Headteacher blog 20th January 2017

This week in school, we had an inspirational visitor: Evelyne Ninsiima, a community leader from rural Uganda. Evelyne came to our school to see our school farm and to talk to some Y6 children. Back in Uganda, she leads a charity that has started and runs a school, planted a million trees and promotes health and hygiene. She was particularly concerned about the futures of young women in rural Uganda who often marry and begin to have children in their early teenage years as they are typically uneducated and have few other options. Evelyne’s photos and talk were, I thought, inspirational and made me reflect on whether I could do more in my life to impact positively on the world. The children seemed fascinated and Evelyne was delighted and impressed by their work and their confidence. Hopefully, the children will have been inspired too to really make a difference in their lives.

This week Year 1 families received some phonics assessment information for their child; we hope this is useful and helps parents to support their children at home with this important early learning. Year 2 families attended a workshop about the assessments at the end of KS1 and the expectations around this – the feedback was very good and it seems that it was very useful. 2Lo and 1S visited the Farsley library and Mrs Loveridge has decided that being a librarian would be a ‘dream job’ for her – let’s hope that is an ambition that she doesn’t follow! In Year 3, we have been delighted to welcome Mr Sharp back after his post-op convalescence and they have been learning about forces in science. In Year 6, our football team spent a wonderful day at Thorp Arch training facility with coaches from Leeds United. They are back there again next week, having qualified for the city finals – good luck!

This week also saw a local landmark disappear – the cafe bus! The cafe space is being remodelled again and we are welcoming new tenants into the space who will be working on some alternative curriculum schemes with older students.  If it is a success, then young lives can be turned around.