Friday 15th December

Happy Friday!

Well, this is the last Friday of 2023 that we will all be together. This time next week, the children will have had their first official day of the Christmas holidays and staff will be breaking up (and rushing to do their Christmas shopping as it is a late end of term this year).

There must be some parents, carers and relatives who feel like they are constantly in school currently as we’ve had so many different events taking place over the month of December. We really do appreciate you making the time to attend our events, and it means so much to the children when they see you in school.

On Monday, our year six children shared their learning about the World Wars in the format of an exhibition. Both Cherry Class and Maple Class took great pride in presenting their knowledge and demonstrated the high expectations they have of themselves. Oracy is a focus of our curriculum at Olive Hill, and we want our children to be articulate in different situations and our exhibitions of learning support us to achieve this aim.

On Tuesday, it was the turn of our year five children to wow us with their learning. This time in the format of a performance. From start to finish the quality of their presentation was excellent. They shared their learning from across the curriculum in a thoroughly entertaining way - even making the audience feel as if they were attending a West End theatre. Everyone was so proud of the children, and they had a lot of people supporting them in the audience.

On Thursday, our nursery parents attended school to share Christmas activities with their children. This was a lovely event that saw parents and children being creative together - in fact, they were so creative we had to replenish our resources between the two sessions. There were some lovely homemade cards!

Also on Thursday, our choir performed at Halesowen Town Centre as part of the Halesowen community of schools. Our choir always perform with such enthusiasm and they are a joy to watch. There was more music on Thursday morning when our key stage two musicians performed during assembly. Promoting a love of music is so important, and it is always great to share the children’s outcomes.

There was a chance for our whole community to hear our choir on Wednesday as they opened our Christmas Fair. This year, we held our Christmas Fair outside for the first time. Due to growing numbers across the school, we are no longer able to accomodate large scale events in our hall alone. This has resulted in us needing to think differently, and thankfully the weather held off for us. We just needed it to go darker a little earlier as the playground looked really pretty with the lights. Mr Weston wants to buy even more lights in preparation for next year! The staff all worked so hard to create our own version of a Christmas Market, and have already been discussing improvements for next year. The event was organised by Mrs Higgins, and she had lots of helpers from the staff team who gave up their time to prepare everything in advance. A huge thank you to everyone who supported the event, the money raised supports our children to have wonderful experiences in school.

Looking ahead to next week, Wednesday is a very busy day! It is Christmas Jumper Day, Christmas Dinner Day, and Christmas Singing on the Playground for Y2 to Y6. On Thursday, we will have our Christmas Dress-Up Day and we are looking forward to seeing everyone’s outfits (please don’t buy anything special for this, we know how expensive this time of year can be, recycle something that has been worn before and remember a bit of tinsel can make most things Christmassy).

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.