Excitement is mounting as we prepare to open the new pre-school in January 2009!

The setting will provide for children aged 2 to 3, giving them an excellent preparation for entering the Nursery when they are old enough.

Pre-school Managers Nicola Mutch & Patricia Scotcher have been working amazingly hard to get everything ready and the last few final touches are being put into place. The room has been completely refurbished and a new entrance is in the process of being installed, hopefully before Christmas.

The setting will offer truly outstanding quality care for children - with a fantastic opportunity to work in close, direct partnership with our own, highly-regarded Nursery & Foundation Stage. All together, this means that Fairlands will be offering some of the best quality early years provision in Stevenage.

Nicky & Tricia are holding an Open Evening on Wednesday 17th December to welcome prospective parents to the pre-school. If your child will be 2 or older in January and you are interested in finding out more, please contact the school office for more details. Places are being snapped up very quickly, so don't delay! There is more information here.

 Welcome back to Fairlands! The new school year has started peacefully, if a little 'damply' thanks to all the terrible weather we are enjoying at the moment!

The teachers have been working very hard over the summer to get all the classrooms ready for the children - we are still continuing our major programme of refurbishment in the Lower Building, so there will be some movement between classrooms during the autumn term as the decorators make their way around the school. I am sure that Miss Verlander, our new Assistant Headteacher, will manage the proceedings expertly to minimise disruption to the children!

Our SEAL theme this term is 'New Beginnings' - time to think about making a fresh start and the feelings that come with experiencing things for the first time. We will be focusing on this in assembly and the children will follow up this work back in their classrooms.

Fairlands' first Family Fun Day in many years was a resounding success on Sunday 13th July 2008. The weather was amazing and, despite being in 'competition' with several other events that were taking in place in Stevenage that day, the fayre was extremely well attended.

The final total raised by the event is an incredible £2000! Thank you so much to all the Friends of Fairlands members, each of whom worked so hard to make it all happen.

And thank you to the parents and children who came along - apprently, next year is going to be EVEN BIGGER AND EVEN BETTER!

“FAMILY FUN DAY”

SUNDAY 13TH JULY 2008 

 12PM – 3PM

The Friends of Fairlands are pleased to announce the return of their Summer Fayre and we are sure it’s going to be a very exciting event. It is one of the many Friends of Fairlands fund raisers and we hope that it will be well supported by parents/carers, teachers and the local community.  

We have a Grand Raffle and we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those who have generously donated prizes such as: A digital camera; £50.00 to spend at Chicago Rock café at the Stevenage Leisure Park; Bowling for four at Hollywood Bowl; a day at Diggerland, Kent; manicures; beauty treatments; meals and many many more. Tickets cost 20p each or a book of 5 for £1.00, tickets will be on sale on the day.   

A Car Boot Sale will also be there on the day. Pitches are £5 - please book by calling our office number. Spaces are limited but some maybe available on the day.  

We have many exciting stalls: Tombola, Adult Bottle Tombola, Bouncy Castles, Cake Stall, Temporary Tattoos, Scrap-booking, Jewellery and Virgin Vie so far!

The Scout Train will be there to take you on rides.

Shepreth Wildlife Centre are bringing reptiles and insects for you to meet.

We also have lots of fun kids stalls and activities to keep them occupied throughout. 

Refreshments will be available: a B.B.Q selling hotdogs, burgers and vegetarian option as well as cakes, crisps, tea, coffee and soft drinks.

Also, in the Main Arena, some of our school children will be taking part in various presentations including a gymnastics display, football skills, dancing, singing and many other activities.  

Wood Green Animal Shelter are performing Dog Agility Show, and afterwards there will be an opportunity for you to meet some of the stars!

In order for this event to be a great success we need your help. Please support us on the day and bring family and friends. We also need items for our tombola, cakes for the cake stall (these will need to be brought in on the morning) filled glass jars (closed packet of sweets, pens, pencils, little toys, etc) for the jar tombola and empty shoe boxes for the fruit tombola.

If you would like to have your own stall, please contact the office to book. Stalls are £5.00 per table.

If you can help on the day, by running a stall for us (even if it’s for half and hour) please let a member of the Friends of Fairlands committee know, see website link for committee members.

We look forward to seeing you on the day!     

The full Ofsted Report was published to parents today, on the 14th March 2008.

We are really proud of what it says about our school. Essentially, the overall judgement of 'satisfactory with good features' confirms that we are getting the basics right, excelling in some areas, and that the school is set to go from strength to strength over the next few years. Indeed, in my conversations with the lead inspector during the Ofsted, she said that when Ofsted return in three years time, she was confident that they would see a 'good' school with outstanding features - it is just going to take a little more time to get there!

Here are some highlights:

SO... WELL DONE, FAIRLANDS!!

I would also like to thank all of the parents that wrote in to express their views to the Ofsted inspectors. The lead inspector shared with me that she had the most replies to the survey that she has EVER had at a primary school of our size! AND you only had ONE day to respond because of the fire - amazing! 99% of the responses were extremely positive and this overwhelming support from parents was a key indicator of how well we are doing! THANK YOU!

There are, of course, things in the report that we still need to work on. But please rest assured - we are onto it!

Ofsted came and went on Wednesday 27th - Thursday 28th February this week!

Despite the challenging circumstances we were facing, we sailed through with a very positive outcome. The full report will be available to read around the 17th March, when we will be able to celebrate with you in more detail just how well we have done.

Until then, I would like to say an enormous well done and thank you to all the staff and children for showing what strong stuff they are all made of - it has been a truly inspirational week.

Special thanks go to the Year 3/4 team - not many teachers have set up, planned for and delivered such high quality teaching & learning to a class of 73 within 24 hours! And the children have been fantastic as well!

Also special thanks to Mr Horner - he has been an absolute rock throughout the whole thing: the first one there, the last one to go home, dealing with all the cleaners and contractors to get the school back open at lightning speed. I personally could not have survived this week without him!