How do we only have two weeks left of this half-term? They say time flies when you are having fun. It is at this point in the term, that I tell the class teachers to pick two children who have consistently demonstrated positive learning behaviours and exemplified our school values over the half-term. It is always tricky to just pick two for our half-termly recognition award, and it is such a beautiful moment when the children come into the hall and get the surprise of seeing their parent sitting there! They know it is their moment!

This week in school, our Y6 children and the staff have been in SATS preparation mode. To quote Mr Fawcett, “This class know when to turn it on!” They certainly have and from talking to them, they are ready with the knowledge and feeling confident. The light is there at the end of the tunnel. And as we say at Farsley Westroyd, you have to climb the mountain to really enjoy coming down the other side! Our children are going to feel that wonderful sense of achievement come Thursday afternoon, and we have an immediate treat booked to enhance that wonderful feeling.

Our Wraparound leader, the newly married Mrs Cowie, has returned from maternity leave and our sessions have gone all fishy. The current theme of Under the Sea had the children eating fish fingers and seaweed looking pasta this week! Lots of crafty sea creatures are being made, and Mrs Cowie has learnt how to draw a wonderful octopus. Thank you, Ellie in Y4, for teaching her. Light nights also mean playing out at wraparound. So much fun. We were discussing playing out as children in the staffroom the other day. Kerbie seemed to be a generic game we all played, which resulted in Mr Clough googling and finding out that you can actually buy a fake kerb for the children to play kerbie on. I am not sure it would have quite the same impact as playing on the street!

In preparation for the Y4/Y5 sheep hunt expedition to Swaledale in June, I took two of the staff up to Swaledale to YHA Grinton Lodge where we are staying. Mrs Connell and I are both pretty outdoorsy, and we did give poor Miss Knight Francis a bit of a hard time. Just before we left at the end of the school day, she disappeared to get changed and came proudly out of the toilets head to toe in new shiny, crisp outdoor kit. She had taken all the labels off, but the fabric made a swishy sound every time she moved. She was very proud of herself and her new purchases and her new Go Outdoors discount card! I took them both on both the walks we will do with the children and my nose was only slightly out of joint when I swiftly released that Miss Connell possibly has more facts about nature than I do. I thought I was quite knowledgeable. Before we left, Miss Connell sampled the ice-cream from the ice-cream palour in Reeth, which got five stars.

Y4 are super busy practicing their multiplication facts at the moment. Learning and embedding this knowledge is so important to build firm foundations for problem-solving and reasoning in UKS2. My little focus group and I meet on a Monday and Friday and I have to say, on a Friday we treat ourselves to a biscuit in between a round on TTR. However, not just any biscuit, we are working our way through the whole biscuit genre, with a guest biscuit each week. For example, last week, we had my favourites, ant biscuits. Better known as Garibaldi’s. We have tried every flavour of Jammie dodgers, digestives, ginger nuts, nice, custard creams, bourbons, malted milk, shortbreads, French posh biscuits…. I thought I was getting stuck. But no. This week we ventured into custard creams with a different flavoured cream! Coconut even. Sometimes the smallest of things causes so much enjoyment and discussion, and it's quite a special time.

Now I have been told I must add this to my blog today by Mr Clough. When I arrived at school on Friday at 6.35 am, he and Mr Popple had arrived before me. Which is unusual. I questioned why, and they told me it was to get jobs done and get ahead! So, whilst I was eating my fruit and fibre in the staff room, I listened to them chew the cud and watched them play darts. The bit I was specifically told to share, was that Mr Clough got a 180 during this dart throwing session?! He said this bit of information needed to go into my blog, and he suggested I also share that it is the third time he has done this and actually this means he is pro standard. So there you go.

Looking forward to another fabulous week at Farsley Westroyd.