Mr Logan's Chalkboard

Dear Parents/ Carers

Happy New Year! I hope you had a good break over Christmas. It is good to see that the children have come back to school keen and ready for the challenges of the new term. As usual it will be a busy term, with a number of exciting learning opportunities happening. Year 3 had a successful visit to the British Museum on Wednesday, and the children in Year 4 are already looking forward to their residential visit at Sayers Croft at the end of the term. As well as visits and visitors, there are the usual variety of sporting events, including athletics, boys and girls football tournaments and the annual swimming gala heats and finals all  happening this term.  Our staff are busy preparing for our arts week in March. We are looking forward to the Bishop of Kensington coming to lead our Ash Wednesday service in February to start his Lent theme. These are just a few of the events planned to supplement the children’s daily learning.  I am sure it will be a good term!

Regards

John Logan

Headteacher

It never ceases to amaze me how fast the Autumn Term moves! It is now less than four weeks to the half term break and only 84 days to Christmas!

This term has been 'full on' from the beginning. We began with our official opening with the Bishop of London. Bishop Richard and the guests had a good viewing, not just of the new school, but of the extremely smart, well behaved and talented children in our school. Our special assembly took us back in time with a brief history of the school by Chris French, one of our governors who has just written a history of the school. We heard some superb singing form our choir and a vibrant dance to a Jamaican Praise medley, showing that the school is very much part of the present and the future.

Having our new school finished, provides us with many new and exciting opportunities. I have swapped my hard hat for a tour guide badge. It has been a delight showing visitors and colleagues from other schools around. I took a group of other Headteachers around last week and they were very envious of the school. We also had a visit last week from a group of Russian educators from St Petersburg and of course we had our very successful Saturday as part of the Open House London weekend, with over 300 visitors passing through. The comments board showed how impressed they were with the building. Here are a few of them:

“Very impressed – a lovely school/ Fantastic use of space! Thank you!/Really nice school/ great facilities (particularly outdoors) and very friendly staff/ I like your climbing wall and your playgrounds/ Warmest congratulations to all involved in a successful and well run project”

Last week we held our Harvest celebrations with a difference, with our 'Busy Bees' theme. The children were encouraged to dress as bees and in our assembly we learnt about the importance of bees and honey in different parts of the world. It was followed in the afternoon by a very successful 'Harvest High Tea' where we invited older people from the local churches as well as grandparents to the school for a delightful selection of cakes and refreshments served by children from Year 6, as entertainment from the choir. We are raising money to send beehives to Kenya.

On top of all this activity is the really busy time that all the children have had through the daily round of teaching and learning. It is lovely to see how well the children are settling into our Foundation Stage, and indeed all the children in their new year groups. I enjoyed interviewing Year 6 children for their posts as Pupil Advocates. The quality of their answers was particularly high this year and i am pleased to see them taking their new responsibilities seriously.

So my verdict on term so far... 'An exciting start to term with much more in store!'