Straight from the Head 11.7.25

Date: 11th Jul 2025 @ 5:32pm

With only 8 school days left of this academic year, there is still so much going on.  We all know that the school week doesn’t slow down in any establishment across the country. Here at Thurlbear, just this week, we have had:

  • 3 BRILLIANT Year 6 performances of “The Pirates of the Curry Bean”.
  • A regional rounders final attended by our Year 5 team of Winnie, Luca, Oscar, Rowan, Frankie, Sienna, May, Phoebe C, Myla, Ewan, Molly and Seb!
  • 2 stay and play sessions with our new September pupils.
  • Pupil Progress Meetings between Senior Leadership and our class teachers, talking about the progress of every child at Thurlbear and their transition into the next class.
  • An excellent Governors’ meeting focusing on the educational standards of our school.
  • Some support staff attended first-aid training, ensuring our effective number of pediatric-first-aid-trained staff are maintained.
  • Brilliant guitar tuition with Mr Snowden.
  • Year 4 swimming in a great session.
  • Year 2 travelling to Lyme Regis – thrive outside in action!
  • Foundation Stage Celebration Worship.

 

Next week is also packed with activities:

  • Year 6 Bikeability Monday to Thursday;
  • Mr Gillan meeting the Local Authority and regional Ofsted Leaders to discuss educational change and standards.
  • Governing Body Meeting.
  • School Distinctiveness Meeting (governors and teachers) to discuss ways to improve as a church school.
  • Somerset Music visit.
  • Sports Celebration Worship.

 

In other school news, now our website is fully functional and growing successfully via School Spider, it would be good to get your opinions as to what else you would like to see on there that we (or I) can build over the Summer break. I have added a page with school holiday dates https://www.thurlbear.somerset.sch.uk/page/holiday-dates/159642 and we can keep these updated for families.
If you have any ideas, feel free to message me.

 

SAFEGUARDING UPDATE:

Our pupils have been brilliant over the past school week, wearing hats when asked, putting on their suncream and seeking shade when asked. Today – Friday – has been one of the hottest days I have experienced at Thurlbear. We took steps to keep pupils off the open field at lunch and in the shade, and all pupils reacted very positively to this and understood the measures we took.

As we near the holidays, and as mentioned in my Dojo post, all families can reach me via Dojo Chat messages or on my email address steve.gillan@thurlbearprimaryschool.co.uk during the summer break. As I am Designated Safeguarding Lead, I am tasked by the local Authority to make myself available to families.

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This calendar year, we have looked at our school improvement through the lens of THRIVE IN ’25. Our aim was to drive some improvements around our school With one term of that year to go, I am delighted that we have been able to make some positive steps forward for our school;

  • Through your PTA, and due your fantastic contributions to cake sales, fairs, Dress Down days, impromptu frozen Fridays (£286 for example!), raffles and discos, we have been handed a cheque for £6,000 today from Mrs Taylor PTA Chair. This wonderful amount of money will go directly into the classrooms of your children via a £500 boost to each year group, for teachers to spend on curriculum enrichment of their professional choice.
  • The remaining funds will contribute to our Summer Works! I am delighted to announce that our ‘quiet area’ will be renovated in the holidays, and we should return to an extended playground, with astroturf covering that will be invaluable to us in the winter months when we lose the use of our field at lunch. This area will also be developed into an area of spiritual reflection and will host our Maddi memorial along with sensory planting (over time) that will encourage pollinators and new life.
  • THRIVE OUTSIDE is also on our agenda and the soil from the quiet area development will move to our mound, potentially creating a new space that we can incorporate in outdoor education from next term. I am meeting our Values Team next week to discuss their ideas on this and what we could actually make down in our ‘wilder corner’.
  • I am also thrilled to announce we are purchasing 30 new chromebooks, allowing all pupils to fully access our computing curriculum and beyond for years to come.
  • We have also invested in our wifi, securing effective access for learners and teachers across the school site for the next 10 years. Expensive, but vital and already proving far more reliable.
  • Around school, we have had new flooring in our main hall block and all rooms have been painted.
  • Mr Taylor has done a brilliant job painting our Elliott huts (Y1 and 2) and fixing our sheds so they have a new lease of life and saving us hundreds if we had to purchase new.
  • THRIVE INSIDE and OUTSIDE will be taken to a whole new level, next term, as I am very excited to announce that we will be going for the Space Education Quality Mark in 25/26 and we are planning an incredible event in the next term…top secret at the moment!

 

A huge thanks to all families connected to our school as we move forward with new ideas, striving to improve our current pedagogy and approach to being the best church school we can be. We continue to Train Up our children, and we always look to better ourselves, too.