On Friday I sang my first Christmas song of the season. This came with initial joy around the upcoming festivities, followed by a feeling of panic about how much needs to happen in the next six weeks! It is without a doubt a fabulous time to work in a primary school, but also a time that needs very careful planning and preparation. As someone who thrives on efficiency, I spent our weekly staff briefing nagging the teachers, to make sure all the dates were up on the website and that we were planning ahead. We want to enjoy The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.  Which is the first song I sang on Friday, with a group of children at rehearsal we went to, in preparation for a citywide concert we have coming up in December.

This week, Year Three, inspired by the Worst Witch, made spells and potions! There was quite a shop full of spine-tingling ingredients! Again, Y3 and Y4 dressed up for TTR day on Thursday. I can't tell you how important it is that the children learn those multiplication facts. Sets them up for life! 

In other news, we are currently working on improving our transcription skills, responding to the government's new writing framework. At Westroyd we are always keen to respond to evidence-based research to improve our teaching and thus, pupil outcomes. The writing framework is excellent, and we are busy promoting writing fluency, looking at handwriting. Our thinking is that if children can write fluently with automaticity, not having to waste brain space thinking about how to join, this will free up cognitive space to focus upon the writing quality. There is so much children have to think about in one moment when they are writing, so we can reduce that cognitive load we will! The children over the last half-term have had daily handwriting practice and the impact is considerable. With handwriting being daily, we know this will increase muscle memory and, thus, the children will write with automaticity. It takes my breath away, when I look back through their books and compare how they have improved. A lot of proud children walked out of my office last week, pen in hand! We are just moving on to evaluating the teaching of spelling, which the school council had a lot to say about how we teach it this week. More of that to come!

One final thing! Mr Popple really wants to dress up as a sheep at the Farsley light switch on! We tried to make it happen last year, but could not find a costume. We are still hunting. But does anyone randomly have a sheep mascot dress-up costume???