Newsletter Oct 11th 2019

What a week and where to start!

So many great things happening across school. Super efforts from our cross country runners with a number of top 10 finishers from every year group entered (years 2 to 6).

I have seen so much fantastic writing and cross curricular work across school this week. I know the children will really enjoy sharing it with you at Open Doors on Friday afternoon from 2:20 to 3:45. I sincerely hope you can make it, as I firmly believe it is a special time to have your child talk to you about what they have been learning and doing. It feels such a far cry from the days of parents sitting in a quiet corridor with a tray of books that don’t really mean anything without it’s context.

News reporting from year 6 on a visit from Howard Carter (that’s going to get you googling!), creating a Castle Museum in Year 1 and an educational visit to Ripon for year 5 looking at life in Victorian times in a workhouse, a prison and a courthouse are just some of the other interesting learning taking place. 

This leads me on to inform you about a second key school priority this year alongside reading which I mentioned in my first letter this term.

It is to reinvigorate our curriculum strategy, not only making it as interesting and stimulating as possible, but with carefully thought out connectivity across subjects. This will enable pupils to make stronger links between and across subjects and make learning irresistible.

I want to take a moment to publicly thank the teaching teams across school who have embraced this priority with hard work, passion, energy and enthusiasm. I really hope you all can see and feel the work we are doing when you listen to your children, visit school or read our newsletters, website and twitter feed. 

Finally, I want to focus upon World Mental Health Day which was on Thursday this week. I firmly believe that understanding our mind and our feelings, learning how to help ourselves and how to support others has never been more important.

A quote from our own Miss McGuinn in The Press yesterday summed things up nicely “We fully endorse the campaign messages that everyone needs to talk about how they feel and it’s important too for children, so they can see how they fit into the wider community and the world. Pupils now know what mental health means and what it looks like – now we’re learning what to do about it.” The full article for those who did not see it is below: https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/17960830.york-unites-world-mental-health-day/

Your donations for the day raised £558.88 and they are going directly back into resourcing and creating our whole school wellbeing provision for all pupils. Thank you so much.

 Have a great weekend everyone. Mr Evans