The half-time break seems a million years ago as the busiest half-time of the year commenced with a very full calendar. I have nagged the staff to make sure everything is written on the calendar until Christmas and that they check for double bookings. To be fair, it is usually me that does the tight or double bookings as I try to get us involved in everything, grasping every opportunity. Which is my approach to life! You only get one shot, so best make the most of it! I popped into NEXT this morning with a return and was thinking about the poor staff, as the Christmas tunes were blaring out, and they will have eight more weeks of listening to them. But needs must and both Miss Connell and I have started to practice Christmas songs with our choirs. My Winter Voice choir are singing one of my all-time favourites this year, “We need a bit of Christmas.” We have been tasked with quite a challenging French Christmas Song, and I was made up with Heidi in Y6 who has gone off and figured out the melody herself, so she is in charge of that one!  

Year five have made Wobble Bots, which I think is part of their DT learning. But what is a Wobble Bot? Obviously a robot that wobbles. As simple as that. I was told this by a child rolling their eyes at me, for asking such an obvious question! 

Our School Improvement Advisor was in school this week, quality assuring the teaching and learning standards in school. He visited classes with Miss Pashley and Mr Popple to look at our writing teaching, and how the pupils were learning. I have to say it was one of those proud headteacher moments, when I saw the quality of the writing in the children's books and the incredibly strong learning behaviour in classes. To be honest, the children were so engrossed they did not notice us in the room in Y6 and Y4. One of my favourite moments was in Y6, where the metacognition skills of the children were on another level. They were so invested in their own writing and making it the best they could. As Headteacher, I felt immensely proud of the teachers, who have taken on board so much that I have thrown at them over the last three years and they are just brilliant educators! I always say what I want for the children at Westroyd in terms of the standard of teaching, it has to be good enough for my own. We are beyond that now because the standard of teaching and learning, is so much better than I could ever dream of for my own children!  Lucky children at Westroyd. Our advisor totally agreed. High standards of teaching and learning. "Your teachers have it all going on," he said!

In the celebration assembly on Friday, the children and I have now decided that there is actually a thing that is happening in our school now. It has occurred enough times for it to be a thing. But we do not know how it happens! If one child in a family gets the Learning Star award that week, you can guarantee that another child in the same household will also get the star that week. I know the teachers do not discuss this, so how on earth does it happen? Bizarre but really lovely for our families.

Mr Popple and I were chuckling with some of our Y6 children this week. They are such characters! One of them arrived at school last week with a stick. Not just any stick, a stick that could easily have poked the moon, it was that long. He had found it on the way to school. Now I totally get the attraction of a big stick. As someone growing up in the 70s/80’s, we would have had hours of fun with a large stick whilst playing out on the street. However, the children were not too happy with Mr Popple’s dynamic risk assessment of taking the stick away at first, as I imagine they could have entertained themselves with said stick over lunchtime. But safety has to come first. Of course, the child did ask for it back at hometime, when, strangely, Mr Popple had forgotten where he had put it!

On a Friday afternoon, for many years in my career, I have had afternoon tea with small groups of children. It is a chance to spend some relaxing time with specific children and their peers, reflect upon the week, discuss any key events in the school week, take turns speaking and listening and talk about anything really that they want to tell me. “Chew the cud,” we call it. Duncking biscuits in one's tea is an important part of this process, so the kind of biscuit is important. We had fig biscuits this week. I didn’t think they would be so popular. One little chap, two biscuits in, said, “Miss Pashley, can you pass me another one of those dog biscuits?” I did chuckle, they did look like dog biscuits I suppose, but very different to Rosie’s gravy bones!

This week, we had our big budget meeting with our local authority finance officer. A very long meeting whereby I do have to concentrate and willingly do so! I take the responsibility of spending what is public money very seriously and not a penny is spent without scrutiny at Farsley Westroyd. Our children deserve the very best and achieving this and balancing the books is a tremendously challenging job. I often tell my staff that there is not a money tree growing in the yard. We are given what we are given by the LA in a very complex formula, and we have to make sure it is spent wisely.  Our office team play a huge part in this, and I am grateful for all their hard work and commitment. They really are the school engine.

Great busy week coming up in school. We have governors, parents evenings and Children in Need Day. My current padel partner is a bit frustrated with me, as I cannot commit to playing with him on an evening this week. (He often makes digs about my profession, to get me to bite. I once yawned in a game, and he asked if I had tired myself out that day by doing too much laminating!  Anyway, on this occasion, he said to me, “If you are the headteacher, and you don’t teach a class, what do you actually do at parents' evening, do you actually need to be there?” I pointed out that it is actually a lovely position to be in, as I get to meet and greet all our families and have a chat. Which I am really looking forward to too. We booked to play on Friday night, which appeased him slightly, but he has decided to play against me, which I think is a ploy to try to manipulate our ratings somehow! 

Children in need day – think I need my dancing shoes on. I am still in the process of trying to convince Miss Knight-Francis into performing for us. She is a ballroom dancer and has many awards to prove it!