Thursday 30 June 2011

I am posting my blog a little earlier this week as I will be out on Friday. I am still on a high from yesterday after watching Little Heath win the Potters Bar Primary Schools District Sports at Mount Grace School. It was a great event and all the competitors represented the school very well. We did win it comfortably so I would like to thank Mr. Mills for all his work in preparing the team for victory. We even managed to win the raffle they held during the event as Mrs . Beadle successfully guessed the number of sweets in  the jar so the children all had a little sugar to celebrate their victory with.

I followed watching the Districts Sport by attending the Foundation Induction Evening at school where I
met all the new parents that will be joining our school community. This year is slightly different in that there will only be one intake into both reception and nursery and we will be offering flexible provision in the nursery so parents can choose when their children attend between the times of 8.45am - 3.00pm. It was great meeting all the new parents and they all seemed very excited by the changes that we are introducing and that is always good to know.

The end of term is drawing close but there is still plenty going on in school. Next week we have both School sports events on Wednesday and a music evening on Thursday. We also have 3 cricket teams taking part in some cricket finals on Tuesday so it is certainly going to be an exciting time. I look forward to seeing many of you at the school sports day. Let us all pray for sunshine so it can all go ahead!

Friday 24 June 2011

When I wrote my blog last week the PTA were deciding whether or not to have the Summer Fayre inside or outside. Those of you who attended will have found that the majority of it was inside but that I was outside on the Bouncy Castle. Unfortunately I did get soaked through (along with many others) but the weather did not appear to dampen the enthusiam of all the those who attended and we still managed to raise over £2000 so I would like to thank all the people involved with the Summer Fayre who helped to make it such a success and to everyone who turned up even though it rained.

The rain has continued to come down this week but we have not let it dampen our spirits in school . 'Health and Fitness' week has proved to be mosrt enjoyable.There have been lots of activities going on in school to help the children understand how to take care of themselves but the most popular seems to have been the Zumba sessions which proved to be a great way of having fun and keeping fit at the same time. Some of you may be getting demands from your children to sign them up for Zumba classes.

We were very proud of our children who took part in the 'Hertfordshire County Sports Finals' last  Friday. Both our netball and hockey teams were representing the Hatfield and Welwyn District in this event and we managed to reach the finals in both events. Congratulations to all those who took part and many thanks to Mr. Mills, Mrs.Eales and Mrs. Parkinson for all their hard work in coaching and preparing the teams.

I hope that next Thursday does not prove too much of an inconvenience for you. The teachers do not wish to disrupt the children's education but feel they need to make their feelings felt about the changes the government are trying to implement that will have a big impact on their future. I do thank you for your understanding in this matter.

We have  had a parent questioning our pricing of a school trip which they say another school did at a much cheaper rate. This is not the first time that a parent has questioned us about this and so I would just like to reassure all parents that when we set a price for a trip we divide the cost of the transport and entrance fee to the venue by the number of pupils in the class and that is the price we charge per head. It is possible that some schools subsidise the cost of the trip with school money but we do not do that in this school.  Instead we may pay for some of the shows and people that come into school to enrich the curriculum and charge the parents nothing for these. An example of things that we have paid for this year are the Christmas show, the dance teacher that came into school for 2 days after Easter, the artist that has been working with the whole school this year and, more recently, the zumba teacher that we had this week. Schools all choose their  own way of supporting the children's learning and this is the way we prefer to use our money.

Friday 17 June 2011

It has been another busy week in school. As I type this the PTA are all busy preparing for the Summer Fayre. They are still trying to decide whether to have it indoors or outdoors but regardless of the weather I will be outside as I am helping to run the 'Bouncy Castle'. I must take note of the stalls that are moved indoors if it rains because I will volunteer for that stall next year.

Working at the Summmer Fayre means that I will have spent three evenings at school this week. On Monday we had our Governors committee meetings and on Tuesday the Rotary Club held their presentation evening for all the people who took part in their sponsored swim event back in March. I felt very proud watching this event because they raised over £5000 and a large proportion of this money came from people at Little Heath. I would personally like to thank all the people who took part and I hope that even more people take part next year so even more money is raised and then donated to worthy causes.

Nursery invited me over this week to watch them do some face painting but, typically, you are not allowed to be an observer in nursey for long and soon they were painting me. They could not do my face as I had to meet some visitors that day so I agreed to them painting my hands. However ,as you can see from the picture, they also painted my arms and I counted myself very lucky to escape without been given a full body paint.




As you have probably heard from your children next week is 'Health and Fitness'week in school. Extra activities that we will be running for the children are obstacle courses, Zumba classes and meditation sessions. Lets hope the children ehjoy them whilst learning how to take better care of themselves.

I must go now and change in readiness for my stint on the Bouncy Castle. I hope next week that I can report that the fayre was very well attended and lots of money was raised for the school. I hope we do because the PTA really do work hard to raise funds for resources for all the pupils at Little Heath and these resources really do have a positive impact on their learning.

Friday 10 June 2011

It has been a slightly quieter week in school because Year 6 have been away on their school journey to Kingswood. As I type this they are on their way back and by all accounts have had a fabulous week. It will be nice to see them back in school next week though. Year 5 have also had a different week as the majority of them have been doing their cycling proficiency award. All of them have passed and their instructors thought they were the best group of children that they had ever taken.In fact the instructors were very impressed with the whole school and they said that whatever we are doing here we should bottle it up and take it to other schools. They even asked if our catchment area could stretch as far as Buckinghamshire so their grand - daughter could attend. It is always good for me to hear things like that because pepole like them visit a lot of schools and it is nice to know we stand out from the crowd for all the right reasons.

Next week was supposed to be a'Health and Fitness' week in school but Mr. Mills is out for a lot of sporting events next week and we have the 'Summer Fayre' so since there is so much going on we have decided to do it the following week.

I hope to see you all at the 'Summer Fayre'next week. At the moment we are still a little short of volunteers so if you could spare a little time to help out the PTA and the school we would greatly appreciate it. With all the cuts and changes that are going on with local government at the moment schools are going to have to become a lot more self sufficient financially so these fund raising events are going to become a lot more important for schools to buy essential resources rather than just luxuries.