Headmaster's Message

Headmaster's Message

Dear Parents

It has felt this week as if we are really getting back into the rhythm of school life. There has been a real hum of activity and endeavour in all of the classes around the school as we embark on the longest term of the year, when so much of the groundwork is put in place for later success.

This year I will be shadowing each of the classes on one morning a week and I started with Year 2 on Wednesday. It was really useful to watch them enjoying their music, drama and English lessons and experiencing it from the point of view of a child. Learning walks like these are great way to get the inside story on what is happening in the school and it is something that we use, not only for senior leaders but also other teachers who will take time to move around school and see how different areas are functioning.

The Reception classes have settled into life really nicely and it is great to see so many of them coming in happily in the mornings and being able to say goodbye to mum and dad without too many tears (or any at all in most cases!). Well done to all of the children and we hope that it is the beginning of a long and successful school career for all of you.

This week of course has seen the first positive Covid cases in the school and we continue to monitor these carefully and consider different contingency plans that we can put in place to minimise further transmission. We have a number of options open to us in this regard, including running assemblies on Teams, eating separately in the lunchroom and other less palatable ones such as stopping co-curricular clubs involving more than one year group. The enormous benefits of face-to-face learning have been really brought home to us all over the last 18 months and the relatively minor impacts that these measures might have are a price we may have to accept in the short term. For example, today we had assemblies today on Teams and staff have been wearing masks around school in public areas. I will of course continue to communicate with parents on any measures that we do need to bring in to play and thank everybody for their continued support of the school in this area.  On a similar note, we have been advised to introduce a Test and Release recoomendaiton which you can read here and in an iSAMS message sent tonight.

I personally have a busy weekend planned with lots of different appointments already in the diary, mostly my son’s football matches and also the open afternoon at Princethorpe on Sunday. If you are coming along to that, I hope to see you there. Whatever you are doing, I hope you enjoy some relaxation with your families.

Joe Thackway
Headmaster