Friday 22 July 2011

I cannot believe that another year has passed and we are at the end of term. The long cold winter seems a dim and distant memory as we prepare for our long summer holiday (not that you would know from the weather). This week activities have been dominated by Year 6 as they prepare to leave us. Although it is a sad time we try to make it a celebration for them for all the enjoyable times they have had at Little Heath. Their 'Dragon's Den' event was a huge success, their performance of 'School Daze' was enjoyed by everybody and was followed by a great Leavers' Party. As always the 'Leavers' Assembly'was an emotional time but there was plenty to celebrate and I hope that everyone that was present left feeling uplifted by what they saw. The school is at the moment preparing to give Year 6 a big send off so we can all wish them well in their new secondary schools and then we can all go home and begin to enjoy our holiday.
I hope you all too have a great summer break and I look forward to seeing you all again in September. I hope that the next school year is as successful and enjoyable as this one has been.

Friday 15 July 2011

I have spent a lot of time in the foundation part of the school this week. On Tuesday I joined them on their school trip to 'Butterfly World'. Although it is called 'Butterfly World' there were plenty of other things to see and there was a great play area for young children. It would have been better if the weather had been a little brighter but it did not appear to affect the children and a great time was had by all. I was even persuaded to hold a cockroach as you can see from the picture above.
Later in the week we had the induction sessions for the new reception and nursery children. They all appeared to find their time here very enjoyable and exciting and are all looking forward to coming here in September which is the main thing. It was also good for me to meet all the new parents who will be joining our school community in the autumn.
It was also nice to see many of our existing parents at 'Open Evening'.The staff told me that they received many positive comments about the work that the children have done over the last year and I was also happy that a larger number of parents than normal attended the presentation at the beginning of the 'Open Evening'. although I would still like to have seen more. The presentation was on how we teach the pupils in the school and the reasoning behind it.  From the questions we were asked at the end there seems to be a desire for a curriculum evening on how mathematics is taught in the school and we will certainly consider this in the autumn term. A lot of questions were also raised about the home learning and although we are not going to change this we will certainly consider some of the comments that the parents raised about it.

Friday 8 July 2011

It has been another full and exciting week at Little Heath this week. We managed to complete both our sports events this week (despite the weather) and it was a closely fought contest with Osborne becoming the eventual winners. However the main point to a school sports day is that all the children are involved and enjoy taking part and we all believe that our children did. A couple of parents appeared to be taking it a little too seriously becoming a little upset at the composition of some of the teams and how the rules were being followed but we are slightly more laid back in our approach to Sports Day with enjoyment being the key factor.  I had to follow Sports Day with our last full Governors meeting of the year so I must admit that I slept well that night.

Unfortunately our cricket teams were not so lucky with the weather.  For the second week running they tried to complete the Potters Bars schools cricket finals but unfortunately the persistent rain made it to unsafe to play. The organisers tried to decide the winner by holding a 'bowl off' but nobody managed to hit the wicket so in the end they decided to settle the result by pulling names out of a hat. Fortunately, Little Heath's name was the first name to be pulled out so we were the official trophy winners! It is not the way we like to win a competition but I would like to thank all the competitors who kept turning up at the different venues wanting to play and all the parents who kept rearranging their lives so they could help with transport. I would also like to thank Mr. Mills for his efforts in  rearranging the times, teams and the travel arrangements. The rain also stopped the Rounders Tournament taking place but this has been re-arranged for the last week of term. Let us hope that the summer finally arrives by then.

We  held our Summer Music Concert this week. As the maypole dancers could not perform at the Summer Fayre because of the rain (this blog is beginning to have a common theme running through it) they also took part in the evening and an enjoyable time was had by all. I am constantly amazed at the amount of talent that we have in school and since I have very little music ability I am even more in awe of people who are able to do this. I would like to thank all the staff who contributed in making this evening such a success and to the PTA for providing us with delicious refreshments.

As I write this blog I know a lot of the children are all probably feeling a little nervous because today is the day the reports go home.  I do not think that they really have too much to worry about and in fact the majority of comments are very positive and encouraging. I hope that you all find our reports helpful and imformative but I would ask that if you do have any queries about them that you book an appointment to discuss it with the class teacher. We write the reports so that you have an honest picture of how your child has performed and what they need to do to move forward and although that does not always make for comfortable reading I do think it is better to know the truth.

I look forward to seeing many of you at our Open Evening next Thursday. I will be in the hall at the beginning of the evening for the presentation on how we teach the children in the school but then I will be wandering around the school so do feel free to stop and talk to me.