Dear parents,
Nothing beats the magic of Christmas in a primary school! The three nativity shows this week have been exceptional. So many children reciting lines, performing dance routines and even delivering solo performances - next level nativities! Next week should see this continue with our afternoon KS2 carol singing performances.
On Wednesday next week we have our Christmas dinner lunch. If you haven't already booked dinner, you can do this via parent pay - bookings close at 9pm on Saturday. Children can wear a Christmas jumper on Wednesday too along with non uniform (no donations needed). If they don't have a Christmas jumper, sensible non-uniform is fine too.
One of our whole school improvement goals this year is to become a designated Voice21 Centre of Excellence - the first of its kind at primary level in the South of England. Our goal is to help children of all ages to develop excellent oracy skills, rivalling the kind of teaching and exposure to oracy normally seen in private school settings. Two moments recently captured this for me really well. Firstly, Year 6 pitched their ideas to our local MP Tom Hayes about how to improve Bournemouth. Their speeches were so well informed and passionate! Seondly, I popped into our Year 1 Squirrels class with Mrs Rattue and was blown away to hear children starting their class responses with "I support this idea because" or "I'd like to challenge this idea because I feel that". To hear 5/6 year olds able to so eloquently & confidently pitch their ideas was quite extraordinary - I almost had to see it to believe it.
With 15 weeks of the autumn term complete and one to go... we have lots of very tired pupils, parents and staff! I wish everyone a relaxing weekend and hope we can finish off term in style - ready to collapse next Friday afternoon!
Have a great weekend!
Mr Jackson