Dear Parents and Carers,

Exmoor Challenge

There is only one place to start this week and that is with the amazing exploits of our extraordinary Exmoor Challenge team. Despite setting off in relatively good weather, the conditions changed markedly over the course of the near six hour walk and the team walked in to the finish looking pretty wet! The last two hours of the walk were completed in persistent rain. Although this only made conditions more difficult, Eveleyn, Esmay, Freddie and Daniel battled on bravely and all crossed the line with smiles on their faces. Well done to all of you for showing great resilience, incredible perseverance and wonderful team spirit. You definitely earned your medals, representing the school magnificently. You should all feel very proud of your achievement. A big thank you to Mrs Vowden for helping with the training and to the parents of our competitors for getting them to the start on time! 

Swimming

The pick-up from the new site seemed to work much better this week. Class Two have two more weeks of swimming, so we will do the same thing for both of those.

After half term it will be Class Four's turn for two weeks, but we will be travelling in minibuses and so will drop back at the old site as near to 3:30pm as we can.

SATs

Next week will see the Year Sixes completing their end of KS2 SATs. The timetable is as follows:

Monday - Punctuation and Grammar plus Spelling tests

Tuesday - Reading test

Wednesday - Arithmetic and Maths Reasoning paper 1 tests

Thursday - Maths Reasoning paper 2 test

Friday - No tests!

The children have worked incredibly hard (not least on revision in the last few weeks) and are very familiar with the structure of the tests now. Obviously, it would be great if they are all well rested before Monday. I have no doubt they will all do their absolute best and achieve well.

The Year Four Multiplication Check and Year One Phonics will take place a little later in the term and we will keep you posted on those.

Sir David Attenborough

The children have been taught about the life and work of Sir David in Science, and today we have been thinking more about him in celebration of his 100^th birthday. It is always incredible to think of the changes in the world that someone of 100 years of age must have witnessed. In Sir David's case that of course includes the Second World War; the Cold War and Space Race as well as incredible advances in technology. Clearly though, it is the changes to climate and environments that have been most illustrated by his work over the last 70 years. 

Collective Worship

'Renew'

We thought about our theme this week in terms of our own mental health and wellbeing, but it could equally apply to our attitude towards our planet. We talked about how it is important to have a break to renew and refresh now and again. In the story of Nicodemus Jesus tells him that he needs a fresh start in order to be part of God's kingdom. Dear God, take all the tired pieces and carefully mosaic us into a new creation designed to love and give. Amen

Have a lovely weekend,

Rob Norton

Head of School