Executive Headteacher Blog
Always achieving our potential
Welcome back after our first half term of school, I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday.
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We started the new school year by welcoming several new staff to our School. Miss Ratcliffe is now teaching in Whales, alongside various new members of support staff that have started with us in September, some of whom are apprentices. We have had three Teachers returning from maternity cover, Mrs Bailey, Miss McDuffus and Miss Farnley. As well as these changes in staff in School, we have had many areas painted and carpeted, to ensure that our learning environments remain purposeful and robust.
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We have also had more communication boards and display boards, which have been pre-created. This ensures that information is key and up to date but also supports our staff workload, as they no longer need to be continually backing and replacing the learning boards around school.
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As usual, the first Autumn term has been very busy, with lots of events happening across school, highlights being the Annual Harvest Festival Service at St Mary’s Church, the McMillian Coffee morning, Ashby Fair, Carnival Day for Black History Month and Science week. In addition to this, each class has hosted a ‘stay and play’ or ‘stay and learn’ for every parent/carer. We have also held parent forums on Read Write Inc and Assistive Technology
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Another improvement we have made this year, directly as a result from stakeholder feedback, is to the running of our parent/carer lunches. Previously we have held three of these per year, however as our numbers have risen this has become more problematic. So, this year, every Wednesday (which is our school roast day) there is a ‘class parent lunch day’. This means that each class over the year has three lunch opportunities for you to share lunch with your child, where the parent/carers are invited to attend lunch with your child/class.
Just before half term we held parent’s evening and it was lovely to see so many of you attend and have the opportunity to peruse your child’s books and get an insight into the learning and progress that takes place at Fountains Primary School.
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This year, we have continued with the termly extended day until 530pm. This is to ensure that our pupils who live further away have an opportunity to attend an after school event. We are also looking forward to a jam-packed second half of the Autumn term with a Christingle Service at St Mary’s Church, a visit to Derby Live Theatre to watch ‘Dick Whittington’, the Christmas Fayre and our annual Christmas production all still to look forward to!
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Finally, A Kind Reminder to all of our parents, carers and school community: Please do not park in front of the gates before 2:30 p.m. Doing so can cause a build-up of traffic and may prevent other parents, who need to collect their children for appointments or medical emergencies, from accessing the school building. If you are planning to pick up your child because of this reason, please let us know. Alternatively, if you need to pick up your child regularly at this time please arrange to speak to Mrs Kobylanski about this.
Please also remember that our school site must remain secure before 2:30 p.m. as we have pupils moving around the premises. This includes pupils returning from afternoon school trips, pupils walking back to classrooms after swimming, and pupils moving to and from Penguins Class when accessing the main building. Additionally, we ensure that a member of staff is outside from 2:30 p.m. onwards, as adults entering the site during this time will not have undergone DBS checks. Thank you for your understanding and continued cooperation.
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Mrs Price
Executive Headteacher​