We have all been so pleased and excited to welcome the sunnier weather this week, and it has certainly brought an extra step of positivity to our week.

We have had another incredibly busy and productive week in school, and we would like to share with you some of the key moments.

Our week began with a busy assembly where we awarded the latest set of house point badges. We were so impressed with the amount of points being earnt by children and the pride shown as they went up for the next badge. Congratulations to you all. We also shared our latest 'pup date' from Jack and Custard and everyone was so surprised to see how much both puppies had grown in the latest video. The skills which our puppies are now learning at 'puppy school' are so important, and it was great for our children to see how these skills could help someone with restricted sight who Jack or Custard might help in the future. 

On Wednesday, Hannah from 'Checkpoint' shared with us an unusual bottle of water. The water had initially looked clear and nice to drink, but then it went cloudy and not good to drink. Hannah showed us this as a representation of how, sometimes, our emotions and mental health can feel. The water soon settled and was back to being clear and calm, which is how we can feel once our emotions are supported and helped to be more positive. Hannah explained that, for a Christian, this is also supported by God and how she knew that everyone at Kington Primary has someone at home or in school that they can share worries and feelings with to help them feel settled. This was a really thought-provoking and interesting assembly to share.  Afterwards, different groups of children were heard talking about it and thinking about how the idea of the unsettled bottle of water was sometimes how they might feel.

Today, Years 4, 5 and 6 have been lucky enough to have been part of boxing workshops organised through the Police Academy of Boxing based in Hereford. These were very focused sessions thinking about self-control, self-discipline and respect for others. The instructor who led the sessions was very impressed with the way in which these classes coped with World Book Day, boxing and the disco all in one day!

On Monday and Tuesday, our Key Stage 2 classes were fortunate to be working with Toni and Poppy from the Ledbury Poetry Festival. Through a really fun poetry workshop, our oldest classes were able to explore and create both haiku and kenning poetry, which was really fantastic. Toni and the Ledbury Poetry Festival are going to be running a Kington Poetry Festival for children over a weekend for the first time ever; please look out for information about this which will be sent home.

We are running a poetry competition in school which has included Word Book Day but does now go beyond this date up until the Easter holidays. We are having the poetry focus as our next inter-house competition, and we would love as many entries as possible! Remember that any entries for the Word Book Day competition can also be used for our inter-house one. There is no specific theme or focus and the poems can be in any form. If you do have an entry, please hand it to your class teacher.

Today has been a really super day around school with children being so excited to share their World Book Day outfit! Thank you to all of our families who have been able to support this as it really does make for a special and memorable day in school. Everyone will have their £1 book token to bring home, and the books are available in many different shops, including most of the supermarkets, or they can be used towards the cost of another children's book. It has been wonderful this week to see the many varied reading opportunities which our classes have been exploring, including Year 3 and 4's visits to Kington library, and we thank Angela the librarian for welcoming us so warmly.

In our special World Book Day assembly, we awarded prizes for the amazing entries in our poem in a box and poetry writing competitions. A huge 'Congratulations' to you all. We also awarded our weekly headteacher's stickers and, as ever, the reasons were so impressive. This week they included showing extra bravery when dealing with a tricky injury, for showing great learning behaviour in the classroom, for being such a positive and calm influence in the class, for doing really well with their phonics and for being a super role model and representative of our school. These reasons were so lovely to hear and Miss Moss from LHS who joined us, was amazed at the different reasons given. Congratulations to you all.

We really hope that the sunshine continues to brighten our days over the weekend, and we look forward to welcoming everyone back on Monday for another super week in our wonderful school.