My week started on Sunday, as I was in school doing a bit of work to get ahead but also to wave off Mr Wells and Mrs Bryan as they headed to Devon on business. The business? A visit of the centre our Year 6s will be going to in May, as we move away from the Isle of Wight.
Little Canada (PGL) served us well as we embarked upon residentials again after Covid, but it is time for a change and a chance to bring the cost down slightly. The venue we are now using is run by the same company who run the centre our Year 4s use and it has been a pleasure doing business with them.
Mr Wells and Mrs Bryan (after a hearty breakfast) enjoyed a couple of hours with centre management, being shown the facilities and activities before heading back to Hitchin. It is a long way to go for a two-hour visit but imperative when we take on a new project such as this. I won’t go into too many details now about how the residential will work, or what the activities will be, but what I will say is that Mr Wells kept asking if staff could have a go!
My Monday was spent with Mrs Granger interviewing candidates for our vacant office job. It was a very strong field and therefore a very enjoyable day. I am delighted with the appointment we made, with Mrs Flanagan starting on Monday 14th October. To share some background, Mrs Flanagan is a former Whitehill pupil and so I have no doubt she will fit perfectly into the team. I know you will join me in making her feel very welcome when you meet her.
We have not had the best of luck with regards to weather in the early part of this week with staff feeling very lucky when we managed to get outside for break or lunch. It also resulted in a cancelled sports fixture on Wednesday evening.
Tuesday was reasonably quiet in terms of my diary but productive for the pupils. I saw some lovely work being produced across the school but will give a ‘shout out’ to the art being produced from Year 3 through to Year 6. It is a real strength at Whitehill.
I have also handed out a number of Headteacher’s Awards this week for writing. Miss Payne was very proud of many of Orville’s pupils and when I saw the work produced, I could see why. I will give a special mention in here to Oliver (Year 4), who showed a great use of technology to support his writing.
Our class photos were taken on Wednesday morning in one of the dry moments and I was impressed how quickly the whole process was completed. I am aware the timing for some was not ideal – sorry – but diary clashes are inevitable at this time of the year. I look forward to seeing the results and updating the display in our school entrance.
Fortunately for the classes, I am not in their photos. I wouldn’t want to spoil them. So, whilst they were being taken, I was starting the first of three online meetings, totalling four hours of looking at people in a series of one-inch boxes. I am slightly embarrassed to say that during my meeting on ‘Grievance and Gross Misconduct’, I must have ‘rested my eyes’ for a moment as I definitely lost five slides!
Miss Gooderham and Miss King were out with a group of pupils on Thursday at a tag rugby festival. As it was a festival, results are irrelevant, but pupils like to know how they have done, and they are also keen to share their success with me upon their return. Freddie R (Year 5) did just that with a step-by-step analysis of each of his matches only to be scuppered by a Kealey (Year 6) (didn’t see which one, sorry!) who summed up the success in just six words!
I was very proud of the players and also the staff after I heard what had happened in one of the games. With no fuss or a drop in standards on our part, they called out the behaviour of one of the other schools and decided it was safer to stop playing than risk injury. Rest assured this is being followed up with the organiser and no doubt the school itself. Well done, Whitehill!
The displays across the school have all been updated and look great. We have our open afternoon in a couple of weeks and I hope that you can come in and have a look.
I enjoyed another Achievers’ Assembly on Friday morning and it was lovely to welcome a governor in to join in our celebration.
The regular awards were distributed as follows: Lamarr won the Wombles; Earth won the House Cup and Kahlo picked up Class of the Week.
I handed out my first Commendation of the Year. This award, which only gets presented a handful of times each year, is presented to an individual who has shown outstanding effort and achievement against a number of our guiding principles over time. Alex (Year 5) was the recipient, and he is to be commended for his incredibly impressive and sustained charity work.
Jenson (Year 3) celebrated his player of the match award for his local club and we handed out swimming awards for Jasmine (Year 6) and Penelope (Year 3). The music was provided by Julia (Year 5) who sang a lovely song from Les Misérables and Mia (Year 6) who played her guitar, including Hedwig’s theme from Harry Potter.
We had a group of four taking part in a mini-sports festival on Friday morning and the feedback from Miss Gooderham upon her return was very complimentary.
I had a lovely chat with Kieran, William and Lottie (Year 6) who visited me from Kahlo Class. All three received Headteacher’s Awards for a variety of subjects including maths, English and French. ‘Impressionants!’
Looking ahead, Monday starts relatively quietly and then the diary fills up. We have our new LA Advisor in on Tuesday morning to have a look at the teaching of writing. He will visit a few classrooms and also spend time talking with my English leads.
We have the lower school version of the tag rugby festival on Tuesday afternoon with two further sporting fixtures next week. There is a netball match against St Ippolyts on Tuesday and football against St Andrew’s on Friday.
I have another online course on Wednesday and will try and get a good night’s sleep the night before, so I actually see all of the slides I am supposed to this time.
The other key event takes place on Friday morning (11th October). This is our Friends’ Association AGM which is being hosted at Highbury from 9.00am. It would be lovely to see some of you there to hear about the amazing work our committee has done and plans to do moving forward.
That is it for another week and finally the sun is shining.
Have a great weekend.
Best wishes,
Steve Mills
Headteacher
