday morning.

It has been a very pleasant week in school this week and it has been helped by the lovely weather that has been with us. I know it is going to be a lovely day on Saturday when we have some teams taking part in a football tournament which will be good for the spectators if not the players. I would like to wish all the teams taking part every success in the competition.

I am really pleased with how the children are looking at the moment and I would like to thank you all for ensuring that they come to school looking so smart in their uniform. May I remind you all that if your child has pierced ears they are only allowed to wear stud earrings for 6-8 weeks after they have had their ears pierced and during this time they should come to school with their ears covered in tape. We do have tape in school to replace any that falls off but we should not be providing it to children every day. The reason we have this no earring rule is to protect the children whilst they are in school. During PE and play times the children run around a lot and if anything catches onto an earring it could pull the earring out causing damage to the earlobe. I have seen this happen and it is not pleasant and I would not want it to happen to a child in Little Heath.

The big excitement for next week is the arrival of the Book Fair. The children love to see all the lovely new books and I do love to see the children getting excited about books because being able to read well is the core to all learning. You will be able to purchase books from Thursday 26th September until Tuesday 1st October and the fair will be open from 3.15pm – 3.45pm. It will be held in the main school hall. In the past the school has always done very well from this event and hopefully it will be the same this year. Remember that the more books you purchase the more funding the school will be awarded to purchase books for our library, so it’s the perfect time to start your Christmas shopping early.

Please also remember that the children are having individual photographs taken next Friday. You may wish to take extra care with their appearance on that day to ensure that they look really smart in their photographs.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. Thundery showers have been predicted for Sunday but at least the gardens will appreciate it as we have not had a lot of rain recently. I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday.

It well and truly feels like we have been back forever - all the school clubs are now running as normal and we will be getting ready for the half term break before we know it. It is good that we have had some sunny weather this week though so we can all still pretend that it is summer although the misty windows on my car in the morning are letting me know that autumn is on the way.

I am going to start my blog with a little moan this week. As the weather has been so nice the children have been removing their sweaters and then forgetting to take them with them. We are finding sweaters all over the school but unfortunately we cannot return all of them because they do not have their names in. We do ask that all the children’s uniform is clearly labelled so can you please ensure that all their school items have their name in it.

My second moan is that we have clear signs outside the school asking the children to disembark from their bikes and scooters at the first school gate and wheel them into the bike shed. This is to ensure the safety of all the people who use the school grounds. I have already witnessed two children crashing into each other on their scooters. Fortunately, they were both alright but we do not want a child to get seriously hurt before people start paying attention to our request.

Next week we have much to look forward to in school. There are the House Captain elections where the Year 6 have to present a rousing election speech to try and get the rest of their house to vote for them and we also have our first Friendship group of the year. On Saturday some of the older children will be taking part in a pre-season football tournament - I always feel we are properly back when the sporting calendar gets underway.  

I hope you all have a great weekend and I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday morning. I will not be on the gate because I have to attend some training but I will be back there on Tuesday morning.

Welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a fabulous summer and feel well rested and ready for the year ahead. The children have all settled very well in school and all appear to be happy being back in school. They may be different for you at home as it can take a little adjustment to get back into the ‘school’ routine after the long summer holiday - I know some of the staff have had to have a couple of early nights as their bodies adjust to being back at work.

We have started the term with a ‘Waste Aware’ week as we think it is really important that the children understand how important it is to take care of their environment and the world they live in. Through a variety of resources we have been teaching them the importance of how they deal with their waste and how to keep the amount of waste we produce to a minimum through recycling. I am sure they have been talking to you about it at home and hopefully you can support what we are teaching them at home by keeping your waste to a minimum and recycling products whenever possible.

Next week all the clubs start up again and so if you have not done so already please sign your child up for the relevant clubs on the school gateway – if their name is not on the list they cannot attend. May I also take this opportunity to remind you that if your child is attending a club and they cannot attend for any reason can you please let the teacher in charge of the club or the school office know because this is a safeguarding issue – once a child has signed up for a club we are responsible for them until the club finishes and need to know where they are.

That is all for now. I hope you all have a great weekend – the weather is not as good as it has been but we are still getting some sunshine so we should enjoy it while we can.

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