(The full version of St. Mary's Messenger can be found in the password-protected area of the website)

Dear Parents, Children and Friends,

I hope that the mini half-term did everyone some good and that you all managed to fit in some time as a family. The batteries may not be charged up to 100% but they should certainly be more than enough to see us all through to Easter.

The week that has just gone has been quite a busy one, especially for the Lower School, with the rehearsals for the Production beginning in earnest. This will be my first taste of a St. Mary’s Lower School show and I have been told by everyone that I can expect a fantastic show with highest standards all-round. I am very much looking forward to seeing the end result, which promises to be, as they say, an all-singing, all-dancing affair.

Our Open Days saw a lot of lot of visitors discover the delights of St. Mary’s. I think we should see a lot of those visits turn into new families, judging by the very positive comments we received from them all. I love showing people of all ages what a fine school we have, so it is heartening to know we have produced a lot of interest from prospective parents.

Jack Frost certainly had fun with us this week too. I have forgotten how icily beautiful frost can be when seen on spiders’ webs and trees or how atmospheric fog swirling round the cathedral is - though I certainly commiserate with all those who have had to thaw their cars in the morning and travel nose-to-tail in fog through the accursed morning traffic. Fortunately our sports fixtures were not cancelled so we had some very exciting matches against the Minster on Wednesday. The weather was bitterly cold for those mums and dads brave enough to venture out to cheer on the boys and girls. Anyone without gloves and hats probably lost the feeling in their extremities in about fifteen minutes! Well done to players, spectators and especially Mrs Kelly who was outside from 2.00 till 5.00! At the time of writing, I have not heard about how the Girls’ Cross- Country and Netball teams have fared at Queen Margaret’s, York. I can only hope they had lots of fun, tried their best and represented the school well. (Also that they felt warmer than we did on Wednesday afternoon…)

On Thursday we had a visit from Charlie the Magician who treated Years 4-6 to a very interesting show called The Magic Within, based on raising self-esteem and self-confidence. He gave everyone there a funny yet thought-provoking time that should have made all the children think about how they relate to themselves and to each other. Charlie’s visit is leading into a whole-school focus on these matters. In St. Mary’s the children learn from Day 1 about kindness, good behaviour, respecting one’s self and others but it does no harm to concentrate on this particular part of the school ethos every now and again. With that in mind, our aim is that we should recognise publicly those children who have made special efforts to be polite, kind and helpful. There will be new prizes awarded at the end of term prize-giving to acknowledge those contributions.

As a follow-up, at the start of next term there should be a week of activities where we all think of how we should live our lives and how we should conduct ourselves. A good bit of positive reinforcement never goes amiss, so after we have done all of this, the youngsters should feel more secure in themselves and about themselves. Watch this space for details!

As I have mentioned elsewhere, in a couple of weeks we are going to be able to let you know what the timetable for September 2008 will look like. Over the years the timetable has developed in some rather idiosyncratic ways and now is absolutely the time to make certain that we are bang up-to-date in what we are doing and that we are delivering the curriculum which the children of St. Mary’s need and that we are doing it efficiently and accurately for each of them. All the teachers and I are looking all the time for ways that we can continue to improve what is already a wonderful school. Any school that does not look for ways to progress will stagnate and that is not going to happen here at St. Mary’s. If you have any questions or feel uncertain about any of this, I’ll be more than happy to discuss things with you.  

Have a good weekend!

Andy Salmond Smith