I hope you all managed to have a great half term and your break was not spoilt too much by the news that we were going into a second national lockdown at the weekend. It certainly was not the news we wanted to hear but from all the data that has been presented to us (and there has been a lot) I think it is necessary. At least schools are still open this time and I think we are all happy with that. Home learning may have to come into operation at some point but I think we can all agree that children learn better in a school environment.

Saying that, we have made new preparations for if/when children do have to learn at home and you have had details of this sent home to you this week. We will be using the TEAMs learning platform to send out work in future and the reason that we have sent home the details now is so that any glitches can be sorted out before we have to use it. We have switched to this because it allows work to be sent backwards and forwards between the teacher and the pupils so the learning that takes place is more like the learning that takes place in school. This was a requirement set out by the government in the guidance they gave us for re-opening in September. It may take a little time to get used to this system but it will be better for your child’s education.

I was really impressed by all the entries for the pumpkin competition organised by the PTA. A few teachers and myself were asked to judge the competition and it was really difficult to judge because everyone had done such a good job with their pumpkin. We finally decided on the entry by Gracie in Year 4 because we felt her pumpkin demonstrated hard work, creativity and originality. All the entries can be seen on the ‘Friends of Little Heath’ Instagram account or Facebook page. I would like to thank the PTA for organising this event - these fun activities make such a difference to children’s lives when they cannot do many of the activities they are used to.

Next week we have ‘Children in Need’ to look forward to. This is a great fundraiser and I think it is an important charity for us to support. To help celebrate the day we want all the children to come to school wearing something spotty - they do not have to wear their uniform either. In exchange for not having to wear their uniform we would like the children to bring in a donation of at least £2 to give to ‘Children in Need’. We will not be able to count the donations straight away as we will have to leave the money over the weekend to enable it to be safe for us to handle.

I hope you all have a great weekend – remember that getting out for some exercise daily is good for you so try to do that over the weekend. I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday morning.