Friday 28th June

Happy Friday!

Today we have had lots of bubbly, very excited children across our school due to finding out their classes for the next academic year. Hopefully, your child will have come home from school with a letter that provides you with the details of their new class and teacher/s also. We very much hope that we will joined by many of you at our ‘Meet the Teacher’ evening on Wednesday 3rd July 3.30pm to 5.30pm.

This year, there is name missing from our list of class teachers as Miss Skidmore will be leaving us at the end of this academic year. Miss Skidmore has been a member of the staff team here at Olive Hill for many, many, many years and in that time she has had lots of different roles in supporting the children to be successful. In recent years she has been our SENCO and has supported lots of individuals and their parents to navigate what can be a very complex system. We are going to miss Miss Skidmore at Olive Hill especially as she has been a part of our school for so long, but we wish her well as she decides on her new life adventures - we hope this includes lots of fun and laughter, and possibly a beach or two! Miss Skidmore is going to miss Olive Hill, and Olive Hill is going to miss her. She has lots of lovely memories from her time here that she will cherish forever.

Thank you to everyone who came to our Summer Family Festival - the sun was actually shinning! It was wonderful to see so many of our families enjoying themselves, we even had some budding entrepreneurs who were running stalls under the supervision of their parents. This event raised over £800 and will be used for the benefit of all children attending Olive Hill. A huge thank you to everyone who helped make the event a success, with a special thank you to Mrs Higgins for being lead organiser alongside her roles as class teacher and phase leader.

Year five have had a very busy week. On Monday they attended a cricket match at Worcester cricket grounds and on Thursday they attended a career events for the children of Halesowen schools. Watching live sport is a great opportunity for the children and they also enjoyed participating in some sporting opportunities. The careers event was an opportunity for the children to be exposed to different career options and the children came away inspired and talking about their own career aspirations. The careers event was organised by Halesowen schools and we are lucky to be a part of larger community of schools who all want the best for all children in the local community.

Year one have enjoyed their visit to Hawne Basin this week. The visit, which is staffed by the most wonderful volunteers, allowed the children to learn all about canals and they even got to go on a boat trip! School received a lovely email thanking the children for visiting and acknowledging their very impressive behaviour. Well done year one!

In other news this week, nursery had a very special workshop that created lots of excitement for our youngest children and they were very good at moving to a different part of the school (their lining up is most impressive!). On Thursday morning our key stage two musicians performed to their parents and peers in a wonderful mini-concert. We are so pleased to be able to encourage musical talent at Olive Hill and are always very proud of our children when they perform. A big thank you to the staff from Dudley Performing Arts for the excellent tuition.

The weeks are passing by very quickly now and the move from one leadership team to another is very much underway. As the current headteacher of our wonderful school I know I am leaving Miss Walters with beautiful children, a supportive community and a fantastic team of staff. It will be with mixed emotions that I approach the next three weeks, I am excited for the arrival of my little girl but do feel sad when I see the smiling faces of the children I won’t see for quite some time. The kindness that everyone has shown me has been amazing - the staff who tell me to slow down and make sure I’ve eaten, the children who ask about the baby every day (and often request to give her a hug) and the parents and grandparents who ask how I am. A huge thank you to everyone - I am still determined to be here on the last day of term!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.