I’m really pleased that next week we will be having our first Open Day for several years. All of our staff work incredibly hard to ensure that your children get a great educational experience when they come to school and I want you to be able to see that in action.

The school will be open for parents, grandparents and others who have an interest in our school to come and visit us whilst we are working and to observe and perhaps to join in with some lessons. The idea behind this is for you to be able to see at first-hand what your children experience in a fairly typical school day. As well as being of interest this will enable you to support your children’s learning when at home. Obviously, with the school open to parents, the day will be far from normal but teachers are going to do their best to stick to the usual timetable and routines.

With the school being potentially very busy it is important to have some ground rules to ensure everybody’s well-being and that the day runs smoothly:

• Parents are welcome from 9.00 am to 12.00 noon and 1.30 to 3.30pm (lunchtime  can be very busy at the best of times).
• Remember that if everyone comes at 9.00 or last thing in the afternoon the classes will be very busy.
• Please be sensitive about the number of parents in class at any one time, more than 4 or 5 at once may affect the smooth running of the lesson and in this situation it may be an idea to wait or to visit another classroom.
• Please feel free to visit the whole school, not just your child’s present class.
• If children are getting changed for PE please leave the classroom and meet the class in the hall or on the yard.
• Remember that the day is for you to find out how the school runs on a typical day, teachers have been told not to stop teaching when you walk in; there will not be time to talk about individual children.

I am sure that you will see a great deal of fantastic work going on when you visit, this is a wonderful school where everyone works really hard – all the children and all the staff, and we are all very proud of what we do.

There will be a visitors’ book near the entrance to school for you to let us know how you think the day has gone and what you think about what you have seen.