The only place to start this week’s blog is reflecting upon the huge success of last Friday’s Friends’ Association Summer Social. We were blessed with perfect weather and this certainly helped draw in the crowds. Throughout the evening, I had several chats with the committee and other staff members suggesting that it felt like the best we had had and so when I received the news that we had made in excess of £5000, it confirmed it.
A huge thank you to the committee and volunteers for all their hard work in putting it together and manning the bar. I don’t think the queue eased once from 3.30pm until we stopped at 7.00pm.
And of course, thank you to everyone who attended and enjoyed the summer evening, the music and the company. I didn’t stop talking with people from start to finish and it was lovely to see some of our former pupils return to say ‘hello’.
As I said on the evening, we are going to be looking for a few new committee members in the new year and so if you think you have some time to spare and can support the Friends as we move forward, we would love to hear from you. The AGM will be in the first half of the Autumn Term and so look out for the invite. All of the money we receive from the Friends this year will be going into our library redevelopment project, which is very much underway, with a new carpet going down this weekend.
I am not quite sure where Monday morning went because it felt like I was straight into the afternoon and the first of three Year 6 shows. After checking emails, it was then straight into show two. All three shows were great fun and very well received by the audiences. As well as being very generous with their support and applause, they were also very generous in their donations, where I can report we have added an additional £230 to this year’s charity collection. We will now make the appropriate payments to the two charities chosen at the start of the year by our Junior Leadership team.
A huge thank you to everyone involved in putting the shows together. There were numerous sleepless nights in our house as Mr Mills Junior checked the script, made the adaptations, made notes, shared notes, tried again to share notes, gave up sharing notes (with some) and finally reflected upon another successful year.
Our Year 4s were out visiting Bhaktivedanta Hindu Temple on Tuesday – a highlight of the year for our Year 4 team – and once again, it didn’t disappoint. I met the pupils upon their return at the front door and without exception, they all told me something that they really enjoyed about the day. Even some of our ‘quieter’ pupils (yes, there are some quieter pupils in Year 4) recounted their favourite event of the day. The food received numerous votes, as did the cows!
We had a visit from Hitchin Girls’ School’s Eco Club on Tuesday morning to work with Voyager Class. Like Whitehill, HGS has the Eco Award but unlike us, they have a flagpole from which to fly theirs. One day, perhaps.
One of my main jobs on Tuesday was to receive and process this year’s SATs results. Once again, I am exceptionally pleased with the cohort’s outcomes. It is clear their hard work has paid off. Over the coming days, I will carry out further analysis to scrutinise certain groupings and break the data into various categories.
I mentioned in a previous blog, how much I enjoyed visiting Year 5 when they were planning their Caribbean-themed burgers. On Wednesday this week, their plans came to fruition and dressed appropriately, the pupils enjoyed their Caribbean day. A two-hour meeting meant I missed much of what they were doing but did manage to pop outside and see Mr Lord BBQ 60+ burgers.
For the first time ever, I sensed a little bit of nervousness on his part as he wondered whether or not they would all cook in time but by three o’clock, the cooking was done, and the games were well underway. A spot of cricket and also limbo dancing were two that I saw, and I must give a shout out to Indi who was exceptionally flexible!
I wasn’t able to attend the orchestra assembly first thing on Wednesday morning, but Mrs Burniston did on my behalf. Mrs Reid had previously mentioned to me how this year’s group of musicians had really worked hard and were lovely to conduct and this was confirmed in this end of year performance.
We were without our Year 6s on Thursday as they headed off to their respective new schools for transition day. That meant we had the space to welcome next year’s Year 3 cohort from Highbury to spend the day with Mr Denney and Miss Smith. Every other class moved up too, to get know their new teachers from September. I visited the classes on several occasions and was impressed with what I saw. The feedback from the staff was also very positive and they are all now looking forward to the new year.
Our Achievers’ Assembly on Friday started with some lovely guitar playing by Mia (Year 6) and ended with Sophie and Anya (Year 6) singing to us.
Apollo picked up the Class of the Week award, Aztec won the Wombles and Fire were awarded the House Cup. There is one more opportunity to win these awards and that will be in the final assembly on 22nd July, our last day.
We also celebrated some football medals, some trampolining and gymnastics awards and some more ice-skating awards for Brielle (Year 3) and Renee (Year 6). Caitlyn (Year 6) who shone in the Year 6 production showed her drama medal – that explains a lot – as did Lucas and Alfie (Year 3).
Something else I did this week was to retrieve the camera we have had on the roof of the school since November. It was a simple pinhole camera tracking the path of the sun for the last six months. I was delighted with the results which you can see below. Despite the day the pigeon clearly knocked it early on, the remainder of the image clearly shows the height of the sun increasing as we got closer to summer.
I am heading outside in a few minutes hoping that there may be some ice-creams available, courtesy of the Friends’ Association, whilst we are entertained by members from Hitchin Band. Should be great fun.
Next week is our last full week in school. The Year 6s look to have the perfect weather for a trip to Hitchin Swimming Pool and Fabios on Monday morning. Later that day we are hosting the cricket finals.
Tuesday is sports day, and I have already written to parents inviting them in from 12.45pm to watch the track events. The pupils will have competed in the field events throughout the morning. I am hoping that Hitchin Fire Brigade are available again as I know the pupils enjoy the refreshing end to the day.
The other key event is the Year 6 party on Friday evening and plans are well underway for this.
For those who may want some more uniform, or need to hand over some pre-loved uniform, we will be at the uniform event at Hitchin Boys’ School on Saturday morning. Thank you again to our volunteers for making this happen.
That is it for another week and I suppose I should end by wishing my dad a Happy Birthday, hoping that will soften or reduce any moans he may have this week about my blog!
Have a lovely weekend.
Best wishes,
Steve Mills
Headteacher
