Headteacher's Blog
Mrs Lorraine Woollven - Headteacher
Summer Holiday 2024
The team have been really busy over the summer break organising all the sports equipment, installing new sheds and tidying the site ahead of another busy school year. I am incredibly grateful to my colleagues, my family and friends of the school who have given generously of their time to help improve our school for everyone to enjoy. Particular thanks go to Nick Paige (Project Manager at Overbury) who supplied the wood and Matt Stephenson who kindly came and fixed the PTA storage shed.
A new shed on the playground for all the playtime equipment.
My holiday also included quite a lot of fun with these two.
Archive
This Easter myself and my family have been busy again, making improvements to our super school. This time, the challenge was to try and trim back and rebuild the now massively overgrown willow tunnel.
It was clear after day 1 that some larger tools were going to be needed so on Easter Monday we came back equipped with the right equipment. After a few hours of cutting and weaving, we now have an actual willow tunnel. Fingers crossed the new shoots will grow.
Improvements in the school hall 2020 - Over the half term break we have been continuing our commitment to make our school the best place to learn it can be. This holiday’s project was complete the renovations to the school hall by tiling the wall in front of the serving hatch. This had begun to look untidy and was detracting from the improved appearance of this central part of our school. Miss Lamboune kindly came in to get the project off to a good start. With the help of my husband I can now add tiling to my ever growing list of DIY accomplishments. Of course Bracken also got involved too. I think he found the box much more fun.
Supporting the team at Osmington Bay. In the final week of term I headed off to Osmington Bay with the Year 5 team. We had a fantastic week filled with new challenges and lots of laughter. The children were super, taking on all of the activities with determination and a 'have a go attitude'. Thank you to my fantastic team for going the extra mile in either supporting the children on camp or holding the fort back at school.
We have had a super start to the year. The improvements to the school over the summer have been enjoyed by the whole school community and we have received some really positive feedback. My favourite was from a pupil in year 5 who said, "our school looks loved again." The hall display is now complete with every child making a butterfly for our be inspired display.
Bracken training is well underway. Please see our school dog section of the website for lots of pictures showing how Bracken is getting on in school.
Here is a picture of Bracken receiving his Pawsitive Pups award in celebration service. OOOps he yawned :-)
Year 3 enjoying a special Diwali celebration
On Wednesday 18th October Year 3 were treated to a very special service. Mrs Philbrick, and her daughter led a service to help the children to learn about the Hindu celebration of Diwali. The children were invited to dress in traditional Hindu costumes and take part in acting out the story. The children learnt about the story of Rama and Sita and why people light lamps at Diwali to remember that light triumphs over dark and good triumphs over evil. Every child was then invited to take home a specially prepared treat to enjoy with their families. We are hugely grateful to Mrs Philbrick, Mrs Hommes and their daughters for sharing this experience with the children. If you would like to learn a little more about this celebration please look at the information on the round table, specially prepared by Mrs Philbrick, in the foyer of school.
July 2017 Decorating
The summer holidays started for Mrs Woollven by decorating the school hall, along with a team of helpers including Chair of Governors, Mrs Furniss, Mrs Churchill, Mrs Hill,
Mrs Holdaway and Mrs Pope. Mrs Woollven also managed to coerce her parents to lend a hand too!
Decorators
Children were busy too!
Mrs Woollven's mum hoovering curtains
Something exciting happening here!
June 2017
A busy and exciting term ahead...
It is super to see all the children back after half term break refreshed and excited for the term ahead. There are lots of exciting opportunities planned for this term including: sports day; cluster sports; swimming gala; school trips; school productions; agape service and the special levers' celebrations. In addition to this we have some engaging writing projects planned for each class. These will centre on children creating some excellent writing to be shared with public audiences. Please ask your children about their project and how they using drafting and editing skills to grow and improve their writing.
We had a very productive and inspiring in-service day on Monday 5th June. We looked closely at the work of Ron Berger. Many of us had greatly enjoyed reading his book ‘An Ethic of Excellence’ over the half term. As a result we had some fantastic discussion on how we plan to further enhance the learning opportunities we offer our children. We watched a short video called ‘Austin’s Butterfly’ to show how children can benefit from kind, specific and relevant feedback to improve their learning. I have attached a link as you may enjoy watching this at home (Austin's Butterfly)
A key focus for our school improvement over the forthcoming terms will centre on building an ethic of excellence across our school. We will be exploring how we can provide each other with specific and kind feedback to improve our work. We will also be building resilience and developing our ethos of hard work leading to improvement.
ST GEORGE'S DAY - 23rd APRIL
A service was held to recognise and celebrate St. George's Day which was on Sunday. Here is a photo of our team bringing the St. George's story to life.
Team St. George!
Thank you to everyone for such a super welcome to your school. It has been lovely to have a chance to meet so many families and to begin to get to know the school community.
The children have had a great start to the year. There has been so much excitment and enjoyment of learning. I have thoroughly enjoyed joining all of the classes to share in their challenges and have a chance to get know the children. I particularly enjoyed watching our year 3 pupils learning and then performing a 'belly dancing routine'. It was amazing what they all managed to achieve in 60 minutes! Year 5 also wowed with their team work and commitment to a challenge with a range of activities to test their creative skills. In Year 2 I had the chance to enjoy one of my favourite subjects with a dinosaur themed mathematics challenge. The children demonstrated super team working and logical reasoning to solve the puzzle. My office walls are beginning to filled by some of the childrens' excellent and beautiful learning. I have two super pieces from Year 1 inspired by the book 'Beautuful oooops'. It is amazing what can be created from a splotch on a page or a tear in your paper. Please take a look at the class pages to see more of the fantastic learning that has taken place.
This week I will be joining year 6 on their residential trip. My bags are packed and I am poised to take on the challenges of tunnels, abseiling and canoeing. Fingers crossed for some lovely weather.