Junior Reflections Week 27 April 2025

Dear parents,

It’s been a pleasure to see so many of you at the gate this week and, of course, to welcome your children back for the start of the summer term. A warm welcome to our new pupils and families as well and I hope that your first week with us has been an enjoyable one. It was also wonderful to see so many lower school parents for coffee this morning, and I look forward to meeting the upper school parents next week.

Our school grounds are looking fantastic; thanks to the hard work of our wonderful estates team, who were busy over the holidays making sure everything was looking its best. A huge thank you to them for ensuring such a great start to the term.

Fire drill

We also carried out our termly fire drill this week to ensure all pupils are confident with the procedures. As always, our pupils behaved impeccably, quietly and quickly exiting the building. Well done to everyone.

New staff

We’re delighted to welcome Mrs Louise Stevens to the team as our new learning support teacher. She’s already made a fantastic start getting to know the pupils and learning the ropes of the junior school—welcome, Mrs Stevens!

Charity collection

We also welcomed in Sian from The Hygiene Bank this week, one of our chosen charities, on Thursday to collect all of last term’s donations. Helpers from Lower Two helped squeeze everything into Sian’s car and we apparently collected a whopping 140kg of donations. Thank you all for your generosity; these small donations make such a massive difference to families in our local community.

Staff departures

Many of you may have read in Ms Simpson’s end of term newsletter that sadly Mrs Katie Jones has made the decision to step away from the classroom and will be leaving us at the end of this academic year. Mrs Jones has been a part of the junior school for nearly 20 years and has had a huge impact on so many pupils both in and out of the classroom, although I have a feeling she will be back. We are also saying goodbye to my wonderful and ever-patient PA, Mrs Corten, who will also be retiring at the end of the year to enjoy the next exciting chapter of her life. Both will be greatly missed and have been a huge part of our school community. We will of course make sure they have a proper send off at the end of term and I will update you in due course once their successors have been appointed.

With the sunshine set to continue over the weekend, I hope you’re able to enjoy it—and fingers crossed it sticks around next week too!