A couple of Farsley Westroyd traditions this week; our annual Harvest Festival in church and our Welly Walk fundraiser. The wellies were not actually necessary, due to our dry summer, but it was fun watching them trying to run and race each other whilst wearing them. One of our Y4 pupils is a very talented runner. I think this little person looks like Zebedee from The Magic Roundabout when they run, so bouncy on their feet. A talent to watch for in the future!  Our Y5 children were paired up with Reception, as had the Y6 children with Y1.  The empathy and care from our older learners towards our younger children overwhelms me at times. It is just so lovely. I am especially proud when I see our inclusivity at these events. At our school, anyone can participate and in any way they can, they will, supported by anyone and everyone. Great to have our young adults and staff from the SILC Powerhouse join in with the Welly Walk this year too.

I got an easy ride at the harvest festival this year. Heidi on the music and Wren and Alfie leading the event. All I had to do was sing, and very enjoyable it was too. We had some old school classics on the play list! Cauliflowers Fluffy (Paintbox) will always be my favourite harvest song. I remember teaching it to my Y1 class at Upper Wortley Primary School in Leeds, back in 1996 when I was in my first year of teaching. Another beautiful old building that sadly no longer exists.

We had wear yellow day, to raise money for Young Minds on Friday. A brilliant charity that provides counselling and support for young people struggling with their mental health. There was a sea of yellow Leeds United shirts right across the school! (I thought Leeds played in white and blue?!) Mrs Burden made me chuckle. She is a very stylish lady, but does not own anything yellow, other than yellow socks. So she stuck her trousers into her socks. Which led us to a discussion about metal bike clips that we used to wear in the day to ride our bikes and stop the oil on the chain from getting on our trousers.

Talking of bikes, I was gutted to find out this week, that the funding for our Y1 learn to ride bike training has been pulled. Although Cycle North, who are old friends of mine, say if they do get any pennies from a different funding stream, we are absolutely top of the list. They like coming to see us.

I often talk about the boring part of my job – the maintenance side of things – things I never knew I needed to know or actually want to know – like u bends, taps, ceiling tiles and drain pipes. I glaze over when the business manager or Mr Brier start talking to me about such subjects. But this week we were booked in for a fire safety audit by the LA fire team, which I absolutely do find interesting.  I have had the fire safety team in a few times since I joined the school, to check stuff out and, as usual, I am never shy about quality assuring anything we are doing.   The audit was very, very rigorous as there is lots of new legislation that has come into play recently. We did get top marks for our fire risk assessment, which pleased me. On the walk about, a big discussion point was coats in school buildings, which are a huge fire risk, especially by an exit route. We do need to move some of our coat pegs that are close to doors, which we are straight on to sorting. We need a couple of new doors into the hall, as there is a gap which smoke could get through when they are closed. Old-fashioned fire doors they are.  I found this interesting, all our electrics and gas points are right by the kitchen. They need boxing off because if they were to blow, having them boxed off would give 25 minutes before any serious damage would occur.  We also now have got new guidance about how many bodies can be in the hall for assemblies and concerts. Which is going to result in changes.I was really impressed with the attention to detail and the changes suggested, but I did ask  why the new legislation, more rigorous attention to detail and tighter regulations. As I asked, I realised the answer. Lessons learnt from Grenfell Towers in London. It was pleasing to know that such a tragic event has resulted in positive safety changes for so many! 

I finished the week doing one of my career favourite activities. Planning a residential. Checking numbers, getting quotes, planning activities, getting the transport sorted, and winding the children up, about what I am up to without giving away any real information. Mr Popple and I will be doing scissor, paper, stone as one of us has to stay at school and one can go on the trip!

Two weeks to go……