I am very glad to be able to send you this blog this week because I have been having a lot of problems with my new laptop and it has really been frustrating me! Everything has been taking twice as long to do and my patience has been stretched to its very limit. I suppose technology is all great and wonderful while it works but it becomes the most annoying thing ever when it does not. Let us hope for better things next week.

After the half term break the children have settled quickly back into the school routine. Apart from the Sharing assembly it has been quite a normal week in school but next week there are many events taking place in school. The choir are taking part in ‘A Million Voices’ at the Wembley arena, some children are taking part in a ‘Maths Challenge’ at Haileybury School, another group are attending a Fairtrade service at ‘Our Lady and St Vincent RC’ church and of course, it is ‘World Book Day’ on Thursday. As you all know our theme this year is Shakespeare and we have asked all the children to come dressed as characters from his plays. I know all the children will not be familiar with his works but we thought that this would be a great opportunity to explain to them why he is so important and how many of his sayings are still part of our everyday language.

When I say it has been a normal week I am sort of missing the ‘elephant in the room’ because today is the day that the annual school reports go out. The teachers have spent a lot of hours in writing the reports and I hope you find their comments and suggestions useful in helping to move your children’s learning forward. I have read them all and I am happy at how they reflect the children’s progress and attitude to learning but it is obvious from reading them that some children could be applying themselves to their studies more diligently so, hopefully, if this applies to your child, you will reinforce this message at home.

Although the winter weather is still with us the days are getting longer and brighter so thankfully our sporting features calendar has started up again. The girls have a football match tonight and the boys have one next week. I always find it very uplifting when all the matches start again after winter because it is a sign that spring is on its way. It is hard to believe that it will be March next week and Easter will be over by the end of the month.   

Have a great weekend and I will see you all again on Monday.

Another busy week in school but at least we have a week’s break to recover although with the weather forecast it looks like we may have to stay indoors –luckily I will not be in the horrible position of deciding whether or not I have to close the school because the roads are too dangerous for people to travel on.

On Wednesday Richard Maskrey was in school to talk to most of the school about safe usage of the internet. I was not in on the day but all the teachers tell me he was very good and got the message across to the children about what they need to do to keep themselves safe. He was a little shocked at the number of children who admitted using inappropriate social networking sites but he did tell them that they should all close them down when they got home so let us hope that they did. Richard is coming into school for one last time on February 22^nd to run an e-Safety session for parents. As I informed you in my newsletter it will run from 9.15am – 10.15am. I think this will be a really useful session and I hope as many parents as possible will attend.  Thank you to all the parents who have taken the time to participate in the e-Safety survey. If you have not already done so, there is still time to take part, just follow the link that was emailed to you earlier this week. 

Yesterday in school there was great excitement because we had all our ‘Valentine’s Discos’. These are always very popular events and the children really enjoy them. I would like to thank the PTA for organising them and all my staff who helped them run the events. Let us hope that ‘Valentine’s Day’ on Sunday is as enjoyable for us as it was for them yesterday.

As I said earlier it is half term next week but when we come back after it is another action packed week.  There is the internet safety session as I have already discussed, we have a Sharing Assembly on Thursday 25^th February and then on the Friday 26^th February the school nurse is holding a drop – in session for parents from 8.45am – 10.00am so I will meet a lot of parents in school which is always nice.

Have a great half term and I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday, 22^nd February.

 

 

After all the excitement of the O2 last week it has been quite a mundane week in school  - I think I am missing all the razzmatazz of show business.  We do have lots to look forward to next week though.

On Tuesday it is Safer Internet Day which we take very seriously in Little Heath. The children will be carrying out activities in class to help remind them how to keep safe when they are using the internet. We pre-empted this with a survey that we did in our Friendship Groups this week and we were a little shocked at how many of the children are accessing sites which are not age appropriate for their usage such as ‘Instagram’. The county have recently updated their safer internet use policy and we now have to keep a record of children who are using inappropriate programmes for their age. Could you please check your children’s IT devices at home to make sure that the programmes they using are age appropriate. On Wednesday we also have the county e-safety advisor coming in to school to present assemblies to the children from Year 1 upwards on e-safety. These have been modified to suit the age of the children because we do not want to scare the children from using computer programmes and devices –we just want to keep them safe while they do so.

 We have our ‘Open Evening’ from 3.00pm - 4.30pm for Years 1 – 6 on Wednesday as well. This event is to give parents an opportunity to look at the learning covered by their children over the last half term. Unfortunately I will not be in school on this evening but I will be in for the rest of the week so if you need to discuss anything with me I will be available then.

On Thursday we have our ‘Valentine’s Discos’. The KS1 and reception disco is on from 5.00pm – 6.00pm and the KS2 disco is on from 6.15pm – 7.15pm. The children do look forward to these events and it helps to bring the half term to a happy end so we hope to see many of them there. The nursery children are having their own separate disco during the day.

I know when I gave the dates out for the term I had a ‘Sharing Assembly’ listed for Monday but that is now not going to take place. We will now have that event on Thursday, 25^th February. If your child is taking part in that assembly you will receive that letter next week.

As you all know we break up for the half term next Friday. School will finish at the normal time and not at 2.00pm – we only finish early at the end of the full term. Have a great weekend and I will see you all next week.