Dear Parent/Carer,
I trust that you had a super Half term. Welcome to the last Half Term of the school year, which this year in particular seems to have come around in an instant. Our Nursery parents will have noticed the improvement work to the front of the Nursery building. Mrs Friar and the Foundation Stage team will be working with the children to grow our own produce in the new seed beds. There’ll be lots of fabulous learning about living, growing and the growth cycle to be had.
Year 6 Residential
We kicked off what will inevitably be another very busy Half term by waving off our Year 6 on Monday morning. We welcomed them back on Wednesday, looking a little tired and disheveled… but having had a fabulous time at Robinwood this week. The Robinwood residential is a brilliant learning and team building experience. I always feel that our children return from the trip a little more mature and helpful towards one another. We are very lucky at Robin Hood to be able to offer two residentials per year, one in Year 4 and one in Year 6. My thanks on behalf of children and parents to our great staff for their tireless work, in this case Miss Darroch, Miss Gascoigne, Mrs Wathen and Mrs Beckwith. Residentials for staff feature very hard work and very long hours… and lots of fun.
Celebration Lunch
We welcomed our Parent Governors Mr Devanney and Mr Turner to a Celebration Lunch with staff on the final Friday of last Half Term in recognition of the outstanding ofsted grading. In order to continue to improve on what we do, we aim to develop closer links between Governors, parents and staff in order to ensure that we are working closely together to improve provision for your child. Both Governors saw a committed staff team working together well and enjoying what they do. Do get to know our Governors, do give them positive feedback about our school where it is warranted and do put forward your suggestions for what we could be doing more effectively.
Positive Feedback
Positive feedback from parents is always very warmly received by Governors, staff and I. I received a lovely letter last week from a parent of a child who has just left us to attend a school closer to home (she had been travelling 17 miles each way every day to come to Robin Hood). She writes, ‘The recent ofsted report confirmed what all the parents and pupils already knew – that Robin Hood is a fantastic school that the children love attending.’ I am very grateful for this feedback. It is very important for our staff to hear that their work is valued by our community.
Staff Star
I would like to highlight the work of Miss Lambert this week. Since joining us in September, Miss Lambert has done a fabulous job as Leader of our Foundation Stage. She is leading a great team that is dedicated to achieving a fantastic, exciting, fun and stimulating learning environment for our littlest learners.
Congratulations to Mrs Bailey
I am delighted to share with you the fabulous news that Mrs Bailey has been successful in her application for a Headteacher post and will start in September as the new Headteacher at Cookridge Primary School. Mrs Bailey, of course, took up a short-notice secondment in January in order to broaden her school experience. This has proved to have been the right move for her and our congratulations go out to her.
Web stats
I am informed by our Website Manager that Google has promoted our website with Sitelinks - which are additional links under the site name when you search for the school. This is something Google does when it detects a site that is popular and has a large traffic base. We appear to be one of the few schools that has this. Our website traffic is interesting… nearly two million hits last year, half a million this year, around two thousand new visitors every month… incredible stats for a school.
Revised Date
We have one revised date from our Summer Schedule to share with you. The Arts Review Evening has been moved from Thursday 30th June to Thursday 7th July, 6.00pm – 7.00pm.
Be Safe
I have been informed of an incident during the Half Term break in which a child from school who was walking alone was followed from the Halfway House to Milner Lane by a stranger. The child was very sensible and refused the stranger’s verbal advance. Please remind your child about the Be Safe message and remain vigilant yourself. Do inform both school and the police if you have any concerns about the behaviour of any individual in the locality.
Have a super weekend,
Mr Wilson
