Dear Parents,

Our theme this week was Harvest, and on Monday we gathered as a school community with Sophie-Ann and Catherine from Crossteach who lead our celebrations and helped us to understand God’s message. Thank you to all of our families who have contributed so generously, our food collection will be taken to Nourish to support our local families.

Through the various elements of our school life we work with local charities, fund (and awareness) raising, through presentations and visits. We aim to help pupils think about how people really make a difference to local, national and global issues. We want to draw attention to the qualities of those individuals and organisations whose vision, dynamism, compassion, commitment and generosity are already making a difference. We want our pupils to be able to recognise problems and begin to identify the steps required to develop solutions and to focus on the positive impact education can have on social problems. We recognise our responsibilities and hope that through the experience and awareness gained at this school we can encourage our pupils to be leaders in compassion and to become the visionaries who will set the future agenda for beneficial social transformation.

Our projects have enabled us to support vulnerable children in our local community. Shortly, pupils will be supporting children far and wide through the Christmas Shoe Box Appeal. Thank you for your support for our ongoing partnerships of these projects.

Well done to all our pupils who acted as tour guides at our very busy Open Morning and to Henry, Axelle and Thomas for their contribution to Monday’s assembly.

In the Prep School today, we held our first Focus Day of the year when our pupils got to dive deeper into the curriculum. Focus Days are an integral part of the teaching curriculum, not an addition to it. Pupils start the day with a question or problem and spend the day working collaboratively to a conclusion. Often trips and visiting speakers are part of the day. This year, Year 3 looked at the Celts – making woad and torcs and model hill forts, Year 4 looked at the Egyptians and dam building in geography, Year 5 investigated materials and UV ray protection in science, Year 6 had an Inter-faith fair and Year 7 & 8 have an Art and DT workshop.

A very busy week but nothing unusual about that! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Best wishes,

Emma Neville, Head