What an awful day Monday was this week weather-wise. Give me cold over wet, any day as a teacher, just so long as we can get pupils outside at break and at lunch. It was a similar story across the week with fixtures being cancelled and lots of weather watching taking place by anyone who was scheduled for a duty.
The only thing to make Monday more bearable was Manchester City’s win on Sunday and the prospect of chatting with Mr Long at the school gate first thing. Alas, that joy was short-lived, as Liverpool supporting Mr Long ‘excused’ himself from the school run and sent his son in to face the music without him. I write this paragraph knowing that it could come back to haunt me after the return fixture in February. Perhaps I will have a meeting the following morning… or perhaps not!
Doing my rounds on Monday afternoon, I was so impressed with the artwork being produced by Kahlo Class. The preparatory sketches and the subsequent work in clay based on their visit to the Henry Moore Foundation were of the highest order. They certainly deserved their Headteacher’s Awards. Oscar, Katie, Arthur D and Zofia were particularly striking but there were many, many others.
After school, I popped into the first Recycled Costume club session of the year to hear some of the ideas being discussed relating to this year’s theme of augmented realities. I look forward to seeing how these ideas develop in the coming weeks, prior to the show in the new year.
It was lovely to see many of our pupils in scouting and guiding uniforms on Tuesday morning for Armistice Day. The whole school fell silent at 11.00am as we recognised the significance of this day.
I held another parent tour on Tuesday morning, showing current Highbury and also prospective Highbury families around Whitehill. Our class reps were on top form, particularly as it was a sizable group.
Year 6s were treated to a day of Lego and coding on Tuesday thanks to Affinity Water and in particular Forrest’s (Year 3) mum who gave me the nudge to sign up for it. The day was split into two with Kahlo working before lunch and Wilde after the break. It was clear from my visits to both sessions that the pupils were engaged and learning, putting in previously learned skills into new situations, with different hardware. It brought back memories of some work I did about 20 years ago for Lego with one of their first programable blocks, Robolab.
Another workshop being run in school on Tuesday afternoon was the first of our Mighty Mediators training sessions. I visited on several occasions to hear what was involved and also to see the pupils having a go at resolving potential playground disputes. The key feature of this session was the need for active listening – a great skill to master and not just for helping others. I have no doubt our group will do a great job supporting the staff at break and lunch.
I was locked away with governors and our local authority adviser on Wednesday morning for my appraisal. It was a long morning but a very interesting and valuable morning.
We had Phase in working with Year 5s in the afternoon and although I didn’t make it into either of these sessions, I did pop into one class, Wilde, and couldn’t resist the opportunity to get my hands into the clay they were using for art. I didn’t get around to building my own sculpture but perhaps next time, I should have a go myself.
The weather did impact our sporting calendar this week although we did manage to get a netball fixture played against Highover on Wednesday. Both teams played very well and I positioned myself in between both courts so that I could some of both victories. It was lovely to see a former Whitehill teacher, Miss Eaton, return to Whitehill with Highover, and catch up after the matches.
During a parent tour on Thursday morning, I had the opportunity, whilst Hudson (Year 4) was chatting to my visitors, to join forces with William (Year 4) and do brilliantly on a times tables game. Not brilliantly enough, however (sorry William) as Mrs Davies sent me Hudson’s result shortly after which beat us. I have sent my request in for a rematch.
We welcomed another visitor to Whitehill on Thursday afternoon in the form of Ofsted’s Regional Director, Mike Sheridan. It was fun to be mischievous in the morning by leaving a sign in his parking space with ‘Ofsted’ on the label and then get messages of ‘good luck’ from people who saw the sign! As it was, his visit was as a result of my invite, and we definitely weren’t being inspected.
That being said, he was very generous with his time and we did visit classrooms, chat with pupils and look at work. Is he ever off duty? Once again, I was immensely proud of the school, my teaching team and the pupils and his feedback to me as he left, echoed this sentiment. It was a great afternoon.
It was good to back leading Achievers’ Assembly this week. I presented the House Cup to Earth and the Class of the Week trophy to Wilde.
The music this week was amazing again with Emma (Year 6) and Violett (Year 5) both singing. We started with Emma’s Taylor Swift song and ended with a rendition of Electricity from Billy Elliot by Violett.
There were a few other awards to celebrate including one which highlighted my need to get my hearing tested again. I was convinced Joshua (Year 3) told me his Stagecoach certificate was for his role as a chicken in Wizard of Oz. Knowing the show quite well, I was a little surprised to hear about this new character but then I realised after exploring this role and the lines he had learnt, he was actually a Munchkin!
Well done to all who were celebrated today.
I was out after Achievers, at a local consortium meeting and therefore missed the chance to see Year 4s doing their lesson on digestion and, as I was reliably informed upon my return, poo! It is always a well-received lesson led by our science lead, Mr Denney.
We end the week how we started, with awful weather. Our upper school pupils are currently doing PE inside, scattered around the school, as even I would concede that there is no way they could be outside in this.
Looking ahead, the main even for next week is Year 5’s Space Week. A curriculum themed week looking at all things space related. It begins with a trip to Bayfordbury Observatory and concludes on Friday night with the Space Night. I can tell you already what the weather will be like… cloudy! Fingers crossed for some luck this year.
We have a couple of sporting fixtures with a Wix Cup football match against Wilshere Dacre at home on Monday and a netball fixture at St Francis on Tuesday.
I am out on Wednesday afternoon and evening at the second of my Headteacher forums with the Farmington Institute, this time meeting at RAF Club, in Picadilly.
On Friday, I am out with the JLT at a secondary transition conference at HGS, where my team of four Year 6s will be representing the school, gathering knowledge and information they can share with their peers upon their return.
That is it for another week. Have a great weekend.
Best wishes,
Steve Mills
Headteacher
