Principal’s Message

 

So that’s the end to our first half term of the academic year.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the end of our Ofsted inspection- how time has flown! As it stands, we are still the only primary school in Calderdale, under this new framework, to achieve outstanding and I couldn’t be prouder to lead such an amazing school full of wonderful children and staff. This wouldn’t be possible without the amazing support we get from you as parents and carers so a huge thank you to you all for your ongoing support of the school.

Over this half term, our Year 5 children have been working with our poet and musician in residence on a project called, ‘My Voice Matters’.  We have been asked to showcase their learning at a national event in Newcastle next term which is an amazing opportunity.

We have started off our sporting success as we mean to go on with our girls’ rugby team winning their recent tournament- they even got a signed rugby ball from English player Amy Hardcastle. We also took two teams to a recent Boccia Festival where they were excellent ambassadors for our school. This week we held some of our trials for the Cross Country Competition (sadly the weather meant we couldn’t get them all done)  and we have been blown away with how many children wanted to try out. The resilience and determination they all showed alongside sportsmanship was fantastic. We know there will be children who are disappointed that they weren’t selected but sadly, we are limited as to how many children we can take. There will be lots more opportunities for our children to represent the school across the year.

Our KS2 library is now fully stocked, courtesy of FOGS, and all KS2 children have brought home a letter about their library membership. You are able to give consent to them joining the library through your Arbor account and children will be given the opportunity to choose their first book after the holiday once this consent is given. We also have plans to develop the newly built section at KS1 into a mini library.

This month has been Black History Month and across the school children have been looking back at significant figures from Black History, but also recognising contemporary role models, including those people from everyday life. Across the month we have recognise that in order to change the world for the benefit of all, we need to think about our actions and words from a broader perspective, for example how to we treat those who are different to us. The children have created some amazing pieces of work and held very mature discussions.

Over the year, we are having a focus on the creative and performing arts- it has been wonderful to see so many KS2 children having musical instrument lessons and I know they will all get a chance to perform to an audience later in the year. To support our local community, we have again made sculptures for the Greetland Halloween Ghostly Trail. If you walk the trail on the 29^th October, please do send us pictures of our sculptures in situ through Seesaw.

 

Tonight is our annual Halloween disco which is sure to be spooktacular! Please support the school in avoiding parking on School Street and using the Community Centre instead. I’m afraid future events may be affected if we receive more complaints about parking. There will be helpers out on the roadside to monitor the situation.

 

One final reminder, Monday 31^st October is a training day and so the children start back in school on Tuesday 1^st November for our favourite term of the year- the build up to Christmas where there will be so many wonderful things happening in school!

 

Have a lovely half term break

Mrs Crowther