Friday 24th June

Happy Friday!

We hope you’ve all had a good week. With only three and half weeks left of this academic year, the children have been very busy guessing who their new teachers will be. All will be revealed on Tuesday 5th July when the children get to spend the morning in their new classrooms with their new teacher. Our reception children have been spending some time in the year one environment which they have absolutely loved! Apparently, having your own table and chair is super cool!

This week, our year four children have visited Mount Pleasant School Farm. This is one of my favourite trips (I am a farmer’s daughter) and I have the best memories of taking my own classes to the farm when I used to be a class teacher in Birmingham. The children spend the day experiencing a real working dairy farm. They get to feed the animals - with many overcoming their fear of chickens - and learn about where their food comes from. I believe some of our children must be rather tasty as they were licked by the calves! Magnolia class actually got to watch a cow giving birth, this is definitely not something you see every day! Mr Brady captured the moment on camera and the blog picture shows the calf at less than a minute old. How cute! If any of our past students are reading this, I am pleased to report that Tinkerbell (the farm dog who is always a great hit with the children) is alive and well, but a bit slower now she is getting older.

Earlier in the week, Dudley Performing Arts spent the day with our year six children. Each class had a poetry workshop where they were invited to share their own writing. They then looked at bringing their words to life through the use of sound effects. There were some very strange noises coming from the hall! The second part of the workshop involved the children using musical instruments and it was brilliant to see some of our children supporting compositions using the instruments they have been learning to play in their peripatetic lessons. Thank you to Dudley Performing Arts for providing this wonderful opportunity for the children.

This week ended with our Summer Fair. The weather held off, well, just about! We only got a little bit wet! It was great to see our whole community coming together for one event. We missed our Summer Fair during the Covid19 pandemic. I do feel rather sad that I didn’t get to go on the bouncy castle as it looked great fun! We had lots of very popular stalls including: cakes, snow cones, hot dogs, candy floss, toys and many more. We haven’t had a quiz on the blog for a while, so I am going to see how observant you were with the members of staff on the different stalls…try answering the questions below:

1) Mrs Tansley was shouting for you to buy something cold. What was it?

2) What did Miss Raphael want you to name?

3) Miss Homer wanted you to count something. What was it?

4) Mr Brady and Mr Roberts were encouraging you to do what?

5) Did anyone spot Mrs Stonehouse and Miss Saleh near the pond?

6) Mrs Aziz and Miss Skidmore had a really hard activity for you to complete. Did you guess who was who in the baby pictures?

7) Miss Thacker and Mrs Hamblett had lots of lucky numbers, but what were the prizes?

8) Miss Jenkins and Miss Ford were asking for donations in return for what?

9) Mr Patel and Mrs Marriott were busy serving what?

10) Mrs Shinner, Mrs Jenkins, Mrs Waters and Mrs Whitely were keen to sell you what?

11) Mrs White and Miss Mullard wanted you to eat what?

12) Miss Grice and Miss Such were surrounded by what?

13) Miss Frost and Miss Richardson had some lucky tickets, but what did a winning ticket get you?

14) Miss Care and Miss Macaskill wanted something to buzz. What was it?

15) Mrs Carpenter, Miss Lee, Mrs Bird and Mrs Williams were looking after what?

16) Mrs Higgins was doing a lot of running around. What was her role?

17) Miss Walter, Mr Priest and Miss Grasby were all walking around. What do you think we were doing?

18) Mr Weston also played an important part in our Summer Fair. Did you notice what he was doing?

A huge thank you to all of our wonderful staff members who stayed to support the event. We can’t do these things without you and, as always, your commitment to our community is very much appreciated. Our Summer Fair was made possible by the Friends of Olive Hill - this small group of people continue to give up their time to support the school in this way and words don’t seem enough to express our thanks to you. Finally, thank you to all of our families who came along to support the event - I hope you enjoyed it as much as us! We will let you know how much money we raised in the next blog.

A few reminders of dates for you:

Last day of term - Wednesday 20th July

Sports Day - Thursday 7th July

Meet the teacher - Tuesday 12th July (3.30pm - 5.45pm)

First day of the new term - Tuesday 6th September

Have a great weekend. Stay safe.