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Term Three, Week Two
We came back to school still excited about being the 2nd highest achieving school in Gloucestershire. As such we can be bold in our claims that we know what we are doing and we work hard to secure success for every child in our school.
The INSET day was about creating positive classrooms, wherein each child can feel safe (safe enough to risk making the mistakes that are an integral part of the learning process) and supported at school. Managing stress, including stree for the staff was also deemed a useful part of the day. Sadly I missed the day due to illness – a prolonged cold that wouldn’t shift over the Christmas break. I did, however, catch up on those jobs I wrote about last time. Let’s hope the term does not become too stressful!
On Friday I closed the school in response to the bad weather. This is never an easy decision (and indeed last year it was not necessary to do so) but taking advice from 3 contacts within the village, the Local Authority and the forecasters, I concluded that it would be better to close than to open. Arrival at school for our far-flung staff was not guaranteed, but of greater concern was the journey home after the worst of the blizzard was due to hit. Other factors included the closure of KLB (meaning that a large number of our families were already finding solutions to childcare issues) and the closure of the school where the pupil means are cooked.
In order to take advice and start the emergency closure ‘telephone tree’ I made 23 phone calls in the space of half-an-hour, including alerting the LA, and I was impressed with the speed with which the official site included the update to our status. It took a lot longer to update our own site – so many visitors that I couldn’t log on to edit the page! (The school site is very popular at the moment – 12 visitors were logged visiting the site on Christmas day!)
I did, however, manage to make available on line a host of snow-based ‘fun’ activities with the potential for family learning, which perhaps you looked at as you considered how best to spend your day. It would be nice to see some photos. Here is a video of me on a sledge from January 2010. Do you have something similar? However you spent the time, I hope you stayed warm and had fun.
On Friday I closed the school in response to the bad weather. This is never an easy decision (and indeed last year it was not necessary to do so) but taking advice from 3 contacts within the village, the Local Authority and the forecasters, I concluded that it would be better to close than to open. Arrival at school for our far-flung staff was not guaranteed, but of greater concern was the journey home after the worst of the blizzard was due to hit. Other factors included the closure of KLB (meaning that a large number of our families were already finding solutions to childcare issues) and the closure of the school where the pupil means are cooked.
In order to take advice and start the emergency closure ‘telephone tree’ I made 23 phone calls in the space of half-an-hour, including alerting the LA, and I was impressed with the speed with which the official site included the update to our status. It took a lot longer to update our own site – so many visitors that I couldn’t log on to edit the page! (The school site is very popular at the moment – 12 visitors were logged visiting the site on Christmas day!)
I did, however, manage to make available on line a host of snow-based ‘fun’ activities with the potential for family learning, which perhaps you looked at as you considered how best to spend your day. It would be nice to see some photos. Here is a video of me on a sledge from January 2010. Do you have something similar? However you spent the time, I hope you stayed warm and had fun.
