Good afternoon,

What a performance! And, in the words of the immortal Abba;

Tonight, the Super Trouper beams are gonna blind me

But I won’t feel blue

Like I always do’

Cause somewhere in the crowd there’s you

And the crowd we had last night was massive. The playground was filled and as Amarillo began echoing around the playground and all the St Stephen’s alumni joined me on the stage, I couldn’t help but feel so proud of our school community. So here you have a video of our very own end of production Amarillo with some rather large alumni proving you are never too old for a march though Cher nearly falls on Fernando – enjoy!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_AZvHYe4RqI&feature=share

What a year!

There have been so many highlights this year be it on the sports field, stage or classroom. My Friday Night Round Ups seem to be getting longer with recollections of sporting achievement, trips, visitors to the school etc. Our SATs results for Year 2 and Year 6 have been phenomenal! One highlight from our current Year 6 is that 80% of the children were exceeding (this means they were above the National Level of where children are expected to be) in Reading – in a year where nationally levels dipped across the board, ours rose – and our Phonics results for Year 1 were equally impressive.

As we begin to plan for the Autumn Term, there are two areas I would really like to focus on and they are being as ‘green’ as possible and celebrating our whole school community. You will hopefully have seen Mrs Jeffrey’s email announcing that we have been awarded the Eco Schools Green Flag, which is fantastic! If you would like to be part of a school ‘green team’ then please email Mrs Jeffrey e.jeffrey@ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk . On another positive green note, Miss Joahill has found a company that will collect our food waste each day and turn it into an energy source! More details to follow.

The Autumn Term will see new parents climbing on board the St Stephen’s Community Bus, so it will be great to focus on our community and really welcome them into our school. We will have our usual meet and greet sessions, the Family Supper and we are also planning on running a series of workshops for both the children and parents. Kat Francois, performance artist and writer, creative wellbeing coach, education consultant RHE/ ARTs, corporate creative artist https://www.katfrancois.com/ who has been working with our school for a number of years, will deliver a series of age appropriate workshops for the children and for parents on celebrating the diversity in our school and how we can support each other in our school’s next steps.

Please note that you will be receiving your child’s school report later today and I just wanted this opportunity to say a massive thank you to all the staff for all their hard work this year especially for the last three nights – I may never play Mamma Mia in the staffroom again!

Could I please also ask you to complete a parent questionnaire that will be emailed to you shortly – your feedback is important to us and will be incorporated wherever possible, into our planning for the coming year.

Once again thank you for all your support and sharing your amazing children with us. We are such a strong community who really do work together, with the common goal of making our children’s education as good as it can be!

Yours sincerely,

Mr Schumm