I am currently sitting on a coach on the way to Stratford-upon-Avon with the Y6 to see A Christmas Carol. Part of the reason we are doing this, stems from the fact that a few years ago, we decided to ensure that all our children got to read some ‘classic’ stories as well as all the David Walliams that they seem to exist on. A Christmas Carol (sometimes known as Scrooge) is the ‘easiest’ piece by Charles Dickens (written in 1843) as it is pretty short – most of them are about 800 pages! The other great thing about this book is that there are plenty of films (even a Muppet film) based on the book and it is often on stage. Most secondary school children study this book as part of their curriculum. The fact that we are going to the best theatre in the world to see it – the Royal Shakespeare Company – makes it a double winner… and the fact that we are also going to the church where William Shakespeare is buried, makes it a triple winner for these children😊. Our view is that our children deserve to experience the very best that is out there – we are paying £10 for seats that cost over £50, which makes it even better.

On our Inset Day, we decorated the school for the children to come into on 1^st December. Staff put a huge amount of effort into this and I know it is adored by children. Teachers and LSAs are very clever in their designs; my room has been turned into the stable that Mary and Joseph stayed in (thank you Mrs Noble.) On our Inset Day, we had a visit from Dr Simon Within, who is CEO of Venn Academy Trust (we have been working with them on finance and on Health and Safety). He said to us that if he could, he would take our school and make all of his schools like ours – that is such a compliment. He meant the fantastic relationship we have with the school community, the brilliant way in which the staff work as a team and the way in which we are all about the children. When you work at a school like ours, you can forget that not all schools are anything like that!

I spoke with Sean Gibbons from Food Aware last night about how we, as a school, could support our local community through food donations. We all know that some people are suffering very badly at the moment – struggling to choose between heating and eating quite often. He told me that ideally, he would like to see festive goodies – chocolates, selection boxes, biscuits, chocolate oranges, after eights etc. He spoke again about tinned ham and tinned corned beef – anything like that. I asked him about pet food as well (a parent suggested it) and he said that would be great. There are some heartless people out there (some in Parliament ☹) who suggest that ‘poor people’ can get by on 37p a meal – but it seems completely wrong to me that children should have a Christmas without any treats.

I will dojo more about this, but when we are doing our weekly shops this weekend, perhaps parents could pop something in for the    collection.

We want everyone to have a merry Christmas if they can – we are not Scrooges!