Mr Spanswick's Words Lent 1

Welcome back! I hope you all enjoyed a lovely Christmas break and a Happy New Year. I have been hearing stories of ski trips, Lapland adventures, visiting family and huge celebrations…...and now we are back to reality with some freezing weather and unfortunately for many, a large dose of lemsip!!

You might think that with only a few days to report on that my words may be rather brief…..on the contrary, it was Wednesday late morning when I had my first set of pupils visit my office and there has been some beautifully descriptive writing on the subject of holidays, snow, monsters, and best of all, recipes!! Indeed, Musa Baber, Anthony Chan and Morgan Munn wrote some wonderfully vivid accounts of how to capture the essence of the Frost, and I was able to read several of the pieces out in assembly this morning.

From the Christmas holidays, we are very proud to report that Hou Ning Zu, or Kida as we know him best, excelled on the Winter Chess circuit, scoring an impressive 5 out of 7 wins in the London Congress tournament, and then winning the Under 11 Sussex festival - Kida is only 7 years old. This ranks him at around No. 6 in the country - a simply outstanding performance from a lovely young man.

I have also been extremely impressed at the thoughtfulness and maturity of one of our Year 3 boys, Thomas Scargill. He approached me on Wednesday wondering if he could could donate all of his old toys to charity, and he has inspired others to want to follow suit. Therefore, if you have any old toys that your children are not playing with anymore (and may be clogging up the cupboards!), please bring them to my office next week and Thomas and I will distribute them to worthy recipients in the local area.

At the start of next week I will be sharing my 2 year School Development Plan with all of your sons - they will then have the chance to add to it!! Mrs Stay, who runs our Pupil Voice, and I would like to hear what the boys want to introduce and develop in the school whether it be in the curriculum, facilities, or extra curricular ideas. Although our younger boys may need a bit of help from their teachers to complete this, they often come up with the best ideas…...in saying that, I can confirm immediately that we will not be purchasing ‘under football pitch heating’ as has been suggested by one student!!

Next week we will be welcoming a number of our families to Parents Evening, and hopefully fresh from reading your son’s Autumn Term report, you will be able to have a purposeful dialogue with the relevant teachers on how your son is progressing in all aspects of school life. Our activity programme also starts next week, as do Football fixtures. Kicking off proceedings are our Year 4 boys on Tuesday against OPS…...I instructed Mr Butterfield and his team to watch Liverpool play throughout the Christmas break to pick up some decent managerial and tactical tips!!!!

We have also been hearing of success in music exams, and Jeremy Chen should be very proud of his Grade 1 pass with distinction on Piano. I will bring you further news on music matters next week. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy a lovely weekend.

Justin Spanswick