Head Teacher's Blog 09.10.23

8th October 2023

I want to start this week’s blog by letting you know two pieces of great news that we’re all really proud of in school. 

Firstly, Swansfield has won the Best School category in this year’s Northumbria in Bloom competition. Judges visited school back in July and were thoroughly impressed with our commitment to making our school grounds such a hive of growing activity. They loved the mix of growing for pleasure - the range of flowers and colour as well as the fruits and vegetables that the children were growing, harvesting and eating. 

Secondly, following our bid for re accreditation in September, we found out on Friday that we have maintained our Artsmark Gold Award for commitment to high quality arts education across school. As well as praising our strong commitment to creative learning and the deepening of our own arts-rich pedagogy, we are particularly pleased that the assessors recognised our commitment to promoting diversity through arts education, stating that we have promoted and provided opportunity for children to embrace the globally diverse nature of creativity, ensuring that learners get a broad sense of cultures and creative forms. We look forward to continuing this work and providing further opportunities for our children to connect creatively with the wide world that they live in. 


Next, a few thank yous - we’re really grateful to everyone who supports us in keeping The Avenue a ‘car free’ zone during morning and afternoon pick up. As I chat with parents about this, particularly at morning drop off, there is a definite sense that The Avenue feels like a far safer place. Let’s keep this up! Please remember that Roxburgh Place car park is quiet at this time of the day and it takes minutes to walk from there to school. 

Thank you also, from Nick Forham-Scott, for coming along to the coffee and chat on Thursday morning. It was great to see and speak with so many of you. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, ideas and suggestions so openly with Nick. We look forward to using this important information to shape our family support to you all. 


Let’s look towards next week and the important information to remember: 


  • It’s Plum Class family lunch on Wednesday. If you haven’t already signed up on the Google form, please do this by Monday afternoon. Come to the main entrance for 11.45 and your sons and daughters will show you into the dining room!

  • Chestnut Class are really excited to share their class assembly with family and friends on Thursday at 2.30. I’ve been lucky enough to see snippets as they rehearsed last week. It’s going to be a good one!

  • The school nurse team will be in on Friday to administer Flu Immunisations

  • Please remember that in this rather showery and autumnal weather, waterproof is needed every day!


Then, looking forward to the week after next, please remember that we’ll be taking harvest donations on Tuesday 17th October ahead of our celebrations on Wednesday 18th October. 


There were great achievements across school as always last week and I’m delighted to bring you news of our stars of the week: Nancy Towers, Ella Hyde, Lucas Brewis-Scott, Emily Wilson, Henry Knox, Alexis Hogg, Benjamin Rowley, Harry Beresford, Tilly Dorner, Jonathan Waite, Brody Gibson and Archie Porteous. We are very proud of each and every one of you - keep up the great work!


This week’s music to dance along to comes from a large collection of year 3 girls! Enjoy and maybe you could give your best dance moves an ‘airing’ ahead of our upcoming FOSP Halloween discos on Friday 20th October!  


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9E7tRTkf5E


See you in the week, 


Mrs G

 
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