News from the School

February 2012

If you are a parent in school you will know that on top of our newsletters we always include the title of Worship for the forthcoming term. This term we will be looking at praying and The Lord’s Prayer – I thought you might be interested in learning what we will do in worship with the children.

When we return after the Christmas Holiday it of course Epiphany and we talk about the journey of the Wise Men and the gifts they brought for Jesus. Gold is usually fairly straightforward and we talk about the symbolism of love; myrrh and frankincense can be more complicated for younger children but we talk about the smell of the burning incense lifting your prayers to Heaven and the healing powers of the myrrh, both of them to bring joy and peace.

This week we have talked about hands: hands may be worn and rough through hard work; through old age, or by suffering such as arthritis; they must be kept clean because we touch food and can spread infections; hands must be “kind” so that we don’t hurt one another – in the Bible “clean hands” signify “good behaviour”. This has been followed up with stories about a woman who burned her hands when saving her baby in a house fire, the praying hands painted by Albrecht Durer whose brother sacrificed his own art career for Albert and of course Jesus whose hands were scarred by the nails when he sacrificed himself for us.

These all lead us into The Lord’s Prayer and the story of Peter asking Jesus how we should pray –

“Pray like this …” Jesus thought for a moment, then the words came out like jewels, each settlingin just the right place to make a prayer as bright as a necklace.

“Father, help us to honour your name. Come and set up your Kingdom. Give us each day the food we need. Forgive us our sins as we forgive everyone who has done wrong to us. And keep us from being tempted.”

Peter stared. “Is that it? Even I can pray that.”

“It’s a good start,” said Jesus.    (from The Lord’s Prayer Unplugged)

We will be taking a line a week from the Lord’s Prayer to look at in depth and by that time it will be Easter and of course in the final week we will be reading The Easter Story together.

Rev. Malcolm will be leading Worship for us in Church for Ash Wednesday and talking about the Communion Bread to fit in with “our daily bread”, and Mrs. Daphne Durham who was Deputy Director of Education for the Diocese until last year and now works part time for them will also be coming in to lead an act of worship around The Lord’s Prayer.

Finally we will of course be finishing off our term with a service in Church on our last day, Friday 30^th March at 9.10am when you are always welcome to join us.

P. A. Mallaby

Headteacher

News from the School

January 2012

As I am writing this we are in the midst of one of our busiest times in school. The Christmas season is upon us, last week we had the Junior production, “Stable Manners”, today we have the Reception evening production, “Whoops-a-Daisy Angel”, and tomorrow the Nursery nativity, “Little Owl and The Star”. Of course there is also all the parties and the trips to the pantomimes, the choir singing at Hazeldene Nursing Home and Showley Court as well as the service of Nine Lessons and Carols. The children are all excited and the staff are all exhausted!

Amidst this we even had time to have a celebratory Christmas dinner when all the staff ate in the hall with the children with carols on in the background and a wonderful atmosphere. Rev. Malcolm came to join us for lunch and everyone felt that bit of magic that we all associate with Christmas.

Within and central to all of this, as a Church school, is the true meaning of Christmas. In our final week for Worship we always read the story of Jesus’ birth and the visits associated with it, and when we return after the holiday we will talk about the arrival of the Wise Men.

Still to come we have our end of term music concert after our service in Church on the last day. FOSS come and make tea and coffee and Clayton Park Bakeries always provide mince pies for all the parents. The children who have been learning instruments put on a concert and the choir sing to entertain us all.

Mrs. Francis has taken over looking after parental helpers after the retirement of Mrs. Baldwin and this week we will be having mince pies with all our helpers to thank them for their contribution to school.

We do hope some of you joined us for our end of term service in Church on Friday, 16^th December to help us celebrate Christmas and its true meaning. The Governors, staff and pupils hope that you all had a peaceful Christmas and wish you a Happy New Year.

 

P. A. Mallaby

Headteacher

 

News from the School 

December 2011

What an eventful time. It was wonderful to share in the final service in Church for the Vicar, so many people turning out to say thank-you and wish him and Janet all the best for the future proves what a wonderful presence he has had in Salesbury. What a lovely buffet also, many of you must have been baking for hours (whoever baked the lemon cake I had, thank-you I enjoyed it very much).

I hope you like the posters some of the children from school have designed to advertise your Christmas Fair. The winners are:

Molly Gibson Year 5/6 winner

Annabel Warner Year 3/4 winner

Ruby Thornber Year 1/2 winner

Finlay Jones Early Years Foundation Stage winner

Congratulations to them and also well done to all the children who took part.

We have been having some exciting trips recently, most notably the older children going to London where we toured the main sights, went to the Science and Industry Museum and watched Shrek the Musical. The children had a chance to relax on the way back where we had tea and everyone agreed they had had a wonderful time. Next month I will be able to tell you about the pantomimes that all the other children are going to see leading up to Christmas.

Hopefully we will see some of you next month too when school puts on its Christmas shows. If you want any tickets they will be available soon from school. We have Stable Manners and singing performed by the Juniors; Whoops a Daisy Angel! by the Reception children and the Nursery will be putting on their usual Nativity. No doubt we will also be singing at Showley Court and Hazeldene again, as well as attending some of the services in Church. Please do join us if you can on the 16th December for our final service of the term at 9.10am.

Pauline Mallaby

Headteacher

News from the School 

November 2011

Goodbyes!

“A Vicar was leaving his area and was saying farewell to his congregation at the Church doors for the last time. He shook the hand of an elderly lady as she walked out. She said "Your successor won't be as good as you." "Nonsense", said the Vicar, in a flattered tone. "No, really", said the old lady, "I've been here under five different ministers, and each new one has been worse than the last." (Anon)

Working in Church Schools for a number of years I have come into contact with a number of incumbents, all of whom have been supportive of their school to a varying degree.  One incumbent we only saw in school on important dates, another would come in every week for a small chat and to check everything was okay.  Today I want to write and say how supportive Canon John Hartley has been and what an important role he has played not only in the life of the community (as you all know and will be celebrating) but in the life of Salesbury C of E Primary School.

John has had to “put up with”  two Headteachers of this school, and believe you me Headteachers ‘by the very nature of their jobs’ are quite passionate about what they believe in and what they think is best for the children at their school and they are not afraid of saying so! Poor John has had to find ways of supporting their different characters, adapting to the way they want to run the school and acting as a bridge between community and school.  Each Head wants things running their way and John has had to adapt to the likes and dislikes of both of us which he has done with unerring Christian care.  He has had to take on roles that I am sure he never envisaged when he became a vicar: Chair of Governors and Child Protection are two that immediately jump to mind but it is the everyday contact that John has with school that we will all miss the most.

John has always been at the end of the phone if needed, he comes into school most days to make sure everyone is alright, both staff and children, and generally has a joke, a small story or something good to share.  Did you know that for some years on many Friday mornings he has come in and made toast for the staff?  It may seem a small gesture to some, but to the staff in school it has always been a large gift that we will always remember. 

Although I began with a joke, all the staff associated with school, now and in the past, have all been supported by John and we would like to record our sincere thanks to him and wish him all happiness and good health in his retirement – school really won’t be the same without you, John.

Pauline Mallaby

Headteacher

 

News from the School

June 2011

I told you in my last article that I would recount the Royal Wedding Day that we were going to have in school - we all had such fun.  The children made wedding regalia, flags and bunting in their classes during the morning and we hung the Union Jack from the flagpole as well as hanging lots of Union Jack bunting all around the playgrounds. 

We had organised a competition in advance of the day for the best, themed royal wedding picnic/snack box and Mrs. Worden, Mrs. Pearson and myself acted as judges.  I think every child in school and nursery entered and brought their snacks for our afternoon picnic in a decorated box.  It was very hard to chose a winner from each class, some of the boxes were amazing! 

At lunch-time we all had a very special buffet provided by Mrs. Bagot and her staff, including pink fizzy water as pretend champagne!  It was all hands on deck as the lunch spread out until 1.30pm. Staff bought a lunch as well as the children and there was a real holiday atmosphere.

Afterwards the children came back into the hall, including the nursery children (both the morning and afternoon children who had all come for the afternoon!) where we had a “guess whose wedding dress this is” competition between the boys and the girls.  Were we all really so thin and so young?  The competition was a draw with the children finding it quite hard to decide.  We had a real assortment of wedding dresses and I think even the staff were amazed at the different styles from antique to very modern.  We announced the winners of the picnic/snack box competition and made sure all the children knew who was getting married the next day!

We then all went onto the playground where we ate our picnic lunches in glorious sunshine.

Finally we rounded the afternoon off back in the school hall where we sang Rule Britannia, Jerusalem and the National Anthem.

As the children left to go home, ready for the real wedding day, they all received a bookmark commemorating the Royal Wedding and with the school emblem of cross keys embossed upon it.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the staff were exhausted, everyone had worked really hard to make the day a success and the children all seemed to have had a wonderful time.

I hope you all enjoyed the public holiday whether you were glued to the television or not.

Pauline Mallaby

Headteacher 

News from the School

May 2011

Firstly I would like to thank those of you who responded to my article in the last set of notes asking for help in establishing the route the orphans used to take to get to school.  I had a tremendous response and have passed all your details on to Bernard Kennedy who is the Fitter for Walking Regional Coordinator for “Living Streets, Putting People First”.  I am sure he will be in touch with you all and I look forward to hearing more from him soon.

We’ve had some exciting events in school since I last wrote to you including an evening performing “Resurrection Rock” in Church at the end of the Easter Term.  I hope those of you who came along enjoyed the evening, we repeated it in school the following day and I’m sure you will agree, if you were at either performance, that the singing was wonderful.

School also went to Church for our end of term service on the last day of term and Nursery children went for their annual talk by the Vicar about Jesus and his friends. The Juniors also attended Eucharist this term.

We had a very exciting assembly from a firm called, “Mad Science” who created smoke circles that went all the way across the hall and made a child fly!!  As you can imagine many children have signed up to be part of a mad science club after school during the summer term.  We also had a group of musicians in who are actually peripatetic music teachers with Lancashire but who on Mondays tour all the schools performing, they call themselves, “Lazy Mondays”.  The children thought they were amazing, they played loudly(!) and all the pop tunes that the children know (I suddenly felt old!).  They asked for volunteers to go up and join in with them and couldn’t believe it when nearly every child in school wanted to go up, apparently in most schools they have a job getting volunteers up.  They said they could tell that our children loved their music and obviously had good music teachers.

We’ve also had a couple of school trips since my last set of notes: two of the junior classes went to Queen Street Mill in Burnley where we saw some of the old looms in operation – I don’t know if you’ve any experience of this but the children could not believe the noise that the looms made.  In the Victorian school room the children had to solve money problems involving Pounds, Shillings and Pence.  That certainly threw some of them. Even the teachers were in trouble with the Victorian school master - those of us wearing nail varnish certainly received the sharp edge of his tongue!  Two Infant classes went to visit St. Michael with St. John Church of England Primary School in Blackburn where they have pen pals that they have been writing to. Our school led morning worship and then they spent the rest of the day working with their pen pals on lots of exciting projects.  We are looking forward to them coming here to spend the day with us later in the summer term.

It’s very quiet in school today as I am writing this here in my office and all the children are on holiday, so I hope you all have a lovely break if you have any holidays over Easter.  I look forward to telling you all about our exciting Royal Wedding Day in my next letter to you!

Paulline Mallaby

Headteacher

News from the School

April 2011

Once again we have had a very busy few weeks since I last wrote to you all. The football team has played a number of matches, both home and away, and is on a winning streak!   The swimming gala is being held and we are competing in the first leg this week, hopefully I will have good news for my next article. The cross country team is also in winning form and takes part in the finals next week, so again I hope to have more news next month!

We have been approached by the old orphanage which is now run by CANW, Child Action North West, to get involved in two very exciting projects with them.  One will involve a musical production, but the other involves our local history and our association with the orphanage.  I have promised them that I would ask if there is anyone in the area who knows the original route that the orphans used to take to walk from the home to school.  PLEASE if you know the route could you contact me here at school as we are working closely with Living Streets as part of the project.   Living Streets is a national charity that stands up for pedestrians.  They will put together a walking route for everyone to learn about the local history of the orphans and we intend to be able to use the walk as part of our geography and history in school once Living Streets have put all the information together for us.  This is only part of the project but it would be lovely if some local people could help the school in this matter.

I am sure that if you have any other interesting facts or knowledge about the orphanage we would be able to make that part of our history/geography project too, so don’t hesitate to forward any other information you may have to me here at school.

The choir is busy rehearsing ‘Resurrection Rock’ which is going to be performed in school, and also at Church on Thursday, 7^th April at 6pm. As you can imagine from the title, ‘Resurrection Rock’ is about the Easter Story, so it will hopefully be an enjoyable start to your Easter celebrations.  We hope that many of you will join us for this occasion and look forward to seeing you then.

Pauline Mallaby

Headteacher

 

News from the School

March 2011

I am sure that you will all have been affected or know someone who has been affected by the sweeping cuts made by the Government.  Education is suffering from these cuts just like other bodies and recently I went on a conference run by the Authority called “Leadership in Challenging Times” – the challenging times of course are because we are all having to cope with less money, for example our budget to make repairs to the school building and to buy new ICT equipment has been cut for the forthcoming  year by 80%!  Today in the mail I received another invitation to a conference for Headteachers this time called “The Challenge of Change”, there seems to be a theme here; don’t you agree?  The message from the first conference was that Headteachers and the Senior Leadership Team have to be, “Optimistic, cheerful and courageous” – I think I generally am those things but when you are having to make difficult decisions this can be quite hard and conveying that message to staff can be equally difficult.

It made me think hard about the messages we all give out; the staff at our school are wonderful, they work hard and have the best interests of the children in their hearts, I wondered if I tell them thank-you often enough.

One of the guest speakers at the second conference describes this era as the “Golden Age of teaching”, writing that, “never has the quality of leadership and the quality of teaching been so good” and the following anecdote was printed to illustrate that – I hope you will enjoy reading it, and forgive me if it seems like preaching but I hope the staff at school (I am going to put this anecdote in the staff room for them) remember why they entered teaching and try to not let the “challenging times” get them down.

The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life.  One man, a layman, worldly wise decided to explain the problem with education.  He argued, “What’s a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?”  He reminded the other dinner guests what they say about teachers: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”

To stress his point he said to another guest, “You’re a teacher Sarah.  Be honest. What do you make?”

Sarah, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, “You want to know what I make,” she paused for a second and then began…

“Well, I make children work harder than they ever thought they could.  I recognise effort as well as achievement.  I make my class sit through fifty minutes of focussed learning time when their parents can’t make them sit for five without an ipod, Wi or film.  You want to know what I make?”

She paused again and looked at each and every person at the table, “I make children wonder.  I make them question.  I make them criticise.  I make them apologise and mean it.  I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions.  I teach

them to write and then I make them write.  I make them read, read, read.  I make them show all their work in maths.  I make my children from other countries learn everything they need to know in English while preserving their unique cultural identity.  I make my classroom a place where all my children feel safe.  I make my children love to sing and recognise that we live in the best country in the world.

Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were all given, work hard and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life.”

Sarah paused one last time and then continued.  “Then when people try to judge me by what I make I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because they are ignorant.  You want to know what I make?”

“I make a difference…What do you make?”

Pauline Mallaby, Headteacher

News from the School

February 2011

It’s a funny time of year, January and February.  Everyone always seems a little down about the dark days, and long winter nights and can’t wait for the arrival of summer.  I’ve never really minded winter, I like the warmth of the fire and the cosy feeling when you draw the curtains and settle down for the evening, plus it helps that I have a birthday in February so I guess I have something to look forward too!  However, knowing how most people feel I thought I would share some snippets from a book that was given to my daughter, Sarah, for Christmas.  I hope they will make you smile as Sarah and I have giggled out loud on many occasions when reading the book!

The book is a collection of childrens’ writings – when they “get it not quite right!”

“The Cristian charity was a non-prophet organisation.”

“The church near my house is three hundred years away, we go there on wholly days and Sindays.”

“At brownies this week we lernt to do sin language.”

“We weighed our school rabbi today, it was two killer grans.  When he becomes four killer grans we haf to put him on a diet.”

“In Jewish churches they do not have vickers.  In sted they have rabbits.”

“All over the world there are different religons.  The people dress different and do different things but one thing is the same.  They all worship agog.”

“My dad luvs watching the footy – he says it’s poultry in motion.”

“Before I go to bed; sometimes hav a mug ful of warmed up milk to help me go to sleep. Mummy has a mug ful of wine.”

“Two halves make a whale.”

“The total is when you add up all the numbers and a remainder is an animal that pulls santa on his slay.”

“If it is less than 90 degrees it is a cute angel.”

I’d better not quote any more or the author of the book will be after me, if you want to find it it’s called “Blackboard Blunders” by Richard Benson . Be warned I’ve chosen with care, sometimes children write things that are not really suitable for a church magazine!

I hope it’s brought a smile to your face to lighten the dark days.

Pauline Mallaby, Headteacher

 News from the School

January 2011

“It’s a cracker!” – It certainly was.  This was the title of our Key Stage One Christmas Concert this year and featured a modern day family learning all about the importance and true meaning of Christmas from their Grandad.  The staging area was divided into the old and the new with the traditional characters from the birth of Christ on one side and the 21^st Century family on the other.  The children sang their hearts out but were very tired by the end of the week.  They were wonderful to watch and we had tremendous support from parents who helped make costumes and scenery and brought their children back for two evenings in a row.

As I write to you we are also waiting for the Nursery and Reception Nativities which always bring tears of joy to everyone who watches.  We hope some of you will join us at our end of term service in Church when Reception will be performing a short extract from their Nativity.

The children have been busy attending pantomimes, the Junior children (apart from Year 6 and Year 5 from Class 8A) went to The Grand at Clitheroe and next week the Infant children are going to Darwen.  The remaining Junior children are all hoping to get to London next week for a trip to the Natural History Museum and to see Oliver!

Our Junior children also all went to Church this week for Eucharist.  It was the first Eucharist service of the year for us so the Year 6 children went up for a blessing, by the end of the year some of those children will go up with the adults in school to take communion.

I hope to see many of you in Church on Sunday 12^th at your community carols as Sheila Goodman has kindly asked me to read this year; I will also perhaps see some of you the following Sunday evening when Mrs. Fourie and myself will be bringing some of the choir children to sing at your service of 9 Lessons and Carols.  Mrs. Fourie, the choir and myself are also singing at the East Lancs Hospice on 22^nd December.  This is a request we receive every year and we are always delighted to help them out (although in the past it has been during term time!  I hope the children aren’t too excited about the approach of Christmas Day that they forget to turn up). The choir is also going to sing at Hazeldene Care Home and Showley Court before the end of term, again this is a regular performance for us and we are always warmly received.

We were also asked by Rock FM and Thwaites Brewery to help collect new toys for children from disadvantaged backgrounds this Christmas who live in the local area. Lots of parents sent in gifts and 8 children from across the school went with the Vicar and myself to meet Father Christmas and hand them over to him on a sleigh drawn by the shire horses from the Brewery.

Your Christmas Fair seemed to go well this year, we were very pleased with the sales from our Book Fair which raised just over £700 during the week which we are given back in the form of books from the Book Fair.  All the new books are going to be on display in school at our mince pie and coffee morning after our final service in Church on the 17^th before they go into the school library.

On the sporting front I’m delighted to announce that our girls netball team has won the Blackburn with Darwen High 5 Competition and will now go on to represent Blackburn with Darwen in a match at Blackpool.  Well done girls, we’re very proud of you.

Pauline Mallaby

Headteacher

 

  News from the School

December 2010 

Last month some of our pupils wrote for the magazine describing a visiting group that we had had in school for Worship.  Without wanting to become stuck in a rut by doing the same thing I thought it was important to let the children who recently took part in a very special event publish their writing this month.

You may recall that last year the choir took part in a competition at the Festival Hall in London organised by Barnado’s.  As a result we were invited to sing with other massed school choirs at The Royal Albert Hall on Sunday, 7^th November 2010.  Mrs. Fourie and myself organised to meet the children there with help from Mrs. Leeming, whilst parents had a free day Christmas shopping in London!  Here is the children’s report:

ROYAL ALBERT HALL

On the 7^th of November 2010 some children from choir went to the Royal Albert Hall in London.  There were 1400 children performing.  We had to prepare for this by practising on Fridays and at home.  This was an excellent opportunity for us.  When we arrived at 10am we got wristbands and then walked into our assigned dressing room.  We were all very nervous, as we saw the huge hall we were going to sing in. Then we went for a two hour practice and rehearsed most songs.  We also put actions to some of the songs.  After that we went and ate our dinner in our dressing room.  Then we went back to the hall to go over the songs.  This was a very long rehearsal.  The conductor was very good and the band was fantastic.  We were part choir B.  We were not the only act, there were dancers too.  It was really fun.  Finally the great day was over and we all made our own ways home.

Year Six Girls

If you would like to see some photographs and learn more about our day out you can visit the school website on: www.salesbury.lancs.sch.uk

On a personal note, I think it would not be an exaggeration to say that Mrs. Fourie and myself were more excited than the children!  We were able to sit on the choir seats with the children and join in with all the songs and actions.  The evening finished with a rousing chorus of Land of Hope and Glory and lots of flag waving.  I am sure that everyone there will always remember their experience and what a fantastic opportunity it was for those of us taking part.

Pauline Mallaby

Headteacher

News from the School

November 2010

Every half term in school we take a Christian Value and explore it during Worship and in displays, this half-term rather than a single value we have been reading stories from the Old Testament to the children.  As part of the Worship I arranged for a travelling theatre group to come in and perform the story of Jonah and the Whale. I decided you would like to read what the children thought about it:

“The theatre has come to Salesbury!  Laughter filled the building as the scenes were up and Nineveh came to life.  The theatre group acted out Jonah and the Whale for Salesbury School.  The actresses made this Bible story come to life and filled the hall with smiles.

The play taught everyone in Salesbury what happened when Nineveh banned rules in their town.  Nineveh became a feared and dangerous place and God wasn’t happy with how the town had become.  He wanted someone special to help Nineveh go back to being a happy, safe town.  He chose Jonah to help him put Nineveh back on its feet.  Jonah was a lazy person he was snoring in the sun and God called to him. He explained what Nineveh had become and Jonah was scared of it.  Instead of going to Nineveh he went as far as he could in the other direction, everyone roared with laughter as the scenes changed and the story went on.  Jonah joined a crew on a ship, the actors taught everyone a fun song with actions which we all enjoyed.  God sent a storm and the crew threw Jonah off the ship.

Laughter once again filled the hall.  Jonah was eaten by a huge whale! I wondered how Nineveh would be changed now with Jonah inside a fish.  But Jonah wasn’t dead, no he was swallowed whole, but still what could he do inside a whale?  God was with him and he explained how it was his plan from the beginning.  The whales tummy rumbled and he was sick – Jonah ended up washed onto the beach. He went to tell Nineveh to change but no-one would listen, he sang a song to a boy and soon Nineveh was back to normal.

The theatre group taught everyone rules should be obeyed because you can end up in trouble if you don’t.  Everyone enjoyed the performance and learned more from the Bible.”         Alexandra Lowrie, aged 10

“The theatre has come to Salesbury!  On Tuesday, 12^th October we entered the hall to see a stage set and three women in costumes!  Mr. Kellington announced that we were watching a show of a story from the Old Testament of the Bible.  Everyone was very excited and were eager for the show to start. We all wanted to know what the story was about…

It proved to be the story of Jonah and the Whale.  Despite the fact that it lasted for an hour nobody fidgeted or got bored.  There was only three actresses, but they dressed as lots of characters and used puppets too.  All the younger children found the show hilarious and everyone smiled when we had to sing along.  The scenery and props were really brilliant, partly because of their simplicity.  They were made of cloth, draped tastefully over ladders to represent shops, bakeries, boats and they even managed to make the inside of the whale that swallowed Jonah!

The actresses told the story wonderfully and it was certainly an interesting and exciting way to learn the stories from the Bible.  We all enjoyed and the best part according to some was when we all got to sing along – even the teachers! We sang along to a sea shanty and a song telling us to love and respect each other called “The Golden Rule”.  The younger ones sang the words and performed the actions with great gusto!  Every detail of the show was paid great attention to.

Everyone was drawn in as they watched God speak to Jonah and as the whale (an umbrella painted artistically to look like a whale) leaped out the water and swallowed him whole. We all thoroughly enjoyed the show and urged Mrs. Mallaby to invite them to do another show again.  Hopefully she will, as everybody enjoyed it and has

learned loads about the Bible from this story.  We all loved it!”  Lotte Neil, aged 11

The children really enjoyed the show but of course the important part is did they learn anything from it?  Jack in Year 3 when asked what he had been watching by his teacher replied, “It was a story about a boy who didn’t want any rules and the mayor got rid of them and everything went wrong.  Jonah went to Nineveh and they got the rules back and everything was good again.”  Wonderful!

Pauline Mallaby, Headteacher

 

News from the School

October 2010

Each year when we return to school I look back on my notes for the Church Magazine here and at my last school and notice that I often reflect on how quickly time has flown between one year and the next!   I remember when I was younger often hearing “old” people say how time has passed so quickly and suddenly I find myself amongst that group!   Indeed this year we have had two new members of staff join school as teachers, one of whom was born the year I got married and the second the year of my daughter’s birth!   Furthermore, we had a voluntary teacher in at school who everyone thought didn’t look old enough to be a teacher, oh dear! I’ll be looking at police officers soon and thinking the same thing!

We had a lovely end to the last academic year, saying a fond farewell to our Year Six Leavers, many have gone on to Clitheroe Royal Grammar School and Ribblesdale as well as St. Wilfrid’s in Blackburn.  We were delighted to have the Vicar and Bishop Nicholas as our guests at Prize Giving.  We also enjoyed our joint Summer Fayre and Rose Queen Day, the weather was fantastic and the new Rose Queen looked lovely.

It’s lovely to welcome back the staff and also to greet new members of staff; we have two new teachers who are covering maternity leave for Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Smallshaw (hopefully by the next article we will have more news to share with you),  Mrs. Boult de Aruajo and Miss. Passerini.  We also have a new teaching assistant, Mrs. Melling.  Mr. Bird has become a father, and we have been lucky enough to welcome Joshua Nathan into school on a couple of occasions.  This is all a lovely start to our year.

The Vicar has been into school on a number of occasions already and led Worship for us.  The theme this term is Responsibility and Stories from the Old Testament.  We have also already arranged for Eucharist Services for our Junior children every term and also end of term services – you would always be very welcome if you could join us for these dates:

4^th October 2010 – Harvest Festival in Church at 9am

9^th December 2010 – Eucharist at 9am

17^th December 2010 – End of Term Service at 9am

6^th February 2011 – Education Sunday Service at 10.30am

10^th March 2011 – Eucharist at 9am

8^th April 2011 – End of Term Service at 9am

16^th June 2011 – Eucharist at 9am

20^th July 2011 – Prize Giving at 1.15pm with guest, Lisa Fenton from the Diocese

22^nd July 2011 – End of Year Service at 2pm

I look forward to continuing working closely with the Church and seeing you all soon.

Pauline Mallaby, Headteacher