Wishing you all a Merry Christmas
A fun Firs Christmas Build Up!
Although everything has been very different this term, it was lovely that, despite the need to alter the normal arrangements, Father Christmas was still able to visit The Firs today and deliver presents to Saplings, Pine and all the children in Year 1 to Year 4.
Father Christmas toured the outside of the school with a collection of elf helpers. He made a socially distanced visit to each class with children greeting him either at the door or outside their classroom.
We wish you had been there to see how all the children’s eyes lit up when they caught sight of him but we hope that the pictures here and in our website Photo Gallery website Photo Gallery give you a feel for how magical the occasion was.
PTA Raffle
Also in our virtual assembly this morning, we drew the raffle in each class and the lucky winners were thrilled
to receive a chocolate selection box. The draw caused great excitement and added to the sense of fun today in school.
The office team also participated in the assembly and drew the adult PTA raffle and the 3 winners have been
contacted.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the PTA for this, the very inventive virtual craft fair and for providing a book for every child in school. Despite the coronavirus restrictions, our wonderful PTA have still found ways to support the school and its children and we are very grateful.
Christmas Videos
As you have no doubt heard from your children, staff and children in each area of the school have been working really hard in the last couple of weeks to finalise and record their Christmas song performances.
The children were very excited to record their performances and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs Ashby (our one woman camera team!) who has done a sterling effort ensuring all the recordings are successfully made and uploaded to produce our video links.
We hope you enjoy them.
Saplings. - https://youtu.be/scpbJA0LNww 5
YR. - https://youtu.be/afDlxQDlxyM
Y1. Maple - https://youtu.be/GxMl7tmjb9Q
Y1. Holly - https://youtu.be/NVLJeOT3mbM
Y2. Beech - https://youtu.be/wHKj1we-WUw
Y2. Cedar - https://youtu.be/jSzLqYtYf2s
Y3 - https://youtu.be/sWUUmvG93Ok
Y4. Willow - https://youtu.be/XyajoW6-3OI
Y4. Oak - https://youtu.be/TONWHdAo_Vk
End of a very busy term
There hasn’t been a term like this before for any of us, where we have tried and succeeded to run the school in the midst of the COVID 19 situation. Many staff and I expect parents, were very anxious about everything at the beginning of term. Children had missed large chunks of their learning in the previous year and we anticipated that there would be further Covid related absences as the autumn term progressed, which of course there were.
The school put in place very carefully thought through procedures and teachers set about implementing a very rigorous process to identify any learning gaps and amend the usual planned activities to ensure that children could close those gaps as quickly as possible. Staff have worked very hard as a team to ensure that all children’s pastoral needs are attended to and that despite the challenges of the situation we are in, every child felt happy and ready to learn.
We have been very impressed by the general resilience of our children and the way they have very quickly got back into the good working routines they had before March 2020. I want to say a huge thank you to all members of that staff team, to our cleaning staff who has worked assiduously to ensure the school is safe, the admin team who have ensured the school keeps running smoothly despite the many challenges and Ady Wadsworth for stepping in as a Relief Site Agent.
I want to thank our lunchtime supervisors who have done far more than they would normally do at lunchtime and have made sure that our children’s needs are met and that they are well fed and happy. I want to thank the teaching assistants, pre-school practitioners and teachers who have worked with the children skillfully and in a caring way.
Finally I want to thank Andrea Stephenson-White and her team for all the efforts they have put in to successfully open our Kids’ Club and keep it open, despite the challenges…..what a great team!