We find it hard to believe, but it is the last day of the term, and we would love to share with you some of the highlights from our week together across our wonderful school.

Our fantastic Christmas performances, which started last week, were carried on by Key Stage 2 up at St. Mary's on Tuesday night. Thank you to everyone at St. Mary's for making us feel so welcome during both our practices and the performance. We know how much everyone who was able to attend enjoyed the story of 'The star and the stable'. Congratulations to everyone in Key Stage 2 who impressed with their narration, singing and acting. We would also like to thank all of the staff in Key Stage 2 who worked so hard alongside the children to make the performance as magical as it was.

Reception were very pleased this week to welcome some students from LHS who shared their festive singing with them ahead of their own carol concert. Thank you to everyone involved, it was a real treat.

We have all thoroughly enjoyed our week together, which included a delicious Christmas lunch on Wednesday, with amazing festive jumpers being worn, and our exciting class parties on Thursday where everyone had fun taking part in party games together. Thank you to all the staff who have helped to make this week such a special one for everyone.

We have been thrilled to share how much we have been able to raise this year for our two chosen charities and would like to thank everyone who has so generously donated. Through jumper day and the wonderful Y6 stalls, we have been able to donate £119 to 'Save the children'. In addition, through our Christmas performances we have raised £400 for 'Guide dogs', which is an amazing amount which means that we can sponsor two more puppies in the New Year. 

This spirit of generosity has also been present within school and we are excited and grateful to tell you that today the children are all coming home with a brand-new book to keep! These have been supported by a generous donor who is keen to support our whole school work on reading for pleasure and to help us make a fantastic start to our plans to be part of the National Year of Reading 2026. 

We have been able to be together as a whole school three times this week. On Tuesday, we said a fond 'farewell' to Mrs Joyce, who has been an important part of our school for over 20 years. She has had many roles as part of our community, including as a parent, TA, 1:1, netball coach, 'Friends' committee member and as an ELSA. We surprised Mrs. Joyce with some festive singing and presented her with some gifts sent from us all. 'Good luck and thank you', Mrs Joyce from us all.

In Wednesday's assembly we heard about the attendance rates across school and were pleased to be able to congratulate Year 6 as they won both the weekly extra play prize and also an attendance reward in the New Year. 

Today, we have all enjoyed hearing about the varied and interesting reasons that two children from each class have been awarded an 'achievement certificate'. Reasons included for making great progress with their reading and writing this half-term, for being wonderful role models to others, for showing determination to show their best focus and effort and for being a really kind and thoughtful friend to others. The reasons identified by class teachers were amazing and we would like to congratulate you all. We also awarded this term's prize for the vouchers and there were so many tickets in the hat, well done to our winner.

You will see from the photos just how the building project is coming on and the huge progress which has been made this week. We know that the building work will continue after the holidays, and we thank everyone for being so patient and adaptable, but also our build team for being such a positive and helpful group around school.

We would like to wish everyone in our school community a very 'Happy Christmas' and a wonderful 'Happy, healthy New Year'. We hope that everyone enjoys their holiday and we look forward to welcoming you all back on Tuesday 6th January 2026.