Headmaster's Message

Headmaster's Message

Dear Parents

I write to you today from sunny Bournemouth, as I have spent the last three days here on the annuaI IAPS conference. This is a great opportunity for me to get a bit of strategic thinking time and keep up to date with all of the latest trends and moves in educational provision. There have been lots of fascinating presentations over the last couple of days that have really made me think about how we teach, how the children learn and how we can continuously seek to improve in both of these important areas.

The conference was started by a now retired head teacher by the name of James Shone. James suffered a brain tumour just as he was taking up his very first post as a head, with a young family in tow. He had to give up his new post and battle through a long and painful rehabilitation, that continues to this day. Alongside his own inspirational story of recovery and resilience, his main focus was on how children perform at their best when they feel enabled and emboldened to take on life’s challenges. His analogy for this was ‘Inflating the balloon of self-belief’. What are the key ingredients for achieving this? James identified four key pillars; a sense of belonging, a growth mindset, recognising where your talents lie and ultimately, in a sense of hope. James now runs a charity called ‘I Can and I Am’, with the aim of inspiring confidence and self-belief in all young people. This is something I think we can all relate to when we think of our own children and how to enable them to achieve their very best.

I have been keeping in touch with everyone at school as best I can, but I will be relying more than usual on this edition of the Courier to keep me fully informed of all of the children’s wonderful exploits in the week gone by.

I look forward to being back in school on Monday and hope that in the meantime you all enjoy your weekends.

Joe Thackway
Headmaster