Tuesday 12th May

Hello everyone. How has your day been? I feel like I have been in virtual meetings all day! It started with a local governing body meeting last night, and I am currently multi-tasking - I am writing this blog and having a virtual meeting with Miss Walters, Mr Priest and Mr Holder.

Parents, we have now started to receive further information with regards to the school reopening. We are now planning our response to this and we will keep you informed of any developments once all of the information has been received. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

The governing body of Olive Hill were very interested to know how you were getting on at home. They asked lots of questions about your learning and your well-being. They wanted me to let you know how impressed they have been with how you have handled all of the changes. Well done all!

The official role of the governing body is to provide strategic management, and to act as critical friend, supporting the work of the headteacher and other staff. This special group of people work together to ensure that the school is making the best decisions for the children, this includes monitoring how we spend our budget. They ask me, and the other senior leaders, lots of challenging questions about the provision of education at Olive Hill - I might introduce them to Scuba Steve, so I know when a challenging question is going to come my way!

The special people, who make up our governing body, are volunteers - that means they are not paid to support our school, they do it to make a difference in the lives of the children who attend Olive Hill. How cool is that! Thank you governors for volunteering your time in this way, we all appreciate it.

The members of the governing body include: parent governors, staff governors and community governors. The Chair of our governing body is Mr Kew, and the vice chair is Ms Ali. Mr Bashir has a special responsibility for safeguarding at Olive Hill and Mrs Meredith pays particular attention to our pupil premium children. Ms Ihsan is a parent governor, and Mrs Stonehouse and Mrs Davies are our staff governors.

Currently we have one vacancy on our governing board for a community governor. Sadly, Mrs Dimmock, who has been a great friend to Olive Hill for many, many, many years, made the difficult decision to resign earlier on in the year. On behalf of the whole school community, I would like to thank Mrs Dimmock for all the time she has willing given to the school - she has been a pivotal part of our journey and has relentlessly offered her support. Mrs Dimmock is a really special lady, and she always remembers to thank people for their efforts and this makes people feel valued. We are going to miss her so much, but she has promised to keep in touch.

I must finish my blog here, as I am still in the school building and I am pretty sure that Mr Weston would like to lock up soon. My virtual meeting ended a while ago, I just kept getting distracted and wasn’t giving either the blog or the meeting my full attention - so I decided to just concentrate on one thing at a time. I also have another virtual meeting - with my friends this time. I have promised to share pictures of my new vegetable patch with them - I am so impressed that my seeds have started to grow, only problem is … I can’t remember what I planted and they all look the same at the moment. I will keep you updated on their progress and let you know what they are once they are more recognisable.

We miss you. Stay safe.