At last we have had some sunshine! I was beginning to think the sun was lost! I need to be careful what I say though because I was saying this to a member of staff and a reception child quite rightly corrected me by informing me that the sun can never get lost and it is always there. I certainly got put in my place!

I normally fill my blog with all the events that have been taking place in the school but unfortunately, because of Covid, they are not taking place. We do have all the after school clubs running and even though they have been slightly amended to ensure we follow Covid guidance they do make the school feel a much more vibrant place when they are running. We are still hoping that from June 21^st we will be able to allow events such as Sports Day to take place with parents on site to watch but whether or not we will be able to do this depends on the next round of guidance from the government. Somebody has told me that this will happen on June 7^th but as soon as we know how we can proceed I will write to all of you to inform you. This may be a couple of days after the government announcement when I have had it confirmed how the changes will impact schools.

I hope you all have a great half-term. There is more that we can do during this break compared to previous holidays so it should make it a little more exciting for us. Remember we have scheduled our occasional day to be on the end of this half term so the children are not due back in school until Tuesday, 8th June. Let us hope that the sunshine continues – if it does I may even be brave enough to get my summer wardrobe out of the loft.

 

I cannot believe that after next week it is half term – where has May gone? It could be because we have had so much rain that it has felt like March that we have not noticed its passing. I know there is a saying that you should ’Ne’er cast a clout till May is out’ (for those younger people that means you should never put your warm clothing away until May is over) but unless the weather changes dramatically my summer clothing will be staying in the loft until 2022. The good thing about the recent weather is that my car was looking rather dirty but with all the recent rain it is looking quite clean again so at least I have been saved a job.

I know I keep bringing it up but can you remind children to take care and look out for other people when they are on their scooters. We still have children riding their scooters down the middle of the road which is not safe and some children are going so fast that they are riding into other people. Just today we had a child coming into school quite distressed because somebody had ridden their scooter into them. Luckily they were okay but we do not want a serious accident to occur before people take notice.

As we still do not have parents on site many of you will not know that our new secretary has joined us. Her name is Tania Heath and she started at the school on Tuesday. We are very pleased to have her join us and I am sure you will all make her feel welcome when you meet her (eventually).

That is all for now. I am looking forward to going out this weekend and actually sitting inside a restaurant. Just to be in the warmth and not having to eat your food at a breakneck speed so that it does not get cold is going to be such a luxury. As many of you may have picked up I am not a fan of the cold and the last lockdown was difficult for me because of that. I hope you all enjoy your weekend and I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday morning.

 

I am looking out from my window at our new climbing wall. The company came to install it yesterday and the children were all very excited to see it.  We did have a wall there before but it had begun to look rather jaded so we decided to replace it. Having a climbing wall in our school is all part of our policy of trying to offer the children as wide a range of activities as possible so we can keep them as active as possible. This is good for both their physical and mental wellbeing.

As I am discussing physical activities may I remind you all that it is ‘Walk to School Week’ next week. We will be covering this in school and whilst we always encourage children to walk (or scoot or cycle) to school it would be good if those who do not normally walk could make an effort to do so. Even those of you who have to drive to school (and I know that some of you have to do this) could make an effort to come to school a little earlier next week and park a little distance from the school so your child and you can walk the last ten minutes to school. The benefits of walking to school have been proven and it does have a significant impact again on both their physical and mental wellbeing so please make an effort to take part.  

You will all know that there are some further changes to the lockdown rules happening on Monday and we can start meeting some of our friends indoors again (hurray) but the changes that are occurring do not really impact how we run the school so everything will be remaining as it is for now. The big date for us (at the moment) is June 21^st and if we keep following the guidelines and there are no further outbreaks then we will be able to go back to allowing the children to mix more freely in school. Hopefully this will happen but we do not want to do anything too early so that we have to go back into a lockdown situation – I do not think that anyone wants that.

I hope you all have a great weekend. Personally I cannot wait for next weekend when I can actually go out and not have to be dressed up like ‘Dora the Explorer’.

 

I hope you all enjoyed your Bank Holiday weekend. The weather was not the greatest but at least we could get out and about more than we have been allowed to during other recent holiday periods – we may be getting cold and wet but at least we are out.

Although restrictions are starting to lift many of them are still in place and one of them is that parents are not allowed on site which means that we have to use the road outside the school to drop off and pick up children from school. We have asked that cars do not come into School Road during this time to keep it as safe as possible for the children. People have been very good but in recent times I have noticed that a few parents are starting to park in School Road. I would ask that you do not do this. We do not want an accident to happen before people start to follow this request.

Can I remind you that if your child has an upset stomach and suffers either sickness or diarrhoea they need to be absent for 48 hours after their last episode of illness. This means that if your child is sick on a Tuesday they must not return to school until Thursday at the earliest and they should only come back to school if they are fully recovered. I know that this can be difficult for parents to manage but children do not learn in school when they are feeling unwell and we do not want to spread illness around the school by children returning to school too quickly.

Have a great weekend and I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday.