A busy week in school, with a climax of horrendous weather on Friday! As I ran along the River Wharfe this morning, it was clear, just how much rain had come down on Friday. Today, Sunday, the river is still fast flowing and flooded. I thought surely, we couldn’t still be short of water?!  I spoke with the children in the celebration assembly on Friday about how, in this country, we do have a slight obsession with discussing and moaning about the weather.  (They did like Friday’s celebration assembly playlist headlined by Kool and the Gang!) However, looking at the upcoming forecast for this week, we did decide it was time to get out our winter coats, hats and gloves.  We have been spoilt so far by mild conditions, children understandably not bringing coats or even jumpers to school. All that is about to change. Looking ahead at the forecast, Mr Clough is worrying about potential snowfall for his trip to Tropical World on Thursday. But in reality, there will probably be a couple of weeks of dry, cold, crisp sunny weather. Which is really beautiful! Let’s hope so, because no-one likes driving in the snow!

We had a solemn moment this week, both in school, in an assembly led by Mr Clough and down at the Cenotaph in Farsley.  One of the hardest parts of my job, is managing my own emotions in these moments. However, I always come to the conclusion that letting the children see it is OK to be upset is not a bad approach. I was mighty proud of our children, who really focused on reflecting in the moment and thinking about such brave individuals and what they did and continue to do for us.

We had a team of players out at Crawshaw competing successfully at Dodgeball this week. Excellent behaviour and proper competitive spirit. We went out believing we could win, and we jolly well did! And had a lot of fun on the way. However, Corey in Y6 is never navigating for me again, as we ended up at the wrong school and arrived late!

We have had a long stream of parents visiting school over the last few weeks, considering us as their first choice for Reception in 2026. We actually get the children to show parents around with us on such tours. They are very enthusiastic about our school and never short on words!  I am always so proud, because I know our children are our best feature, along with the warm, friendly, supportive relationships between us all in school. Westroyd really is a great place to be, every day. Although, as I always say, I never get any office-based work done in school, as coming downstairs and interacting with them is far more enticing.

Finally, to blow our trumpet. I got an email the other morning from the DfE. Usually this is to tell me to do something boring, sign something, or read a long document, the contents of which I must abide by. On this occasion, I scrolled down the email, it became clear, it was none of these directives. It was actually a big well-done! The email message told me that Farsley Westroyd has one of the highest attendance rates of all schools in the UK for all children and all contexts. To me, this just shows how much our children want to be at our school and this makes us unique compared to others. To be fair, we are better than an awful lot of other schools, Nationally, as we are one of the highest performing schools! However, there was one thing to do at the end of the email, as they have directed us to work with other schools nationally and share our best practice!  For once, this is actually one thing to do I am more than happy to take on board and carry out.  We always like to shine our light at Farsley Westroyd.