Welcome back to school everyone! How lovely it is to see so many happy faces starting school this week. I hope that you have all had a lovely summer break. The children have come back amazingly well and seem full of energy and positivity for the year ahead.

In this day and age, a lot of people wonder why we still even go to school when everything has become readily available to us at the click of a button. Need to know when man first landed on the moon? Google it. Want music? Go on YouTube. Need to know what’s 67 percent of 110? We have calculators on our phones for that.

Yet, although we have all this information at our fingertips, Aston Rowant School is about so much more than mastering equations or memorizing dates. Not only is the learning we do in the classroom still fundamentally different than a few rushed minutes in front of a small screen, a huge – and I’d argue the best – part of our school life is the personal connections our children make with each other and with our adults in school. We offer a small nurturing environment where children can feel confident and learn in a safe and friendly environment both inside and outside the classroom.

It has been a very busy summer at school with the arranging of our new playground markings and organising the classrooms. Teachers and support staff were in a great deal over the holidays to ensure the classrooms and our wonderful outdoor areas are ready for learning. As you can see from the photographs below they have done a sterling job!

We have welcomed two new teachers this term. Mrs Hall and Mrs Broadwith who will be working in Hedgehog Class with Year 1 and our Early Years children alongside Mrs Surman for the whole of this academic year. We also welcome Mrs Winspear who is teaching PE across the school and supporting in Hedgehog and Squirrel class. We are really lucky to have found three such experienced and talented teachers to join our team. Thank you to the children and parents for making them so welcome.

Hopefully your children will have come home and talked a little about our school values - Respect, Responsibility, Compassion and Wisdom. Our distinctively Christian ethos, in partnership with our local church and the wider community, confirms our provision for spirituality, reflection and mental well being. With such busy and hectic lifestyles today, it is important for us that we offer spaces for the children to stop and think, to ask big questions and wonder about the world around them. This culture of reflection, responsibility and consideration for others gives the children a self confidence when expressing their inner thoughts and feelings..

We had many successes last year - Our SATs results and pupil progress were outstanding. The children worked so hard and made us all very proud. Parental feedback from the children's reports and on our parent questionnaire was particularly positive - thank you!  We are so proud to achieve a silver award in Science which evidences our excellent teaching and learning in Science, Technology Engineering and Maths. We are thrilled to bits with this award and looking forward to the presentation ceremony in November.

Our Forest activities are now well embedded with the children learning so much more about the world around them in our beautiful outside areas with sensory spaces so the children can grow and learn.

As we look to the year ahead, we will be promoting writing so that we develop more of our writers to confidently showcase their work at a higher level, demonstrating that they have a deeper mastery of the subject.

To see our wonderful school in action, come to our open mornings. New parents looking for school places are welcome to visit every Friday morning in September from 9-10am. I am also taking bookings for 1:1 tours of the school if preferred.

For now....on with the important job of educating our children!