It was a beautiful morning last Saturday for the first sporting event of the year. The early season boys’ football rally is a great season opener and I am so glad I went along to support. Support, and referee a few of the matches.
The team played very well and with an impressive attitude throughout the morning, winning five out of their six matches. Whilst the team will certainly evolve over the coming weeks and months, it gives Miss Gooderham and Mr Ciepiela an opportunity to see some of the players in action. Others will get their chance to shine in the upcoming fixtures.
Our support was great. Thank you to the parents who came to support and also to a few former pupils, including Isla and Leo (now Year 8s) who gave an impromptu motivational team talk.
For my sins, as if I don’t have enough to do this year, I have taken on being the chair of our district football association. One of my tasks will be to monitor and deal with any ‘altercations’ that take place during inter-school matches. It is so lovely knowing all associated with Whitehill’s sport know how to behave and represent the school. If only I could say the same for every school.
Regular readers of this blog will know that from time to time we do something that is ‘above and beyond’ even the ‘above and beyond’ things we do on a regular basis. Monday this week was, for me, one of those occasions. In anything we do at Whitehill, I must be able to answer the question ‘why?’ If I can’t, it means we need to reflect and see if we need to do something different. At the end of the summer term, during her transition visit, Zoe (Year 3) had a conversation with me about school uniform and the reason why we didn’t have a cardigan option for the pupils. It was a very good discussion and a question to which I couldn’t formulate a satisfactory ‘why’.
Fast forward to Monday, and I was in Beat School Uniform shop with Zoe and her friend Siya, meeting with the manager so that Zoe could ask them to start stocking a Whitehill cardigan. I was so impressed with their approach to this opportunity; the confidence with which they gave their reasons and also the specifications for the cardigan. It must be ‘soft on the inside’ and have ‘easy to fasten buttons.’ The girls gave the thumbs up having tried on a sample and shook hands with the manager, Lucy. So, from now on, Beat will stock a Whitehill cardigan which pupils are welcome to wear instead of a sweatshirt. We will change the uniform policy on the website to reflect this.
It was such a lovely afternoon that we decided to treat ourselves to an ice-cream to take our minds off the walk back up Hollow Lane and as an educator, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to teach the girls a little about the history of Hitchin!
After school, I was invited to watch our dance club perform what they had been learning that session. It was such good fun and not only did they dance, but they also sang the song they were dancing to. I didn’t realise we had so many pupils with an American accent!
The school nurses were in school on Tuesday to give the flu vaccines to our pupils. They were slightly disappointed with the take up this year and so they have agreed to come back for a mop-up session next Tuesday, 24th September. Mrs Granger has sent out the details again so that you can register and have your children vaccinated. Not only does it protect the pupils, but having children covered also protects the staff, some of whom (and I am thinking of myself here) aren’t as young as they once were.
I was determined to get out and about a bit this week and see what the pupils have been getting up to in class. I saw some lovely English work being covered in Lamarr Class and enjoyed sharing a few possible ‘answers’ to Mrs Davies’s questions with the pupils.
Aaliyah (Year 5) brought her English work to me after receiving glowing feedback from Mrs Bailey. Her poem was wonderful and used some extremely powerful vocabulary. She definitely deserved her Headteacher’s Award. Further awards were handed out this week to a group of Year 6s from Wilde Class. Persuasive writing and art were shown to me and as they were Year 6s I expected them to be able to talk about what they were learning before I handed over their awards. I must add, I was fascinated by Lily’s tomato which was the inspiration for her Henry Moore sketch!
On Wednesday afternoon, a group of Year 6 athletes completed their introduction to their ‘sport leaders award’. The pupils, all talented athletes in their own right, have also demonstrated their ability to support others and will now use their skills to support pupils at Whitehill and also younger pupils at Highbury and surrounding primary schools.
After an early morning Teams meeting on Thursday with one of my NAHT committees, I was in London just before lunch to support Mrs McConnell Smith present to a group of trainee teachers. In 2017, when I did something similar with my previous deputy Mrs Beresford, we were in full flow when I got the notification that Ofsted were ‘on their way’. That was a stressful train journey back to Hitchin finding out just how many tunnels there were, where the phone signal would drop out. At least I went this time knowing that they only call on a Monday now.
There has been much in the press recently about the Prime Minister’s expenses and the gifts he has received. For the record, I do purchase my own suits but in the interest of transparency, I did take delivery of a rather nice chocolate brownie on Thursday morning courtesy of Yael (Year 3).
Mrs Jarman took Achievers’ Assembly for me on Friday as I was out again with my leadership team, locked away trying to get a few bits of paperwork up to date just in case Ofsted do call in the next few weeks.
I did keep in touch, to find out that Fire won the House Cup, Mayan received the Wombles and Voyager were given Class of the Week.
We celebrated our many summer reading challenge awards which is always pleasing to see. Jude (Year 5), Ayla (Year 4), Katie (Year 5) were rightly proud of their tae kwondo, ballet and football awards respectively.
Looking ahead, I am hoping to join Miss Gooderham at another football rally as the girls have their turn to star the season.
Many of our Year 5s will be taking their Bikeability course next week and so are hoping for the pleasant weather we have enjoyed this week. At the end of the course, we are expecting a visit from our new MP, Alistair Strathern who is a supporter of this training scheme. I am sure I can find time to bend his ear about one or two other things too.
Mrs Avey is popping in to say hello on Monday morning although I couldn’t persuade her to do a guest spot in my assembly. We have one other visitor next week, our new local authority link adviser. Our previous link, Martin Roberts, has retired now and so we go again with my fifth different adviser in my time as Head. No further comment is required.
Have a great weekend.
Best wishes,
Steve Mills
Headteacher
