Headmaster's Message
Dear Parents
Well, we didn’t expect to come back to a week quite like that! I had a lovely assembly planned for Tuesday encouraging the children to look out for signs of spring and it went ahead framed by a background of ice and light snow. Since then things have steadily deteriorated. The only way now is up and we are all excitedly relishing the balmy 7°C that is forecast for next week.
Well, we didn’t expect to come back to a week quite like that! I had a lovely assembly planned for Tuesday encouraging the children to look out for signs of spring and it went ahead framed by a background of ice and light snow. Since then things have steadily deteriorated. The only way now is up and we are all excitedly relishing the balmy 7°C that is forecast for next week.
As a geographer, I have grown to welcome cold weather in the probably fanciful hope that it might signal a slowdown in global warming, so I can only encourage you all to try and take some cold comfort from that thought.
With so much bad weather, we have had to cancel all our sports fixtures this week, some of which will now need to be rearranged. This will inevitably cause congestion and will make staffing difficult but I know that Mr Phillips and Mrs McCollin are doing their best to minimise the impact and run as many of our planned sporting events as we can.
One thing that did go ahead this week was the FoC Mother’s Day workshop and it was great to see so many children taking part and thinking about their mums and all the hard work that they do for them during the year. There was an excellent turnout of mums to help, so many thanks to the team for organising and running this activity.
Another casualty of the weather was the Year 7 Transition evening planned for Thursday evening. I am aware that parents have to make arrangements for child care and for getting away from work for these events so I am always reluctant to postpone at short notice. The strange powdery style snow took some time to settle convincingly and I postponed my decision until the afternoon, which may have caused some frustration. No one has complained, yet, so I do thank you for your understanding. We have rearranged the meeting for next Thursday 8 March at 7pm.
Ultimately, we decided to close the school on Friday based on the dreadful road conditions in the area and the equally dreadful, although often conflicting, weather reports and forecasts. I know the children were very excited about the World Book Day planned for today, so this will now take place on Monday 5 March.
Our family trip to Dartmoor during the half term break, by the way, was a great success. The first person in Devon I met was the owner of the cottage who told me he was off to Tenerife for the week. I don’t know what that says about the relative benefits of the two holiday destinations but it made me smile following the comments I made in my last Courier newsletter. I think I was the best in the family at not using my phone or computer, along with my eldest son who is studying Computer Science at university. I reckon if he can do it, anyone can.
We loved the big skies, the open moors and investigating all the evidence of Bronze Age settlement. Personally, I am convinced the standing stones were used by a farming people primarily to measure the seasons and passage of the year (when to plant, when to harvest) but I know that isn’t everyone’s view. My daughter Lorna was easily the best at the newly invented sport of tor-scrambling and I think we clocked up nearly 20 tors in 4 days. If you have never been, I can thoroughly recommend it.
Have a great weekend if you can and keep warm.
With so much bad weather, we have had to cancel all our sports fixtures this week, some of which will now need to be rearranged. This will inevitably cause congestion and will make staffing difficult but I know that Mr Phillips and Mrs McCollin are doing their best to minimise the impact and run as many of our planned sporting events as we can.
One thing that did go ahead this week was the FoC Mother’s Day workshop and it was great to see so many children taking part and thinking about their mums and all the hard work that they do for them during the year. There was an excellent turnout of mums to help, so many thanks to the team for organising and running this activity.
Another casualty of the weather was the Year 7 Transition evening planned for Thursday evening. I am aware that parents have to make arrangements for child care and for getting away from work for these events so I am always reluctant to postpone at short notice. The strange powdery style snow took some time to settle convincingly and I postponed my decision until the afternoon, which may have caused some frustration. No one has complained, yet, so I do thank you for your understanding. We have rearranged the meeting for next Thursday 8 March at 7pm.
Ultimately, we decided to close the school on Friday based on the dreadful road conditions in the area and the equally dreadful, although often conflicting, weather reports and forecasts. I know the children were very excited about the World Book Day planned for today, so this will now take place on Monday 5 March.
Our family trip to Dartmoor during the half term break, by the way, was a great success. The first person in Devon I met was the owner of the cottage who told me he was off to Tenerife for the week. I don’t know what that says about the relative benefits of the two holiday destinations but it made me smile following the comments I made in my last Courier newsletter. I think I was the best in the family at not using my phone or computer, along with my eldest son who is studying Computer Science at university. I reckon if he can do it, anyone can.
We loved the big skies, the open moors and investigating all the evidence of Bronze Age settlement. Personally, I am convinced the standing stones were used by a farming people primarily to measure the seasons and passage of the year (when to plant, when to harvest) but I know that isn’t everyone’s view. My daughter Lorna was easily the best at the newly invented sport of tor-scrambling and I think we clocked up nearly 20 tors in 4 days. If you have never been, I can thoroughly recommend it.
Have a great weekend if you can and keep warm.
Joe Thackway
Headmaster
