I cannot believe I am sitting here writing this having completed my first year as the Headteacher at Little Heath. It has been an absolute pleasure leading the school this year and I am very proud of the children here and all they have achieved. I want to thank all of the parents for your support throughout the year and I look forward to this continuing in the future as well. Thank you also for all of the generous gifts that you have given me.

It was very emotional saying goodbye to the Year 6 children this afternoon (as well as a couple of other younger ones who are leaving for different primary schools) but I am pleased to say that it all went without a hitch and they were given the huge applause and fanfare that they all deserved. They all produced a fantastic show earlier on in the week and they held it together well for their leavers’ assembly earlier today. We will all miss them greatly and we wish them all the very best as they move onto the next step of their journeys!

I want to finish by wishing you all a great summer, whether you are off to far off climes or staying local, have a good one and we will see you all again in September.

Well, after a cooler start to the week, the temperatures have certainly crept up again as the week has gone on and we find ourselves with yet another amber weather warning in place which is due to last until at least next Tuesday. As a result, once again we have put things in place to mitigate against the effects of the heat as much as we can, though sometimes I just wish that we had air con in all of our classrooms (as well as in my office) as there is only so much relief that is given by the fans that we have in place. Still, while I may sit here complaining about the heat right now, it could be pouring down with rain and while this is obviously good for the garden, I know which conditions I’d rather be facing.

The last week has seen a number of things happening, including the Year 6 Residential as well as the Year 4 and 5 visits to Stanborough Lakes. Having spoken to many of the children from these classes, I know how much fun was had by all and I’m particularly jealous of those who got to enjoy the kayaking and paddle boarding as it sounded amazing -I must try and take my own family there over the summer holiday!

Moving onto today, we were lucky enough to have a visit from our local MP, Andrew Lewin. He was most impressed with his visit around the school and he commented when going into the classes how well behaved and welcoming the children all were. He was particularly pleased to hear the well thought out questions that the school council reps posed to him –we certainly have some budding politicians in our midst.

Moving onto next week, the main point of note to mention is our Parent Consultations that are taking place throughout the week, with Thursday being the later evening. These are a great opportunity to share all of the hard work and progress that the children have made this year before they move onto their new classes and teachers. I hope that you will find it a worthwhile opportunity to discuss your child and how well they are doing at school.

Next Friday we have 2 things of note –the first is our non-uniform day which will give the children the opportunity to wear their own clothes in return for bringing in tombola items for the Friday Fun Day the following week. The second thing to mention is the Year 6 Apprentice Day. This is an opportunity for the Year 6 children to raise money for charity whilst learning valuable financial life skills. They have set up a number of different businesses offering a range of goods and services which will then be sold to the rest of the school. This event usually raises a significant sum of money for good causes and I will post the amount raised in a future blog.

At the risk of sounding clichéd by beginning this blog talking about the weather, it would be amiss of me not to do so. It seems that we are clearly seeing the effects of climate change now and the severe weather warnings keep coming more and more often these days. Which brings me onto this heat that we have been experiencing these last few days and which is forecast to continue until at least the beginning of next week. I wanted to address this first by assuring you all that we take the health and safety of all of our children very seriously. All classes have fans in them and we have been ensuring that the children are keeping themselves well hydrated throughout the day and that during lunch and break times, they stay in the shade as much as possible. We have also opened up the main hall at lunch to all of the children to watch a film in a quiet, calm space.

Following on from this, despite the heat, I am pleased to say that we still managed to go ahead with the sports day yesterday and although it was certainly a warm affair to say the least, for the most part it all ran as smoothly as it could have done. As I mentioned in my email beforehand regarding this, we had been monitoring the forecast all week and we felt that despite the heat, it was better to go ahead with it now before the temperatures potentially creep up even further next month. I want to thank all of the children for taking part and I want to give a special mention to the Year 6 children who I hope you will all agree did a grand job at leading the events. I also want to thank all of the parents for coming to cheer on their children and especially those brave enough to take part in the parents’ races at the end –there were some lightning fast runners so I’m glad I didn’t come up against them! Finally, I want to thank all of the staff who helped to run it, but especially Mr Mills for all of his hard work in organising and putting it all together on the day. Grangewood were the eventual winners so well done to them for taking home the trophy this year.

Next week, we have Year 6 away for much of the week on their PGL residential. I am sure that they will have a great time and I know that the school will feel much quieter without them around. Year 4 and Year 5 are both going off to Stanborough lakes on Monday and Friday respectively and having taken a class there before, I know what an amazing time they will all have –especially when they get to cool off in the water when they jump (or fall) in!

On Friday next week, we also have our local MP, Andrew Lewin, who will be visiting Little Heath to see all of the wonderful learning going on in the school, so all in all, there is plenty that will be going on.

Have a good weekend everyone.

After all of the rain we have had this week, it is so nice to be looking back outside at the sun shining again, just in time for the weekend. I hope that everyone had a good half term break. It seems like a distant memory already, even though the week seems to have flown by.

Whilst we have all missed having the swimming pool in school this week, it has meant that we have been able to resume the assemblies once again and I have to say, it was nice to have everyone back in for our assembly on Monday as I know that Mr Chanter felt too when he led the assembly in my absence yesterday. We had lots of children receiving their birthday stickers and it was great to be able to clap the school sports teams as well for all of the games and tournaments that they had played in. We have our next Sharing Assembly on Monday and if your child is taking part you will have been sent a letter and we look forward to welcoming you into the school then.

I had the pleasure of visiting Year 5 yesterday evening on their residential visit to Lincolnsfield Centre. It is actually the first time I have visited the site and I now understand why the children get so excited about going there. The activities that the children told me all about having taken part in, as well as the learning about life in World War 2 that they were able to recall was fantastic and had clearly engaged them all. The children get so much out of the residential visits which is why we will continue to offer and encourage as many of our children to attend these places, offering invaluable experiences, during their time here at Little Heath.

I will not be around on the gate as much for the latter half of next week due to attending meetings as well as a class trip but if you have any pressing concerns, please do speak to the office staff, Mr Chanter or Mrs Robinson who will be happy to help.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

It is so nice to be looking back out of my office window to warm sunshine again, after the rather chilly weather that we had for much of the bank holiday weekend and first half of this week. It certainly puts everyone in a better mood when the sun is shining and there has been a very upbeat vibe in school again today. Despite the slightly colder temperatures last weekend though, I hope that it didn’t put people off getting out and about and enjoying the extra day off that we had.

The pool has continued to prove very popular again this week and I have been very pleased to hear all of the positive comments from the children about having it in school. We were confident that it was going to be a worthwhile investment hiring out the pool, but even we have been surprised at how much the children have gained from it –the increase in confidence and ability already has been huge.

Although we did have a chilly start to the week as mentioned above, fortunately, the weather was most definitely on our side yesterday for our VE Day Celebrations. We wanted the picnic to be styled like a 1945 street party with all of the children eating together in one long row and as you can see from the pictures below, I think we managed to achieve that. We began with a 2 minutes’ silence and then Mr Chanter got to set off the air raid siren to signal that the children could begin eating. War time music was played through our brand new speaker system and once the food had been devoured, the children then took part in a number of games that would have been played during the period. It was particularly nice to see the children enjoying drawing with chalks on the ground so this is something that we will have to provide more of in future. Mr Chanter also got in on the action as you can see. To top everything off, we also had some war time memorabilia that had been kindly loaned to us by a parent of a reception child which was amazing to be able to see up close. 

Next week in school, I look forward to welcoming in our Reception parents to watch their children’s class assembly. We have had to move the venue into the Foundation Stage block for this one due to the hall being out of action and the rest of the school will not be in attendance, but I can assure that if there are any older siblings in the school, they will be invited to watch it in the unit as well.

Have a good weekend all.

 

 

What a brilliant week it has been in school, having finally got to use the temporary pool that has caused such excitement among the children (and some of the staff who have been in too)! It really has been wonderful hearing the children talk about how much they have enjoyed having the pool in the school and it has been great to see the faces of everyone as they have come out and the confidence that they are all clearly gaining. As you can see below, I have taken a couple of pictures to show you all what it actually looks like inside and how our sports hall has been turned into a makeshift changing room thanks to the efforts of Mrs Robinson and Mr Mills.

As well as the pool, this week we also had our Year 5 children taking part in the Bikeability programme which also ensured plenty of excitement from the children in that class. Well done to all of those who took part -the instructors were very impressed!

Next week, on Thursday, we have the fun and festivities of the 80th anniversary of VE day to look forward to. The children will take part in a range of activities, as well as an immersive celebratory picnic, and this will give an opportunity for the children to learn about the momentous day of celebrations marking the end of World War 2 in Europe.

As we come to this extended weekend, I hope you all have a lovely time -especially if the sun continues to shine as it has done all week.

So here we are at the end of the first week of the summer term already. It may have only been a short one, but it does feel like a lot has happened this week. I hope everyone had a good Easter break and the children certainly all came back raring to go so it seemed like a well-deserved rest was had by all.

This week, we had the class photos taken on Wednesday then most of the Year 3 and 4 children went off on their visit to PGL Caythorpe. It has been very strange in school these last 2 days, as with two classes missing, it seemed particularly quiet outside at break and lunchtimes. I have heard some wonderful things about the trip from the staff who attended and I am sure from looking at some of the very tired faces of the children as they got off the coach that they will sleep well tonight -and probably tomorrow too!

This week there was also a lot of excitement from the children due to the arrival of the temporary swimming pool in school with many of the children asking when they were going to get to go in. I am pleased to say that it has been warming up nicely throughout the week and the children will get to begin their swimming lessons from Monday as planned. It will be a bonus if the predicted weather forecast of sunny, warm temperatures holds true as this will help in keeping it as warm as possible. May I remind you to send the children in with their swimming kit every day as they will not know what days they will be going in as this will change week by week.

As well as the swimming lessons beginning next week, Year 5 will also be bringing in their bikes for their Bike-ability lessons. I would ask the children of Year 5 to be sensible as they ride into school, being mindful of all others around them.

Let’s hope that this sunshine continues and I hope you all have a good weekend.

What a great week it has been in school this week, starting with the wonderful learning that was shared by the children in our sharing assembly. It is always great to hear and see what the children have been up to in their classes and this time around there was a clear preference for the art work that had been created. This demonstrates the importance that we put on all subjects here at Little Heath and long may this continue. Following on from this, I do have a request to make regarding our assemblies and performances that we hold here which is particularly relevant since we have our Middle School performances taking place next week. We encourage all of our families to attend as many of these events as they possibly can and as a parent myself, I appreciate how hard it can be to arrange childcare and we would not exclude younger siblings from attending too. All I ask though, is if while watching an assembly or performance, you have a young child with you who becomes distressed or begins to talk out loud for example, that you step outside with them until they are ready to return. It takes a lot of courage from the children to stand up in front of their parents and the whole school and we want to try to avoid causing distractions for them as much as we can. Thank you in advance for your understanding with this.

As I mentioned in my blog last week, as well as the sharing assembly, we also welcomed some visitors into school this week, starting with two Deputy Lieutenants Marion Brown and Akhtar Zaman who visited Year 6 and spoke about the relevance and role of the monarchy and the part that they play in keeping traditions going. The children were encouraged to think about the values which we all need to adhere to in order to make for a well-run society and the presentations that some of them then carried out demonstrated the well embedded knowledge of British Values that they all have. Our visitors were so impressed with the children, they have asked us if they can return again next year which is always a great sign and, as the headteacher, makes me very proud to hear.

Next up was the visit on Tuesday from some firefighters of Green Watch from our local fire station. The children from across the school got to enjoy an assembly hearing about the endeavours and hazards of being a firefighter before getting to see the fire engine up close. During the assembly, one lucky person actually got to try on the uniform, although unfortunately it was too big for a child to put on so Mr Chanter reluctantly agreed. (As I’m sure you can see from the pictures below, he jumped at the chance really!)

Next week, as mentioned above, we have our Middle School (Years 3-5) Performance, which this year is called, ‘Oh What a Knight!’ and having seen the children all out and about at break time this morning in their amazing costumes, it promises to be a fantastic show.

Wednesday afternoon is then our Open Afternoon, where we invite you all in to look at the books with your child(ren). This begins from 3pm and you are more than welcome to take your child home once you have had a chance to share their work with them.  

Finally, as it is the end of term next week, we will be finishing school at 1:15pm on Friday.

Have a lovely weekend, assuming that this sunshine continues!

I will keep my blog brief this week and I wanted to start by saying how gutted I was to have missed the Year 2 class assembly this morning, but that I heard it was amazing, so well done to all of the children for taking part. From wonderful stories about bears to creative pieces of art inspired by Picasso, it was clear to all that they have learned an awful lot this year and a big thank you needs to go to Mrs Beadle, Miss Russon and Mrs Blatch for this.

Next, I wanted to give a huge thanks to all of you, our parents and children, for your support of Red Nose Day today. We managed to raise yet another £450 from the sale of the noses and this money is going to a very good cause which will help so many people living tough lives both in the UK and around the world. For those of you watching the Comic Relief show tonight, I’m sure there will be lots of laughs along with the harder hitting clips showing where the money will be spent.

Next week, we have a couple of notable events beginning on Monday when we will be having a visit in Year 6 from Marion Brown, Deputy Lieutenant. There will then no doubt be lots of excitement in school on Tuesday afternoon, when there will be a visit from a watch of firefighters from our local station.

In the meantime, the sun is due to shine this weekend so do enjoy getting outside and we will see you all on Monday.

I want to start by saying how fantastic it was to see all of the children in their wonderful costumes today celebrating World Book Day. The day started off with an assembly from the author Camilla Chester who was equally as impressed with the costumes as we were and then she spent the rest of the day leading workshops with the children that I hope that they were inspired by. As well as this, the writing activities that the children completed across the day and the character scavenger hunt that took place during break and lunchtime really seemed to engage the children which was great to see and lots of fun was had!

As mentioned in my blog last week, to get the children all enthused for Science Week, Wednesday and Thursday saw the children taking part in Science workshops related to electricity. I sat in on the Year 3 workshop and even I was amazed with what the children got to explore and investigate and once again, watching how much fun the children were having, it was clear that this really brought the learning to life and I am sure that they all got a lot out of the workshops.

The fun continues on Monday of next week, as the children will be kicking off Science Week with a Planetarium workshop which will no doubt cause a lot of excitement and once again, I am sure will also lead to some high quality learning. The children will continue to complete science activities in class throughout the week also, further enriching their scientific skills and knowledge, so there is plenty for the children to look forward to next week as well.

In the meantime, let’s hope that the sun continues to shine outside as it really does put a spring in the step -have a good weekend!

 

Well, where did that week just go? Whilst the half term break already feels like it was ages ago, at the same time, I cannot believe how quickly the week has flown by.

There have been a few things that have happened in school this week worth mentioning, starting with a number of events that happened on Tuesday. First of all, the children in Year 1 went off to Christ Church for a visit related to their RE topic and Year 2 enjoyed their Great Fire of London day related to their history topic. Although I was not there to see the workshop, I know from the excitement that the children had on Wednesday still, that they all had an amazing learning experience that was brought to life by the drama of the day.

In addition to the above, we also had a K’NEX challenge workshop in Years 5 & 6 on Tuesday and by all accounts this was a huge success also. The children got to design and make fairground rides and there were some fantastic creations at the end. Some photos of these will be going up on the respective class blogs.

We have also been able to welcome our Nursery and Reception parents into school this week, for their consultations with the class teachers. I hope that for those of you who were in for this, you got a chance to hear about the positive start that your child has had with us so far and all of the wonderful things that they have been up to since the start of the year.

For the rest of the school, today was the day that the children will have brought home their annual school reports. I know that other schools often send their reports out later in the year, but we like to send them out earlier on so that the children can work on the targets set by their current teachers, within the rest of this academic year. I have had the pleasure of reading over every single one of them over the last week and I am very impressed with the excellent, positive comments that have been made about the children and I trust that they will now work hard on their next steps in order to improve further. As a result of these reports going out now, we do not hold an official parents’ meeting for the whole school in this term, but if you wish to discuss anything from your child’s report, you may contact their class teacher to make an appointment to do so.

We have some equally as exciting events happening in school next week! First of all, as a precursor to British Science Week the following week, we have 2 days of Science Workshops taking place next Wednesday and Thursday. Over these 2 days, the children of all classes will get to enjoy some practical hands-on experiments and investigations that will no doubt spark the children’s enthusiasm and imagination!

We will then be ending the week with our World Book Day Celebrations. As was mentioned in the letter that went out, we have moved this back a day here at Little Heath, so will be celebrating on Friday 7^th March and we will be having an author visit from Camilla Chester, author of the award winning book, Call Me Lion. The children will also be able to come in dressed up as a character from their favourite book. My staff and I will also all be dressed up as well so do look out for our costumes and try and guess the character/book.

In the meantime, it has been great to look out of the window today and see the sun shining which I believe is due to continue for the next couple of days, so as I often say here, do get outside as much as you can and have a great weekend.

So here we are at the much-needed half-term break. It has been a very busy term so far, topped off by a very busy week this last week, but it’s been great to see the children enjoying their learning and having fun in the extra events that have gone on this week.

I am very pleased to start by sharing the fantastic success of our Valentine's Disco from Wednesday! Thanks to the hard work of the PTA as well as the incredible support from you, our parents, we raised a staggering £570 for our school. A huge thank you to everyone who helped make the disco such a memorable event! It’s your support that makes these events such a success, and we are truly grateful for the sense of community that we have here at Little Heath.

Moving on to today, it was great to see the children taking part in our Crazy Hair Day and there really were some amazing creations! A further £141 was raised for the PTA from this and please do watch this space for further details about how the funds are going to be used to make things even better for the children in the school.

Wishing you all a good half-term break -I hope you all have the chance to enjoy some well-deserved rest and quality time with your families over the break and I look forward to seeing the children all well-rested and ready for the rest of the term.

I want to start by apologising for not updating my blog for the last couple of weeks, but I’m pleased to be writing this again to share some of the things that have been going on in school.

The week started off with the latest one of our sharing assemblies. It is always pleasing to see the range of subjects and topics that the children choose to share with the school and their parents and this week was no exception, with a great variety of work shared by those children who took part. It continues to be clear that good learning is taking place in all classes and it is wonderful to hear this from the children themselves as they share the work that they’re particularly proud of.

On Wednesday, Mrs Robinson and Mrs Lawrence took a group of children to the o2 to perform in the annual Young Voices event, ably assisted by Mr Mills. I was due to attend with them and I was really looking forward to it but unfortunately I had to swap at the last minute with Mr Mills which I was very disappointed about. I know from speaking to the children who attended though, as well as the teachers, that it was an amazing day and we had quite a few hoarse voices yesterday so they were clearly singing loudly among the thousands of other children who were there. The fact that we were allocated a space right at the front this year was extra special and there are some awesome pictures to be shared on my blog next week. I also hear on the grapevine that there was a picture of Mr Mills on the big screen that somebody managed to snap so I’m hoping to get a copy of that to share here too. I want to thank all of the teachers who took the children, because without them, we could not attend, but also I want to thank the children who went for taking part and representing our school.  

We are into the last week of the half term already next week and there is quite a lot going on. This week was officially Children’s Mental Health week, but due to timetabling here, we decided to mark this in school next week instead. Tuesday is Safer Internet Day so the children will be carrying out activities related to this. The same day, Year 3 are off on a visit to Celtic Harmony and Year 2 are off to Christchurch for a visit related to their RE lessons. On Wednesday, we have our Open Afternoon for parents to come and see and share the work that your children have been doing and we have Friendship Groups taking place on Thursday morning. Finally, on Friday we have ‘Crazy Hair Day’ so we look forward to seeing the wacky creations that the children decide upon!

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

 

I am so pleased to be writing my blog this week going into the weekend with a noticeable rise in temperature from this time last week. It certainly makes it easier to get out and about at the weekend when we’re not faced with sub-zero temperatures!

The week has passed by as quickly as ever and as I mentioned last week was to be the case, we did not have too much going on out of the ordinary this week. We did have some of our ex-pupils in school today doing their Year 7 work experience and it is always a pleasure to welcome them back and nice to know that they had such a positive experience when they were here that they want to return when given an opportunity. It was equally nice to see those who had come to watch their younger siblings in their class assembly before going off to work in their respective workplaces.

The main notable event of the week happened this morning and that was our Year 4 class assembly alluded to above. The children shared lots of learning that they have done so far this year and they presented it in a very humorous and entertaining way! From the work that the children had completed on The Iron Man in English to the Pablo Picasso-inspired portraits that they had created in their art lessons, it was clear to see how much the children have learned during their time in school so far this year. The times tables rock metal song that they sang –acapella I might add –had the audience joining in and highlighted how we try to provide as many opportunities as possible across the school for the children to learn in different ways.

Earlier on this afternoon, I had the pleasure of seeing some of the children from the other end of the school –our Foundation Stage –whizzing around the main playground on their balance bikes and trikes. The wonderful learning that takes place in Key Stage 1 and 2 all starts with the basics being mastered in Nursery and Reception and seeing how confident the children were on 2 or 3 wheels shows how well they have started and shows great potential for the future.

One thing I forgot to mention in my blog last week that was happening this week was the Year 5 and 6 boys’ football matches that took place yesterday. Unfortunately, we lost one game and drew the other one but it is the taking part that counts and I want to thank the boys who turned up to play for their dedication. Next week, we have a girls’ football tournament taking place on Thursday morning and a netball match taking place later that afternoon so I want to wish all of those taking part in these, the very best of luck!

Have a good weekend everyone.

So here we are at the end of the first week back and while it was only a short one, it does feel like we have been back forever already! I must admit that I am very glad that we managed to get through the whole week without any disruption to the school day caused by the weather; when the snow started to come down fairly heavily whilst I was leading the assembly on Tuesday morning, I did have a moment where I thought it might do but alas it wasn’t to be and we have had a good 4 days of learning.

I will keep my blog very brief this week as there is nothing planned out of the ordinary to report next week, but we do have the Year 4 class assembly to look forward to next Friday. If your child is in Year 4 then I am sure that they will be chomping at the bit to share all of the wonderful work that I know that they have been doing with Mr Chanter and Mrs Friedmann and we look forward to welcoming you to see this on Friday morning.

It is due to be another very chilly one this weekend, but try not to let this keep you indoors too much as fresh air is so good for our mental wellbeing.