I hope all families had a festive period full of family time and golden moments. It is lovely to see our pupils back in school and energised for the term ahead. In particular, many pupils have come back sharing their new reading books. Ed Gregory – Director of Education for Bath and Wells Diocese – recently wrote:
“Over Christmas, the Waterstones Children’s Laureate, author Frank Cottrell-Boyce, spoke of the importance of reading and story, especially in the first 1000 days. He spoke of reading as ‘the apparatus of happiness’. Across our schools, at all ages, we know how important reading is as a skill for life. Thank you for also promoting reading, love of story, as ‘the apparatus of happiness’.
Cottrell-Boyce notices how sharing stories together is deeply ingrained in human culture and is significant to our wellbeing. He quoted recent studies of brain activity that showed how, when sharing a story together, an adult and child’s brain activity aligned. How often when reading or sharing a story with an individual, a class, in collective worship or at a theatre do we notice our shared focus, absorption and engagement? Taking time to go beyond the text, to bring a story to life, together, is a wonderful skill to have, to model and to share.“
It is a very positive reflection that so many our Thurlbear pupils exhibit these positive traits both at home and in school.
A new calendar year brings with it the spark of expectation for many of us; the seeds of new ideas and aims for the year ahead. As adults, we have many ‘years’ to juggle: calendar, financial and academic years all have separate start and finishing months! So, even though we are moving to half way through our school year, we can still focus on the year ahead with a renewed focus and vision.
And this year, Thurlbear School will look to:
In the dictionary, to ‘thrive‘ is to:
“grow strongly and vigorously. To prosper, flourish“
and all this year, our plans and actions will be driven by the idea of thriving at Thurlbear. This encompasses pupils, all staff, governors, families, PTA and our wider community links such as the church and other proactive groups.
How can we all work together so we thrive in ’25?
Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing with families some of our ideas for the year ahead, and what impact you should see around school, in our processes and in our children themselves! One strand is:
THRIVE OUTSIDE IN ’25 !
In 2025, we will be looking to our outdoor environment more than ever before (in my time as Head) to enrich our week-to-week learning opportunities in school and our beautiful, local surroundings. Stay tuned!
Our Values Team also mentioned more opportunities in the curriculum for practical learning such as cooking. Therefore, in direct response, we are using our dress-down money to install a brand new oven in our kitchen, growing our capacity way beyond our current, tiny portable oven!
Every class will be publishing their own class correspondence for this half term, detailing the curriculum focus, specific information for classes, as well as any important dates. Please check Dojo / Tapestry for these documents.
Our After School Clubs start next week and we are excited to welcome back Mr Prisk and Mrs Powell for football and choir, respectively. ALL Mr Gunstone clubs are now online, so please navigate via SchoolGateway and make payments. I am very happy to see we have Sports leaders from Bishop Fox’s returning to help in the sessions. It reflects how our former pupils continue to thrive in school life after Thurlbear and fully realises our vision of “Train up a Child”.
Key dates:
Monday 13th: Year 1 Toy Workshop
Wednesday 15th: Boys’ County Football Final
Thursday 16th: Girls County Football Final
Friday: Year 6 celebration Worship
Friday: Year 4 cake sale
On Monday, we will publish key dates up to Easter.
Opportunity in the Comunity!
