19 Jun Headteacher’s Message Friday 19th June
We welcomed the children from Year 1 back into school this week. It was lovely to see them all and they have all settled back in to their routines very quickly. Our children in Reception and Nursery return on Monday and the EYFS team are excited to welcome them back to school. The team have worked hard all week to prepare the classrooms for the children. Whilst the rooms will look and feel very different, the children will have lots of opportunities to rekindle friendships and rediscover their love of learning.
Every single life matters: black, Asian, white, dual/multi-heritage, absolutely every single one of us deserves respect. Our school community is a wonderful example to the world. Colour, creed, race, religion and socio-economic status; all of it matters because it makes our school the vibrant place it is. We are proud to be a part of a richly diverse school community and celebrate and respect our differences. It is not very often that I feel moved to write so explicitly about world affairs but I feel passionately that we really all do need to challenge discrimination or racism wherever we see it. This current pandemic should make us reflect on how precious life is for all of us. Senior leaders at Harrington Hill are working hard on plans to improve our curriculum so that it is more representative of the wonderfully diverse school community that we are lucky to be a part of. We endeavour to include new topics that will explicitly teach our children Black History and we will be reaching out to parents and carers who may like to be more involved with joining us on this journey.
Our premises team (Mohammad and Alex) have been hard at work making improvements to our school building and outdoor space so it is even more welcoming to the children for when they return. One of their ideas was to plant some new trees along the gate of the bicycle area. We now have 35 beautiful, young shrubs and trees which we look forward to seeing grow tall over the coming months. Thank you to Mohammad and Alex for turning this lovely idea into reality.
All the teachers are writing school reports for every child and they will be e-mailed home to you in July. Due to Covid-19, there will be no end of year attainment data on reports this year. The reports will however include a thorough general comment to celebrate your child’s achievements and highlight their next steps. There will also be an opportunity for you to share your comments on your child’s school report (page 2 of the report) which you can return to us when your child returns to school.
The academic school calendar has been published for 2020-2021 and is available on the school website in ‘term dates’. There will be five INSET days next academic year. The INSET dates are: 3rd and 4th September 2020, 2nd November 2020, 22nd February 2021 and 7th June 2021. The school will be closed to all pupils on these dates to allow for staff training.
We are currently working on plans for the last two weeks of term (6th -17th July). A letter will be sent out next week with further information.
Many parents and carers will be wondering what the school will look like in September. We await further guidance from the government regarding this and as soon as we receive this, further information will be sent out to all.
Thank you for your support and have a lovely weekend.
Becky Kennedy
Acting Headteacher