This morning as I was happily gritting, I was called a ‘Jack of all trades!’ A couple of you had commented that it was quite a comical blog yesterday as it highlighted just how diverse my job actually is. Being a head teacher is far removed from the days of teaching. You really do have to know things about things you didn’t even know existed. I was speaking to Mr. Gilmour about this today because the drains in the playground had flooded again. For that job, the animal net remained redundant and the long prodding stick came out. It was not glamorous in any way but it got the job done. Playground safely gritted and drained-for now!

Emergency! There is a bird in Pre-School!

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When I told some of our younger children today that we were going to welcome a very special visitor into school, I had to sadly disappoint one little boy by telling him that is wasn’t Bob the Builder who was coming.

At this time of year I am always so humbled to spend quality time with all of the children as they remind us what a special time of year this is. Spiritually, we have been preparing ourselves for God’s greatest gift-Jesus. Last night, we joined other small schools at St. Antony’s Church in Fulwood for an Advent Service. Some of our children sang ‘Are You Ready for the Light’ and it was beautiful. We are very proud of them and I thank you for bringing your children to the service. Through assemblies, prayer and liturgy, we understand the true meaning of Christmas. We hear of such sadness in the world and think about the less fortunate in particular at this time of year. The thing that makes a school so special is the loving care that all show towards one another. At St.Francis’ we work together as a community to support one another as we grow in faith and, even at this busy time of year, we continue to be thoughtful towards each other’s needs and never stop moving forwards. Next Wednesday, Preston College are coming to school to perform ‘Puss in Boots’ pantomime. On Thursday, Year 5 are carol singing at Bushell House Rest Home, our Christmas Fair is on Sunday 11th December after Family Mass, our Aladdin trip is on 13th December and on the same day our Pre-School children  will be singing Mini-Carols around the tree with parents, School Christmas Dinner is on 14th December, Carols around the Tree is on 15th December at 2.00pm and the KS2 Advent Service is at 6.00pm that evening. Christmas Jumper Day is on Friday 16th December and KS1 Nativity ‘Sparkle’ is at 6.00pm on 20th December. The children are working very hard to learn lines and songs. The Advent Service and Nativity will be very special events and it is so important that we come together at this time of year as a family unit. Please bring your children to take part in these events although they are after school. Every smile, voice and speaking part is important.

In true St.Francis’ style, we have undertaken many fundraising initiatives over the past couple of weeks.

We are certainly in the swing of things here as we approach the end to our first half term back in school. I have been inundated with pictures of our children reading in some very unusual places. One of our school improvement priorities is to enhance the love of reading and extend the amount we read as a school. Our task is to have our picture taken as we are reading in an unusual place. We have had many smiles over some of the pictures-you are very welcome to have a look at them for yourselves in our school hall! The requirements of the new SATs are that the children answer comprehension questions in full answers, quoting detailed evidence from the text. We found, last year, that the new test papers were long and many children did not complete the paper. This is one of the reasons for  focusing on building stamina to read longer pieces of text and to infer and deduce key information. A love of reading always helps this process and I would urge you to visit the local library and invest in books that your children will love to read-and want to keeping reading! We have specific ‘class reads’ that the children love and ‘Author Study’ is embedded throughout school-beginning at an early stage in Pre-School. We are delighted that our Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar results were well above Lancashire and National Average, as this was a school improvement priority last year and it has certainly worked! Our Year 1 phonics screening check is also consistently well above National Average, which proves that reading and phonics are taught very well in the infants. Thank you to all who sign the daily reading diaries. It is wonderful to see so many children being presented with reading certificates in assembly.

I am delighted to have received so many phone calls and positive comments regarding the behaviour of our children. Last week, our Year 5 children joined other schools on a Pilgrimage trip to Lancaster and it was truly wonderful.  We are very proud of the children and we give our thanks to the team at Lancaster Diocese who worked tirelessly in making the joint trip a safe, spiritual enjoyable occasion.