Friday 12th January 2024
Happy New Year!
A massive Happy New Year to all our families. We hope that you all enjoyed the festive break and enjoyed creating memories together. We have enjoyed hearing about the children’s adventures, and they also had some fascinating new year resolutions - quite a few of them have apparently promised their parents that they will keep their bedrooms tidy!
On Monday, we sadly had to share the news that Margo (our beloved school guinea pig) had died on the last day of the autumn term. Margo suddenly became unwell and rapidly deteriorated, Miss Raphael (our very own guinea pig whisperer) advised that we take her to the vets so Mr Weston and Mrs Carpenter were on hand to do just that. Unfortunately, the vet advised that Margo was too ill to survive. Over the years, Margo has given our children (and staff) so much joy. She has supported children when they are feeling sad, and always delighted our visitors. Many of our year six children have left Olive Hill with a degree in guinea pig care due to how much time they have spent with Margo. We have often been informed by a number of parents that it is thanks to our guinea pigs that they also now have some at home! Margo will be greatly missed. Miss Lee, who used to look after Margo and Oreo over the weekends, was very concerned about Oreo feeling lonely without her best friend. Oreo is now with Miss Raphael’s guinea pigs (Willow and Treacle) and has taken up residency in Pear Class. The corridor outside my office is very quiet without the squeak of guinea pigs, so Miss Walters is now looking for new additions to our school.
As expected, our children have returned from the Christmas break beautifully. We are very fortunate to have such a lovely, calm school full of wonderful children. The children have been very excited to learn about the content of their new learning experiences (parents, your children should have handed you a booklet today with information regarding the learning that will take place over this term). The Gingerbread Man has been a popular feature of the reception environment this week, and year one have been spending lots of time outdoors looking at trees. Year five have been building miniature dens from natural materials, and year four haven’t stopped talking about Harry Potter. We can’t wait to see what new learning takes place next week.
The weather certainly turned colder at the beginning of the week, and a small flurry of snow was spotted. Unfortunately, not only was it cold outside, we also experienced a problem with the heating in our top corridor and due to this being a common problem in schools following the Christmas break, we did have to wait a few days for a heating engineer. Not wanting the children to be cold, we made arrangements for the children to move to warmer parts of the school building and they coped with this exceptionally well. As year six relocated to the large hall, it meant reception eating in their classrooms and we are so proud of how they adapted to this. The heating is now fixed, and all children have returned to their classrooms.
Wishing everyone a lovely weekend, and see you Monday.