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

Dear Parents, Children and Friends,

By the time that you are reading this, you will probably have been to what has been shaping up to be a great Christmas Fair. The preparations have been thorough, the air of excitement has been building, small children have been demanding money to buy things and the Headmaster has been hoping he may be as lucky on the Wine Tombola as he was in the summer. Thank you to everyone who has donated something, made something, volunteered to help in some way, shape or form. Your generosity has been very much appreciated.

Also, I would like to say thank-you on behalf of all those less fortunate children who are going to receive the shoe-boxes which you filled with gifts. The boxes were collected on Monday to begin the long trek to their destination. Having listened to their chats and seen, first-hand the results, I was so impressed by the enthusiasm of the children in providing presents for poor children. Nearly one hundred and thirty boxes are rattling along a road to Romania or maybe zooming over the ocean to somewhere in Africa, Asia or South America. Sometimes we forget just how lucky we are.

The end of term is now scarily close, just two weeks away and Christmas itself just over three weeks. There is so much to fit into those days. And those evenings! Next week we have the Sports Teams’ Dinner to be followed by the Lincoln Christmas Market. I am praying that the traffic on Thursday and Friday is efficiently managed by the powers-that-be so that parents and children do not end up trapped in jams. All I can do in our circumstances is hope that the Market is memorable for the pleasure it gives rather than the frustration it inflicts.

One of the pleasures of being a Headmaster is listening to choir practices as they run through the carols and another is seeing the Early Years contingent rehearsing their Nativity play. Mrs Ogley and her team have been working with the children so wonderfully, so patiently. The mince pies have been ordered, the cake, the mulled wine but it is the excitement of those children, the youngest in the school, that is so delightful to experience. I am sure that you are looking forward just as much as I am to the Nativity play and the Carol Service. These events are all central to our school and our ethos, not just good fun.
That ethos is one of the key things that makes us stand out from the host of schools in the county. I have been really pleased by the response of the children to my requests that they try to think of good manners at all times. One instance is since I remarked that it was not polite to walk between two people having a conversation, no-one over the age of six has walked between me and another person when we have been chatting. This is a great school with lovely children and it’s not just my opinion either. I was showing round a prospective parent with her children and in the course of the tour both children said, quite unprompted, that this was a nice school and they would like to come here. They could pick up on the special atmosphere that is St. Mary’s.

Our musicians will be playing a major part in the Carol Service, so it would be super to see lots and lots of our Year 3 children joining the scheme promoted by Mr and Mrs Nowell where children learn an instrument free for a term. Previously unsuspected talents are often discovered during that term, sparking a life-long pleasure. Aren’t you jealous of those people who can just walk into the room, sit down at a piano and start playing Bach or boogie-woogie? They had to start somewhere, didn’t they?

Don’t forget that you can sign up for The Electronic Messenger instead of the paper version. The online version is wonderful and so practical! It will never be found as a crumpled ball in someone’s rucksack, it will never emerge from behind the freezer after three months of captivity, it will never clutter up the door pocket of your car; instead it is sitting all neat and tidy in your computer, always crisp, always ready. The only disadvantage of the electronic version is you can’t light the fire with it.

Andy Salmond Smith