I am feeling a little tired this morning because I attended the Herts Catering Awards last night. The reason that I was invited to this was because our cook manager Louise was a finalist in the ‘Cook Manager of the Year’ award. Out of over a hundred schools she got down to the last three and although she did not win I feel that we should be really proud that we have such a good cook making meals for our children. The staff certainly appreciate her – I have never worked in a school where so many staff order school meals. Louise would agree that she is helped enormously by her team which consists of Nyesha and Maria, and hopefully, next year, all of them will be nominated and win the award as a team.

It has been a rather quiet week in school as the Year 6 have been sitting their SATs tests which means that the other children have had to keep the noise down. As usual, the tests were not as bad as the Year 6 had anticipated and although there were some challenging questions on the maths reasoning papers I know that they all tried their best and that is all we can ask of them.

I find it really hard to believe that it is half term at the end of next week but we do have some fun activities to look forward to before the holiday begins. On Monday we have ‘Sharing Assembly’. You will already have received a letter about this if your child is involved.  I do enjoy these assemblies because it is good for the children to share work they feel proud of with their parents and the school community. On Wednesday it is our ‘Open Afternoon’ where parents are invited in to share all the learning that their children have done over the last half term. That runs from 3.00pm – 4.30pm.

On Friday all the KS2 are taking part in the ‘Oakmere Mini Marathon’. This is when all the KS2 children in the area converge on Oakmere Primary to run a mini marathon which takes part in the school grounds and the surrounding area. This event has been running for many years and is a great community event. I know all the children do not enjoy distance running but this is meant to be a fun event and it does not matter whether the children take 15 minutes or 45 minutes to complete it –the key thing is that they have taken part. This is why I insist that all children do participate unless they have an injury or an illness which prevents them from doing so.

You will all have received a letter informing you that the PTA are organising a ‘walking float’ for the Potters Bar Carnival Day. This will be the first time that we have taken part in the parade since I have come here and I think that it will be a really good thing. We always take part in the art exhibition and this year, as well as the parade, our girls’ football team will be taking part in a football match. We will be helping the children prepare any props for the walking float in school as part of an ‘Arts Week’ that we will be holding straight after half term. Details of what other activities the children will be doing during this week will be sent out next week.

I know many people in the country are looking forward to this weekend because there is a royal wedding taking place. However, if this is not your thing there is some good weather forecast so at least everyone can enjoy the warm weather. I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday.