The one word which comes to mind to describe this week is ‘brilliant’.

It is brilliant to have a full school again and it is brilliant to hear children playing outside with laughter. We welcome you all back again and we hope you all enjoyed our latest school video. You may have seen our new (and very modern) style of newsletter, where we can insert videos and pictures. Mr McGill and Ms Silvester have been working on ideas for Red Nose Day and it seems that we are going down the ‘masked joker’ route. We had thought about doing a ‘masked reader’ (which I would still like to do) with all the staff in school and the children have to try and guess who we are but Mr Gilmour has found an APP called Chatterpix, where you can record yourself speaking behind a cartoon character. Mr Gilmour modelled this and I have never heard him speak in such a high pitched voice before. I honestly wouldn’t have guessed it was him so we have now decided to use this idea to tell jokes for Comic Relief and guess who is behind the mask!

The week has been a busy one and we have all settled back into our routine. It has been one of those weeks where we have spent time observing children and undertaking assessments to see where we are heading with lessons now we are back and the children have amazed us. We have been discussing World Book Day costumes and it has been agreed that all staff will dress as crayons from The Day the Crayons Quit book. Mr Gilmour and I will be debating over who the colour of the sun is as I will be the yellow crayon and Mr Gilmour will be the orange crayon: who knows who will win! Next week, we will be sending you information about our book day, which will be after the Easter holidays.

This week, we have celebrated Science Week and the children have been immersed in some exciting experiments.

Today, I have been looking at some very proud faces of children who have been showing me their work. One little boy told me that he has really ‘focused’ on his writing, as he joyfully took a sticker, and then I had an influx of children wowing me with their ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ books. The discussions around ‘Farmer Duck’ were lovely to hear and I can see how happy the children are to be back.

The Reception Class have had a great day multitasking in the PE lesson. Running a mile when you have little legs is not an easy job but connecting a cube to a stick of cubes every time you run around the playground until you total a mile is double the difficulty …well done, little ones.

The junior children have all grown again in maturity and they have excelled with their topic work. In Fairsnape, talk of Boudicca has been a highlight of the week and the children have been diving into the world of the Romans.  We have started a new horticulture and gardening group and we will be selling our home grown produce in the near future! The children will be writing blogs for the Kid’s Zone section of this website and they will be sending you information on school council and eco-council initiatives. I am delighted to be hearing the ‘above and beyond’ things children are doing to look after the environment. From Year 1 upwards, the children begin the start of every new topic with a big ethical thinking question and this is certainly enabling children to be curious about the world and to be stewards of creation -have a look at the curriculum maps if you would like to know more about this.

Music lessons will begin next week and we are moving our school band rehearsal time to after school on a Friday from 3.15pm-4.00pm. This is so we can continue to fit in curriculum music lessons with Mr Warren for all of the Key Stage 2 children. I have sent home new recorders for our Key Stage 1 recorder group to practice before their first lesson next Friday. I’m sure parents will soon be hearing the gentle tones of ‘3 Blind Mice’ as children gain  confidence in the instrument!

Mrs Davies continues to lead KS1 classroom music and all children will be learning notation next term whilst learning to play tuned instruments. We have exciting things planned for an exciting Summer Term.  Please be reminded that class messages will be sent from the class teachers on Seesaw. We hope you like our new monthly newsletter.

We wish you all a lovely Mothering Sunday and a restful weekend.