Reaching high for the best for your child

As part of our Kindness focus for Values Education, we are celebrating Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) Week! We will be taking part in Kindness activities in class, blogging about them each day and having a special RAK Sharing Assembly on Friday. 

Our most inspirational story of kindness will be submitted to the RAK website and, hopefully, will be published there!

Here's the personal challenge: Can YOU do a random act of kindness every day this week?

MP Stephen McPartland recently visited the school and met with myself and Keith Smith, Chair of Governors, to discuss the traffic congestion in Pound Avenue. It was good to have the MP listen to the issues and we were able to talk through different strategies to improve the situation. 

Ultimately, we agreed that it is a handful of parents who regularly park on the zig-zag lines who are causing the biggest problem and our focus needs to be on encouraging them to change their behaviour.

MP McPartland agreed to speak personally to the Chief Superintendent to explore the possibility of a greater police enforcement in the area. We also noticed that the road markings were quite worn, and hey presto! by the next morning MP McPartland had organised for them to be repainted!

We have just introduced a new approach to developing the spiritual, moral, social and cultural education of the children at Fairlands. It is called 'Values Education' and builds on the previous work we did using SEAL (Social & Emotional Aspects of Learning).

Please watch the video below to find out what it is all about! The first Value we are going to be thinking about in January is POLITENESS!

Look out for more information each week on our blogs and on homework flyers. 

Welcome back to a brand new year at Fairlands!

It was lovely to see so many parents, carers and families coming in to the school to attend all our Christmas events. Several parents took me aside to tell me how impressed they were with the school and the hard work of all the staff.

We are always striving to make our school better than ever - why not take a look at our AIMS for the school over 2014?

We had our wonderful Christmas Celebration Assembly today! Each year group presented a special Christmas song, poem or dance and then Mr Staples read us a story - 'The Christmas Show'. It was all about a little boy who wasn't good at anything, but turned out to be the star of the Christmas production. Then, Year 6 made the circle of candlelight around us, to remind us that Christmas is a time when we enjoy the light of family, friends and loved ones. 

Then we finished our assembly with a bit of a Christmas boogie to Shakin' Stevens, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree! Merry Christmas everyone!

We had a wonderful visit to the pantomime today! Over 450 of us - everybody in Reception to Year 6 - walked sensibly through the town, singing Christmas carols as we went. We arrived safely at the Gordon Craig and filled the whole auditorium to watch a spellbinding performance of Cinderella, complete with whizzing fireworks, flying horses and spectacular wedding scenes! The two panto dames even took a shine to Mr Dickinson and made him feel very special! It was a great production, so if you can get hold of tickets and go along, it is highly recommended.  

Thank you to all the parents for contributing to the cost of this fantastic event - the best bit was watching the children's faces as they were captivated by the magic of the show - I am sure they have come home full of excitement to tell you about it! The manageress of the Gordon Craig also made a special comment, saying how impressed she was with the children & helpers at Fairlands. Well done, everybody!