Principal’s Message:

And that’s the end of another action-packed half term.

As covid restrictions have reduced, we have been able to carry out more educational visits and enter more sporting competitions which has been wonderful to see. This term our Year 5 children visited an art gallery to look at the art work of Kate Lycett, Year 2 visited the local church, Year 1 developed their map skills on a walk around the locality and Year 6 visited Chester Zoo. Next half term, our year 4 children will be visiting Nell Bank for their residential trip which I know they are already really excited about. It has been great to be able to enrich our children’s experiences further to support their learning.

We’re finally back to more competitive sport. Our KS2 football teams are now competing in a local school’s league and our Year 2 gymnastics team have qualified for the Key Steps finals next half term. Miss Wild and Mrs Walsh are busy training up our KS2 gymnasts to take part in several competitions over the next term and Miss Whiteley has been busy with our Y6 dancers preparing their entry for the Great Big Primary Dance Off.

Ever since our OFSTED inspection, we have had lots of requests for people to come and look at our amazing school. Every single person who has visited has been blown away by our children and I recently presented to the Calderdale Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Board about our recent inspection. Last week, we were visited by Principals from the other schools in our trust. They were very impressed with what they saw across both sites and commented on our children’s exemplary behaviour. They were also very impressed with the standard of work in the books across all areas of the curriculum.

You will all be aware of the devastating fire at Ash Green Community Primary School. FOGS arranged for the money raised in our valentine’s ‘guess the name’ competition to be donated to the school. I am thrilled to say that, thanks to your generosity and kindness, we have raised £218. Mr Shepherd , the head, sends his deepest thanks and has been blown away with the support they have received from schools across Calderdale.

At the Greetland Academy, we love reading and any opportunity to celebrate this! This year, we will be celebrating World Book Day on Wednesday 2nd March (this is so the whole school can join in as Year 4 are at Nell Bank on Thursday). We are inviting children to bring in their favourite book and dress up as a book character for the day (staff will of course be joining in also). We would love to see homemade costumes and do not expect parents to go to the expense of buying new costumes. The teachers have been busy planning lots of reading themed activities for the children to complete throughout the day. This year, World Book Day is celebrating 25 years therefore we have been inspired to set the children the challenge of reading 25 books throughout March. We will be launching this on Wednesday 2nd March and children will bring home their challenge sheet.

The next Learning Launch Pad will have been uploaded to your child’s Seesaw and to our website. This contains the key information about what your child will be learning over the next half term as well as key dates.

I would like to wish you all a happy half term break and we will see the children again on Monday 28^th Feb. A polite reminder that learning starts at 8:45 at KS1 and 9 at KS2.

See you all on the 28^th

Mrs Crowther