Right back in September, I had Gurjeevan in Y6 asking me if we were still doing the bauble assembly this year. It has been a bit of fun winding him up over the last three months using a variety of excuses as to why we are not going to do it any more. However, being such an old, well-established school, with established routines and traditions, dating back over 100 years, the bauble assembly will live forever! Decades and decades to come.  The deal is that every child in school puts a bauble on the tree in a special assembly, whilst the children all sing carols. The last two baubles to go on are placed by the oldest and youngest child in school. They then turn on the lights. I did gatecrash the event, hanging a sheep bauble at the same time as Theo and Gurjeevan this year. 

In other news, I got excited by the cherry picker in our car park on Monday morning, here to deal with our final structural repair. The guttering! I even asked for a ride on the crane! Apparently I was not qualified to go in it?! I may have grumbled over that response. I quite fancied a bit of an adventure to start the day and to surprise the children in the hall in wraparound.  Over the last two years, we have worked with the LA to properly fix/resolve a number of quite boring building-related issues on both sites. Our school is now strong, secure and ready to last another 100 years! That morning though, whilst I was excited by the crane, the children in wraparound absolutely were not. Something far more exciting had arrived. The Westroyd school ELF! It was upside down on the tree!

On Monday night, Westroyd performed for the third year at Pudsey Civic as part of the citywide primary choir. This is our third year in this citywide choir and at the Winter Voices concert. The children from Y5 had learnt some really tricky songs. One was even in Latin for the event. I have to say, the children did amazingly well. The majority were not well at all, but refused to give up. Totally beautiful evening and I even got to meet the mayor of Leeds. 

Finally, this week, we had two outreach workers lead an assembly, with the help of two little elves about the charity we are raising money for by doing our elf run. Simon on the Streets is a small independent charity, very hands-on and the visitors talked to the children about their experiences of working directly with homeless and vulnerable people on the streets of our city. All the children put their hands up to say they had seen homeless people in Leeds, and we discussed how useful what we are doing will be for those individuals. So if you hear or see any little elves on the loose on Friday afternoon, they are sure to be from our school. Especially if you see them in Westroyd park, making a lot of noise! All for a good cause, of course! You can go to the website Simon on the Streets to donate or there is a link on the letter we sent out which is also on the website. Many Thanks in advance. 

Looking forward to seeing you at the performances we have this week in school. Wednesday is our busiest day in school. Our children with SEND are performing at Pudsey Civic, our KS2 choir is headlining in Kirkgate market on Wednesday lunchtime and the Early Years have their Nativity. So busy, but so much fun! Feel very lucky to be in a primary school at this time of the year.