Friday 28th January
Happy Friday!
We are pleased to report that our Covid19 cases have continued to decrease this week. Almost all children are now back in school and our classrooms are full once again! We still have some staff away from school but we have made it through the week with a strong team of very supportive staff.
Excellent attendance at school is vital for our children and we want to work with everyone in our community to ensure that the children are able to attend school every day. Please remember that the school gates close at 8.55am, children arriving after this time may not make it to class before the registers close and therefore they will marked as late. They also miss vital learning and don’t have the time that other children have to organise themselves for the day.
Last week, the blog was written by Mr Priest. I had to rush off after school to catch a train to London. Mr Priest mentioned that year four had all received new notebooks so they could indulge in some free-writing. This week, year six have been given the same opportunity and even the most reluctant of writers have taken up the art of story writing. With some children asking if they can stay in at lunch time to continue with their writing. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one day, whilst studying the shelves in a book shop, you came across an author who used to attend Olive Hill? They would certainly make it to our aspirations board.
Just like it is important for our children to keep on learning, it is equally as important that as adults we do the same. At Olive Hill we are always reviewing our professional learning offer to staff and continuously looking to improve the provision we have on offer in our pursuit of excellence. Our INSET days always revolve around professional learning opportunities and each Wednesday we have a professional learning meeting after school. Additionally, each of our phases has a day each week where professional learning is the focus. Sometimes staff also go outside of the school environment to undertake professional learning. This professional learning means that we can become even better at what we do and have an even bigger impact on the children’s education. Much of our professional learning is linked directly to our school improvement priorities. This year we have identified four key focus areas:
Reading and the implementation of a new scheme for phonics called Sounds~Write.
Writing, as this was a core subject area that we found was most negatively impacted by the Covid19 pandemic.
Distributive leadership and ensuring that we are creating senior leaders of the future.
Professional learning in design and technology, music and art , as these were the subjects that were hardest to deliver remotely.
Learning is such an important part of everyone’s life and everyday is a learning day!
We hope you all have a wonderful weekend and we look forward to seeing you on Monday.
Stay safe.