It is the end of another busy week in school. I know that many of you have been in school for your parent consultation meetings and I hope that you all feel they were useful- the teachers were certainly very positive about the meetings and the supportive way that parents engaged with them. I know that we are all joined in the one goal of wanting to do the best for the children in Little Heath and having parent support makes that so much easier to achieve. As you all know Mrs Nixon was unfortunately unwell and so had to cancel her appointments but we will re-schedule these after the half term.

It has been a little bit of a sad day in school because our school cook Louise left us today. Everyone here was sorry to see her go because she has been an excellent cook (her chicken pie is legendary) and she has twice been nominated for ‘Cook of the Year’ in our region. All the children said goodbye to her in assembly and although she is looking forward to the challenge of her new position I know she is going to miss everyone in Little Heath. I have not been informed about who is going to replace her as I think at first they will be covering her post with a cover cook but as soon as I know who she is I will inform you.

As you know we have had an Equalities Week in school and it has been very successful. There has been a sea of red in school today because we were supporting the ‘Wear Red for Racism’ day and I would like to thank you for all your donations. However, we have been covering all aspects of equality this week including stereotyping, sexual orientation and disability and I know that all the children have really engaged well with the learning. I do think it is important that we nurture acceptance of everyone in our children and that they grow up being tolerant of everyone for being who they are.

We now have the half term to look forward to and I am sure that like all of us you are all looking forward to it. I have to admit that it has come at a good time for the school because we have had a lot of illness in school and that hopefully this holiday will give us the ‘circuit break’ we need and everyone will return to school healthy. I hope that you all have a great time and I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday, 31^st October.

 We have had another lovely end to the week because we had the Year 5 assembly this morning. It was lovely to watch all the learning that the children have covered in this half term –they covered so much that it was difficult to believe that they have only been in school for six weeks. Although some of the children were a little nervous they did themselves proud - it is not easy presenting to a crowded room when you are not used to it. I would also like to thank Mrs Cresswell and Mrs Onley in helping them prepare for their assembly.

I did say how last week was a challenging week in school because of illness and although not as many staff have not been ill this week we have still had illness passing through the school - it has even reached me. I have been battling a cold virus this week and even though it has not been necessary for me to be absent, those of you who have spoken to me will have noticed that I have had rather a strained voice. Hopefully the weekend will allow me to return to my healthy self.

Next week is going to be a really busy week in school because it is Equalities Week and it is Parent Consultation Week. It is great to have parents in school and I know that you all love to meet your teachers so you can support your children’s learning. As I did in my newsletter, may I remind you that you must stick to your allocated time slot with your class teacher. If you feel that you need more time to discuss any issues you may have you will need to book an appointment to see them at a later date. It is unfair on other parents if you run over and then everyone’s schedule gets disrupted.

During our Equalities Week we will be covering items such as racism and gender stereotyping . I think it is important to cover this because children need to learn that everyone should be who they are and not feel it necessary to change themselves just to please other people. It is also important that children learn to accept people who are different to themselves. We are ending the week by taking part in ‘Wear Red Day’ which is a celebration of the anti –racism movement. The children do not have to wear uniform on this day but must wear at least one red item. They should also donate at least £1 to the ‘Wear Red’ charity. It will certainly give us a very colourful end to the half term.

As I have just mentioned, it is going to be half term at the end of next week. I cannot believe how quickly the time has passed. When the year starts you feel that the half term is ages away and yet in what feels like the blink of an eye here we are.

I hope you all have a great weekend and I look forward to seeing many of you in school next week.

 I do like ending the week with something uplifting and I do think that our Harvest Festival gave us that this morning. It is great to have everyone in school and I know that parents and family members always enjoy listening to the children sing songs. I would like to thank everyone for sending in donations of cakes and biscuits and also for donating so generously this morning. We decided to support UNICEF this time because there are so many horrible things happening in the world at the moment that it was hard to choose one so I chose UNICEF because they support all children who are suffering in the world. We managed to raise an impressive £632.79 so everyone who contributed should feel very proud of their efforts.

It was good to have an enjoyable event this morning because it has been quite a challenging week in school. We have had a horrible virus going through the school and it has meant that a lot of staff have been absent as they have been unwell. This has caused a little bit of disruption in school but fortunately the staff who have remained well have managed to cover their colleagues. As school staff all know the children and where they are with their learning it has meant that the disruption to the children’s learning has been kept to a minimum.

There are more exciting events to look forward to next week. On Monday we have our first Sharing Assembly of the year –the parents of children who are taking part will have been informed by letter. On Friday we then have our first class assembly of the year. We are starting our cycle with Year 5 as we always do. I know the children love putting these on and get very excited performing in front of their parents and the whole school. I also love watching these and whenever I watch them they always give me an uplift for the weekend so I have something to look forward to at the end of next week as well.

I hope you all have a great weekend. I am hoping that the weekend will provide a ‘Circuit breaker’ for this virus that is going around and that everyone is well by Monday so we can all have a more settled week.