Friday Bulletin & Diary Dates – 12th October 2018

Dear Parents and Carers,

Thank you to sisters Maisie and Polly for representing our school at Metro Radio last week. The girls were invited to collect a special award from the North of England Children’s Cancer Research charity. The award is for all parents and children who helped raise an outstanding grand total of £2,317.00 at this year’s Children’s Cancer Run. An incredible amount for an amazing charity, thank you.

This week I attended the Schools North East Annual Summit. Amanda Spielman, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, was the keynote speaker at this event. In her speech she encouraged school leaders to concentrate on providing children with a broad and balanced curriculum. Our new ‘project’ approach to teaching subjects like art, music, history and geography is an example of our commitment to deepening children’s learning in these subjects. This week, I talked to pupils in Year 3 and Year 6 about how they feel the project work is going. The children told me they are thoroughly enjoying project afternoons, are learning much more because they feel ‘inspired’ and one child said she felt her independent learning skills were developing, ready for secondary school.

It was also announced recently that the Chief Medical Officer is to carry out a review looking at the impact that excessive social media use can have on children’s mental health. The CMO’s review will cover: cyberbullying; online gaming where there is a social media aspect; sleep problems; and problematic internet use. Interim findings from the review will be published in December 2018.

Have a great weekend.

Yours sincerely,

 Mrs A Whistler

Headteacher