This morning, I really enjoyed my early morning run. I had my favourite band playing through my ears, dry weather, and I was running through beautiful countryside!  Now, early doors in downtown Otley on a Sunday morning, is quite a busy time, with groups of cyclists, runners, walkers and robe-clad groups going down to the river for a swim. My thoughts strayed for a while. So why is that? Why did we all make the choice this morning, to get up and go? There are many reasons that would have motivated us, but those reasons are in our brains and at that moment when it was time to get up and go, that knowledge empowered us to make the choice to crack on. Our approach at Westroyd is to make sure that our children have enough embedded knowledge to make those same choices. To keep themselves healthy and safe, both now and into the future.  It would be easy to stand in front of the children and say - don't drink, don't smoke, don't do drugs, you must exercise, eat healthily. But it just does not work. Children need deep knowledge about why? At Westroyd we have a comprehensive PSHE scheme of learning. Miss Martin leads on this. The children have weekly PSHE lessons, which we also top up with assemblies, special focus days, visits and visitors. Research suggests that children will learn more from visitors in this area rather than being told by familiar people. So it is important that we do have a calendar of external people coming into school to work with the children. This week, we had an old friend of mine, David Hill, who works for a charity called DSIDE. Thus, we have DSIDE DAVE as he is now known across the city.  He has been in three times now, since I arrived, and delivered age-appropriate workshops to each year group about internet safety, drugs, alcohol and tobacco.  DSIDE Dave is quite entertaining in his delivery, making the sessions memorable. With the hope that in the moment, what DSIDE DAVE told them would trigger the right choice to be made! In a couple of weeks, another old friend, PCSO Dean, is coming in to talk to UKS2 about County lines. 

In other news, we had a local authority moderation session focused upon our Y6 writing assessments this week. Mr Fawcett is passionate about writing, and this session confirmed his strong knowledge of the National Curriculum for writing and that his assessments are spot on! The standard of teaching and learning at this school is confirmed at all angles these days by external professionals! So proud of Mr Fawcett who has risen to the challenge of Y6 in the last two years, and taken on leading writing right across the school. His passion for making sure our children are successful is incredible! I think he is looking forward to the last five weeks now, with his lovely Y6 class and the exciting events they have planned together! 

Next Saturday is Farsley Festival and we will be there with a stall. Community is important to us, so the festival is something we really wanted to be part of. Our stall will be sheep-themed, of course! Do come and say hello and make yourself a sheep, or have a go at pinning the tail on the sheep?! 

There is even more of a buzz around school this week, as we have launched our annual Westroyd's Got Talent competition on Thursday. We have got the best set of judges this year! Not sure what I am more excited about the children's performances or our judges!