Friday 16th July
Happy Friday!
Well, this will be the final blog of this academic year. After a challenging year for us all, I am sure many of you are looking forward to breaking up for the summer holidays on Wednesday 21st July. A detailed letter regarding arrangements for September will be available on Monday.
Although England did not win the final of the Euro 2020, they did come second and that is a big achievement for any team. It is hard to imagine the pressure they would have been under in such a big tournament and they have shown everyone what a formidable team they can be. We knew that our children and staff would be pretty tired on Monday morning, so we served them toast and juice on arrival. This went down well and perked us all up.
Unfortunately, following the match on Sunday, some people took to social media to abuse the England players. This is a totally unacceptable way to behave and many of our children have maturely discussed this.
At Olive Hill, we are incredibly proud of our diversity. In fact, my friend has been asking me some questions about her daughter starting school and I did say to her to look for a school that is diverse because we have so much to learn from each other. Recently, we have been looking at our curriculum with a group of year five children. We started by thinking about ‘diversity’ and what it means. They all contributed to the discussion and we filled a very large sheet of paper with ideas. We spent some time discussing our similarities and differences; what makes us all unique and our personal identities. We then turned our attention to the literature we have in school and how that represents diversity. Their next mission is to start ordering books for our libraries that enable all of our children to see themselves in the books they read.
On Wednesday, the children discovered who their new teacher for the next academic year would be. This always creates great excitement around school. Unfortunately we are still unable to break bubbles, so we had to do the event outdoors. It was lovely to see everyone sitting in circles and asking their new teacher lots of questions. Some children were surprised to learn that they were keeping the same teacher as this year. Talking of teachers, Mrs Davies will be leaving us on Tuesday. After many years of educating children she is now going to spend lots of time with her own grandchildren. In normal circumstances we would have a big celebration to thank her for all her hard work, but we must continue to keep everyone safe so it will be a smaller celebration but done with lots of love to a special lady.
Next week we will also say goodbye to our year six children. For many of us at Olive Hill we have had the pleasure of watching the children grow since they were in nursery. We all have many fond memories of them and wish them well at their new secondary schools.
We had nearly made it to the end of the summer term without having to close any of our year group bubbles, however, just yesterday that changed and we needed to close our year one and year four bubbles. This created a lot of sadness and some of the staff found it really difficult. Those year groups have now moved to remote provision and the children will need to self-isolate. This is not how we wanted to the end the year but it is important that we keep everyone safe. Dudley continues to see an increase in the number of positive cases. If your child tests positive for Covid19 using an LFD or PCR test, please report it to the school straight away. During opening hours, please phone the school office and outside of these hours please use our dedicated email address: covidreporting@olive.dudley.sch.uk. As a result of the bubble closures, not just in our school, but the schools attended by the staff’s children, we are not able to guarantee that your child’s new teacher will be available at the end of the day so you can introduce yourself.
For today’s blog picture I have included a quote from the late actor Robin Williams. ‘Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. ALWAYS.’ This is such an important message for us all. This year has been incredibly tough for many families. The staff at Olive Hill have worked exceptionally hard to provide the best education and care for our children. Their dedication never ceases to amaze me, as the headteacher I get to see and hear a lot, and I can always guarantee that when those children walk through the doors they will come first. Like all humans, we will make mistakes sometimes or you might not agree with a decision that has been made - but everyone at Olive Hill is doing their best to be the best they can be. I am sure you will join me in thanking the staff for their hard work. In turn, we would like to thank our families for everything they have done - this year has been unpredictable and you have shown flexibility and compassion. Fingers crossed that next year will be more ‘normal’ and we’ll see a lot more of your children actually in the school building. Children, you are the reason we love our jobs - thank you for the smiles, the moments that make us laugh and the many moments when you fill us with pride.
Eid Mubarak to our families who will be celebrating next week. We hope you have a wonderful time.
Stay safe and if I don’t see you, have a wonderful break. As always, go have fun and create memories.