Reaching high for the best for your child

“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!

After an amazing day, the first phase of the clean-up operation has been finished and we have achieved our primary goal: to get all the children back to school, being educated, at the earliest opportunity!

Year 3/4 are going to live temporarily in their fantastic new classroom, in the Upper Hall! Mrs Studman, Mrs Trafford and Mr Tweeddell have worked tremendously hard, with loads of help from teaching assistants and parents, to get ready in time for tomorrow.They spent most of the morning planning an exciting sequence of lessons for the children, which, I understand, will culminate in writing a 'Recipe for a New Classroom'! Then in the afternoon, they worked with the team of cleaners to salvage what they could from the classrooms and get everything spick and span for tomorrow.

I have just had a meeting with the Health and Safety Team. They have formally signed off all the spaces that will be used by children as safe, so pleased rest assured that all safety measures have been implemented for the physical wellbeing of the children.

Of course, the children's emotional wellbeing is an equal priority for us. We will be having various assemblies which will help the children to deal with what is ultimately a very upsetting few days. Our Emotional Literacy Support Assistant will be working in with Year 3/4 for most of her timetable and I am already in touch with the School Counselling service, should individuals require support.

See you all tomorrow!

The whole school will be open for all children tomorrow after a mammoth clean up operation.

Work started on the Year 5 and 6 classrooms last night and the contractors have been working throughout Monday to get sections of the upper building properly cleaned to make them fit for use by the children.

We are planning that Year 5 & 6 will return to their own classrooms as usual, whilst Year 3/4 will use the Upper Hall and be taught all together for the remainder of the week. The Year 3/4 teachers are busy planning appropriate activites for this arrangement.

The Year 3/4 corridor is significantly damaged and will take longer time to get fully up and running. This section of the school will therefore be sealed off with safety hoardings. These arrangements have been agreed with the Hertfordshire Health & Safety Team.

We look forward to seeing the children tomorrow, back and ready for work! Believe it or not, Ofsted are coming on Wednesday and Thursday so we need to knuckle down and get ourselves the good report we deserve!

Click here for the official Herts County Council Press Release.

Sunday 24th February 2008 will go down in the history books of Fairlands as possibly one of the hardest days the school has ever been through. But it will also go down as one of the finest days in Fairlands' history - as it proved that everyone in our fantastic school will always pull together when faced with challenging times.

Events began around 5am this morning, when local neighbours spotted flames in the school and alerted the fire services. Deepest thanks go to these neighbours, for without their vigilance, the fire damage would have been much worse.

Mr Horner arrived at the school around 6am, to find the upper building filled with dark smoke. By the time I arrived, there were 6 large fire engines and many fire and police officers and the situation was already firmly under their control.

The main area that is seriously damaged is the end Year 4 class, but most of the upper building has experienced smoke damage and there is soot covering most surfaces. This is likely to take some time to clean up properly, but we are anticipating that we will be able to reopen some sections of the building over the course of next week.

Although the lower building is unaffected, the whole school will be closed tomorrow in order to allow time for us to put a critical incident management plan in place. I will be meeting with local authority officers in order to establish how long the clean-up operation will take but please rest assured that our first priority is to get the children back as soon as possible into a clean, safe learning environment.

I would like to say an enormous thank you to all the staff and parents who have been ready with offers of help, support and much needed cups of tea during the day! After a very long and upsetting day, my enduring feeling is a huge sense of pride that I am headteacher of such a wonderfully supportive school community.

I will keep you all informed of any developments as and when they arise.

Robert Staples, Headteacher