Two heads better than one?

Friday 13th, Red Nose Day was memorable for two reasons. Firstly it was our most successful charity fund raising event ever, beating our previous best by over 100%. The money is still being counted but we are already beyond the £500 mark. I am so proud of the pupils for the way in which they showed such commitment to the events, joined in the fun and yet managed to carry on with learning and behave so sensibly throughout the day. The second reason was our novel idea of allowing a child to be 'Head for the Day'. Pupils had to write letters explaining why they should be chosen; the competition was so hard to judge that we ended up with a head and a deputy. The two new appointments rang the bell, blew the whistle, inspected lessons, answered the phone, dealt with emails, telephoned the Westmorland Gazette and were photographed by the newspaper. We will certainly repeat this successful idea.

One other highlight of the week was the receipt of an Excellence in ICT award for the school website. This was announced at the Cumbria ICT Conference at Rheged. The website is providing more and more information for parents, helping them see the work of the school, offering a route for engagement and contribution and also providing a window on the school for prospective parents. he statistics also show that the website is being viewed right across the world.

In like a Lion

March arrived this week and today we have another light sprinkling of snow; there are some decidedly fed up lambs in the fields around. Much is happening in the school at the moment - we have lost one pupil with a family move to Grasmere and gained one so our numbers stay constant. We are getting ready for World Book day on Thursday and red Nose day the Friday of the following week. Our most exciting news is that the School has won an Excellence in ICT award for the best Cumbrian school website. Despite the huge amount of time the website takes up it is an essential part of our work and fulfills three main aims:

• It allows us to display and celebrate the work our children produce
• It allows us to share the work and life of the school with our parents and allows them to see more of what goes on.
• It acts as a showcase for future parents who may be choosing a school for their children. Our web statistics show that the site is being looked at all over the world and all over Britain. More often than not when parents enquire about places for their child, they have already done their 'homework' and looked at the school site.

The school is in a very positive frame of mind and all are working hard. A boy in Y1 brought me his writing book yesterday showing the improvement since September, it was breath taking and moved from two indecipherable squiggles to half a page of writing that could easily be read - those are the great moments!