Dear Parents and Carers

What a fun packed week this has been! One highlight was World Book Day when staff and children had great fun dressing up as characters from their favourite books. Thank you to parents for your support in putting so many imaginative costumes together. This all helps to add to the profile of reading, helping many children become immersed in the magic of the stories they became part of for the day. It is important that we capitalise on this enthusiasm in school and at home to maintain the momentum of reading for pleasure. The fun will be continued when we have a published children's poet, David Thompson, in school to start off a poetry week with a bang in the last week before Easter. This has been kindly funded by the PTA who ran the 'costume swap sale' leading up to World Book Day. This great idea not only saved lots of parents spending lots on brand new outfits, it also raised £77.50. From their earnings, PTA have also promised each class a pot of money to buy new books for their classroom book corner each term. Mrs Armstrong is looking into taking a select few enthusiastic readers on a short trip to help her choose some books from W H Smiths soon. 

Another highlight was the Mothers' Day Afternoon Tea which was very well attended. We hope you all enjoyed the food and a chance to have a chat with other mums. Thank you to our kitchen staff for preparing it all and Mrs Everett for doing so much towards the organisation. We hope all you mums have a lovely weekend and the children spoil you (as best they can!)

Apart from all this excitement, we have also had a busy week behind the scenes with our latest monitoring visit from Tony Hand (Vice CEO of Fierté) and Phil Bartholomew (science leader from Wilnecote Juniors). They came in on Tuesday and interviewed Mr Lloyd as our science leader then watched science lessons from EYFS to Y5/6 and finally talked to groups of children with their books about their science learning. They also investigated the area of Personal Development by observing playtime and talking to children and staff. The outcomes were really very positive in both science and personal development with some interesting suggestions of where we could go next to build on our successes. The full report included lots of detail but the following are a brief sample of the broader comments made about science and personal development:

• The Science Leader possesses an accurate view of the subject informed by monitoring, discussions with staff, consideration of research evidence and thoughtful reflection.

• Children conferenced reflected impressive understanding of the science topics currently and more recently covered

• There is a buzz in each classroom; children enthusiastically engage in science lessons and show a keen interest in the topics being studied.

• Manor Primary Academy is a happy school where children are cared for and beloved

• Overall, the children conferenced were open, eloquent and reflect the strong ethos of the school that percolates from the Headteacher downwards. It is a pleasure to spend time at Manor Primary Academy.

The children were, as it says above, impressive and eloquent in the way they spoke to our visitors, and we were very proud of them all.

Governors

You will have received an email recently with a letter about a parent governor vacancy. This is due to one of our current parent governors, Matthew Clarke, standing down from his role in the last few weeks. We would like to thank Mr Clarke for his support of the school over the years he spent as a governor which included being part of the team who worked on our conversion to academy status. Matthew was always conscientious in his work and thoughtful in his contributions to meetings. 

This has meant we have an opening for a new parent governor. We have had one parent come forward so far. If you are interested in the role please do pop in and let us know and we can explain the expectations of the role. If we do have a second nomination then we will run an election process.

We also have several vacancies on our governing board for co-opted governors. These are for people who are not parents but may wish to give something back to the community through this voluntary role or they may be from a local organisation or business... they just need to have the best interests of the school at heart. If you know of anyone who is not a parent but may be interested in this role please do ask them to get in touch.

One of our longest serving and most loved staff members is going to be leaving us in a couple of weeks' time at Easter. Mrs Cooper has worked at Manor Primary for over 23 years as a lunchtime supervisor and has become very much part of the fabric of the school. She must have helped feed several hundred children over that time and cleaned up hundreds of grazed knees. She is still busy starting crazes for French Skipping and Cat's Cradle, passing on those traditional playground games and skills. Mrs Cooper is retiring, but we will make sure we get her to come and visit occasionally. Do wish her the best for her retirement if you see her and thank her for all she has done for the children at Manor.