Can I start by wishing you all a Happy New Year, even though we are now a third of the way through January. I hope you all had some lovely family time over the break and enjoyed an opportunity to recharge your batteries, whilst trying to avoid the ‘bug’ that was going around. It certainly hit a few members of staff.
2025 is a wonderful year! I use the present tense even though we are only ten days in as I refer to the mathematical nature of the year. I set you a challenge in a blog just before Christmas in relation to a specific date and so will do so again with the year 2025. Why, as a mathematician, do I think it is such a special year? There are actually four wonderful maths-related links and to give you a little clue, the last time a year like this occurred was in 1936! Prizes for correct answers.
The week has been reasonably quiet and has allowed pupils to settle back into routine and get working again after the hectic nature of the last couple of weeks of the Autumn Term. I have seen some lovely work in Year 3 as they begin a new topic and as always, Year 5’s introduction to the work they were doing on their new geography themed topic was very good.
It was exceptionally icy on Tuesday morning when I ventured into the roof to install our ‘Solarcan’. This is a literally what it says, a pinhole camera which is going to take photos of the sun for the next six months to highlight how the path of the sun changes from winter into summer. If it works, and with the help of Mr Jackson from HGS I hope it will, then the pupils will get to see an image something like the one below which was taken from the grounds of HGS last year. Fingers crossed it all comes good, and I can share our image towards the end of the summer term.
I did my final set of prospective parent tours this week and was very proud of the class reps in the classes I managed to get to. The pupils across all four year groups were articulate and confident and shared with my visitors what they were doing and why they enjoy being at Whitehill. This has been the case for all of the opportunities the reps have had since the start of the year.
I am catching up with honouring the vouchers which were won in my advent calendar events prior to the break. This week I entertained five Year 6s who won hot chocolate. It was the same group who came prior to the holiday but with two of the group winning the same vouchers, they decided to keep the group the same and enjoy two opportunities to meet. I set them a challenge of predicting the final Premiership table and will seal their guesses in an envelope and open it again in May. We will find a prize for the winner. They have all gone for Liverpool to win much to my disappointment.
It was hot chocolate again on Friday break when I had my first ‘Biscuits with the Boss’ session for the academic year. These Friday sessions will see all 60 Year 3s come along for a biscuit and drink across the next two terms, giving me the chance for a relaxed pupil voice. On the list of topics with my first group were potatoes, pieces of wood (thank you, Jenson), favourite subjects, Christmas and what they are looking forward to in school. It was a really enjoyable 20 minutes.
It was lovely to have an Achievers’ Assembly again on Friday. We presented the regular awards as follows: Orville won the Wombles; Lamarr won Class of the Week and Fire won the House Cup.
We also celebrated some swimming and skiing awards in Year 3 and Year 6. Well done to Ted, Lara and Anya. Olivia (Year 3) received her 10km running club certificate and there were many pupils from Year 3 who have been working hard learning their times tables.
The music this week was provided by Joni and Avleen (Year 6) who sang for us.
Looking ahead to next week, the diary is still reasonably quiet. I am welcoming a headteacher from a school in Nottingham to Whitehill on Tuesday. We will spend the morning ‘walking and talking’, visiting the eight classes and sharing Whitehill’s approach to teaching and learning. We can then reflect upon what we have seen and compare it to the approach she has at her school. We are both junior schools which will be interesting, and we both have a similar, ‘start with why’ approach to the way we work.
I have a couple of ‘zoom’ meetings, including my first NAHT National Executive of 2025 but shouldn’t be spending too much time locked in my office. I will endeavour to spend more time visiting classes and also have another ‘Biscuits with the Boss’ session next Friday – the invites went out today.
Have a great weekend and wrap up warm (which of course for some of our pupils means shorts and a t-shirt!).
Best wishes,
Steve Mills
Headteacher
