Wednesday 15th December

I have not completed the blog for a few days, school has been incredibly busy and time has been short.  So really a quick summary of the events of the last couple of days.  Excitement is growing in the final run up to the Christmas holidays.  On Monday the performers were in the stages of last minute rehearsals for the play 'The heart of Christmas.'  Mrs. Pitt and I have spent the last two days looking at all the assessment data for the Autumn term and the spent the day yesterday talking to the Year Leaders about the data and the progress that all the children have made, and how we can support you even further over the next two terms.

Tuesday was spent in the hall with the Drama and Choir club children completing the dress, afternoon and evening performance to the children and the parents that attended.  They were fantastic and a real credit to the school.  I thoroughly enjoyed the last play where the children imitated the staff perfectly well, in fact too well.  I am now conscious of every move and mannerism that I make.

The rest of the week comprises of parties and the Church service.  Things to look forward to.

Mr. Rothwell

Wednesday 8th December

Another day, another Inspire Workshop.  This time it is the parents of the Year 3 Amber Maths group that have been invited into school to work with their children. The feedback forms are all really positive.  WE hold 36 workshops across the school every year in Literacy, Numeracy and ICT and we always have around 2/3 of the parents attend each workshop.  From the feedback it really seems to be beneficial to our community.

Year 6 have been to Aston Hall for the final visit and they all have said what a super trip it was and how worthwhile it was.  This is the second year of this trip taking place and both years the children have said how good it was, just cold.  Lots of follow up work to come.  We have just changed our entrance hall displays from writing around school to how we use ICT in school.  Some fabulous results.  Pop into school and see the quality of work on show.  It really does reflect the standards we are trying to reach.

The school Christmas play....

Write more when I try and get a sneaky read of the script.  Sarcastic, me???? I refute those claims Danny!
Mr. Rothwell

Tuesday 7th December

Today started off bitterly cold.  -9 when scraping the car, but at least we were nowhere near as bad as Scotland, where some children and parents slept in school.  Could you imagine!  A really busy day starting with an Inspire workshop for class 5GB, some great feedback from parents about how important it is to spend time with their children in school, as well as comments regarding being able to see how subjects are taught these days.  I am sure many of us would recognise how education methods have changed over the years.  For the better I hope!

The Christmas performance has started to take shape and many rumours are emanating about which child is playing which member of staff in the performance.  Sadly, Danny does a very good impression of me!!  Even James the builder has got a role in the play!

Lunchtime came and many children were participating in the Christmas lunch and all came out of the dining hall full of energy having had a great lunch.  You should have seen the eagerness on the faces of the children to actually get to the hall for this special lunch. 

It was a day of meetings for myself today.  One to discuss our Resource base with the Infants and then a second one with a company called Ambinet.  I have asked them to do some more signage for the school on the main doors coming into school. 

You really can feel the excitement brewing in school and that is just the teaching staff knowing they only have a week and a half left before they can prepare for Christmas at home.  The children, really are getting excited, however they are keeping themselves in check and as usual they are behaving fantastically well.  We wouldn't expect anything else.

Mr. Rothwell

Monday 6th December

I am sure there is a famous song about it being cold outside, but I will reiterate that it is. However, school is fantastically warm especially in every classroom. We really are jumping in to our festive preparations, the stage has been erected in readiness for this years performance. There is an expectant buzz in school, with the Christmas postal service in full bloom. The children and staff are still working hard, assessments and analysis of pupil progress are well underway and will be even up until next Tuesday. The pupils in the writing club are still attending along with the Mikey Prices Monday club.

An exciting day tomorrow, it is the Christmas lunch for the children. If you are reading this blog from around the world, why not tell us how your preparations are going for Christmas.

Mr. Rothwell

Thursday 2nd December

A really short post today. I spent today at Head Teacher meetings looking at the future. Very depressing..... We know we all have to tighten our belts a bit in difficult times, but we aim at LGJS to still give our children every opportunity to make sure they thoroughly enjoy their time in school.

Mr Rothwell

Wednesday 1st December.

Another crisp and wintry day in school, no paths to clear today as the hard work has payed off from the previous day. School attendance is still quite high even though we are still fielding calls to see whether we are open or not. As I say, i will do my best to keep the school open until it is out of my control or a safety to the children. The difficult nature of this weather is the ice on the playgrounds and for that reason we keep the children inside away from harm. The children really hate being couped up but they have games to keep them occupied in the lunchtime break.
First swimming session for many today and they all left school wrapped up to the hilt. It seems as though costumes passed muster this time as no issues came back. Time is marching on towards Christmas and we find that there is still alot to do in school.

Tonight was our trigger to decorate the school and the staff and children spent the afternoon together decorating it, as usual it looks great.
We still have clubs on and jokingly wondered whether the Tag Rugby club were going outside, you should have seen the look of terror on their faces. Sadly though it was to be inside.
Mr. Rothwell

Tuesday 30th November

The end of another day that started off very white. It was lovely to start the day with such a crisp morning, however this then causes issues for us in school. Boilers working? Check. Paths cleared, not check. So out it was with coats on and Mrs. Harris helping out to clear a pathway into the school so that everyone could get in. I wonder how many people logged on or listened to the radio to see if schools are open or closed. By now I am sure you know that this school stays open as long as we can operate. If conditions are too bad then the City will make a decision to do a complete blanket closure. If not then it is down to myself to take into account the local conditions. Today was nowhere near as bad as last year.

Pretty full school and everybody working well. I had the opportunity to pop into class 5GB today and listen to the future of broadcasting in this country. Well done 5GB some superb work and you were all so enthused by it. My maths group had a lot to do today working on multiplication and the grid method. We will keep working and tomorrow officially marks our start to of festive celebrations in school.

Mr. Rothwell

Monday 29th November

Good Afternoon

Quiet day in school today with everyone going about their business as usual. It started with a very cold morning and I am sure like everyone else we didn't want to get up, the one good thing is that school is nice and warm. I was lucky to spend some time in class 4c today watching their lesson, really interesting and stimulating lesson, the children were fantastic and very eager to learn. It reminds you of why we enter the profession in the first place when you see children engaged in their work. Paperwork this afternoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully more to write about tomorrow, and yippee it is nearly December.

Mr. Rothwell

Friday 26th November

Afternoon everybody, the end of another week is here. I think it is only 3 more weeks to go until we break up for our Christmas holidays. We have so much to complete in that time, I really do not know where time goes at times. I have finished this weeks newsletter with some information about what we expect in terms or reading. The decision to say that children at Lyndon Green Juniors should read as a minimum, four times a week in my view is about right. The children can then fit their reading around their busy lifestyles, I think some of our children have better social lives than some of the adults.

I also promised that I would publish some of our Christmas dates for you so that they are on a central place. So here goes:

Tuesday 7th December - Christmas lunch
Friday 10th December - Christmas Panto am
Tuesday 14th December - Afternoon performance of Christmas play 1.30 tbc
Tuesday 14th December - Evening Performance 6.30 tbc
Wednesday 15th December - Years 5 and 6 Christmas parties
Thursday 16th December - Years 3 and 4 Christmas parties
Friday 17th December - School Closes for Holiday.

As well as these events we still have a lot of learning and Teaching still to do.

I always say how proud I am to be the Head of this school. This comes from having great children that have the right attitude to learning, but it is more for the community feel that we have. Our sponsored walk raised over £1200, then again you support Children in need and even more you donate to our Harvest festival that we share out amongst our community. We often feel we are asking to much of you as parents and families to support so many worthwhile causes, but you never cease to amaze me. Yet again we are taking part in our shoebox appeal and what can I see outside in the foyer, a large pile of boxes. All I can say is Thankyou very much.

I hope everyone has a good weekend and I look forward to the start of another week

The cold wind blows Wednesday 24th November

A funny day today, with some of our usual Wednesday activities happening, ie. Swimming, the last one for these classes. I suppose it all started with the cold wind blowing across the school. Is this officially the start of our winter? Will I be able to stay open all year this year? Hopefully, no heater problems this year, so a little bit of snow won't stop us. I type that with fingers crossed.

An interesting afternoon, as I have blogged before the staff in school are currently working on two main areas. Learning and Teaching and Reading. The reading group had organized four book reps to come into school to demonstrate their products to the staff. As usual we try to do things a little bit differently at Lyndon Green, so we sent a group of children from every year in the school to question the suitability of the books for our children. As usual they have done a great job and their opinions will feed into the school decision. Our children really do have a say in the decision making of the school.

Write more tomorrow.
Mr. Rothwell

Monday 22nd November

Start of another busy week in school and today started with the visit of a few furry friends. We had our visit from the animal lecturing service. We were visited by a collection of interesting animals, from snakes to meercats. The children were all glued to what was being said. Fabulous behaviour from everyone and I am sure that they all enjoyed the lecture. I will be looking for feedback so that we can judge whether to re-book next year.

Today marked the start of lots of visits by teachers into each others class. The teachers have started to come and spend an hour in each others class to observe what is happening. We are monitoring the standard of our teachers and the work that the children are completing. I had the pleasure of spending an hour in one of our Year 3 classes today. The children thoroughly enjoyed the lesson as did I. They ended up making their own Roman Road after investigating different sources of information. Great fun.

Spending time outside of school tomorrow looking at how we can improve Literacy and Numeracy even further.

Write soon.

Mr. Rothwell

Thursday 18th November Friday 19th November

Afternoon everybody. Just trying to cover the last two days at school with this post. As usual time moves on really quickly and the last two days have been really eventful for both myself and the school. We have had visitors in both days. Firstly, we had a visitor in yesterday and he was giving us a quote for moving the library in school down to where the fun factory is, so that we use the space much better. It means that we would be creating an ultimate whizz of a space and use the space even better than it is at the moment. This will take a bit of time to sort through and we have to invite some more people into school to quote so that it is fair, but really exciting times. This is one of our school priorities this year. Half the staff are already supporting Mrs. Firman on looking at reading across the school.

The rest of the day yesterday and the evening was spent looking at the progress every child is making in the school. I had to complete this task because this morning our School Improvement Partner visited us again and I had to present the findings to here. This is the reason I was not able to attend 6H's assembly, so many apologies for that. Just finished this weeks newsletter and you will find some of the dates on there for Christmas. I think it is four weeks until we break up for the Christmas holiday. So much to do in such little time.

I have been checking the stats of this blog and at the moment we are getting hits from four different places:

United Kingdom
United States
Denmark
Russia.

It is peculiar to know that I am typing this in Birmingham but being read around the world. The Internet turns the world into such a small place. If you are reading the blog from a different country please just say hello. It is good for the children of Lyndon Green to know that people from around the world are interested in their school.

Last bit, and a bit cheeky but I know my Dad reads the blog and he lives in Scotland and it is his birthday today so Happy Birthday from us all.

Have a good weekend
Mr. Rothwell

Tuesday 16th November

Well, we returned back to 2010 today and everything seemed to be back to normal. The day started with an Inspire workshop in Year 3, which was really well attended and some super feedback to Miss. Mabb, so thankyou very much for attending. Parents really enjoy spending time in school with their children, so our workshops really are beneficial. Many parents comment on how they see things differently to the way they were taught. Time really does move on and I remember when I was at primary school, not that long ago, I would much prefer to be taught using the current methods.

Mrs. Pitt will be sending home a letter which we would appreciate if you fill it in. We are looking at Learning and Teaching in our school and how to improve our methods further. This will refer to how best children learn and what makes outstanding learning. We really are reflecting on our methodology because we all remember the days of creative freedom and how we still managed to learn. We want to incorporate those elements from the past into our new methodology, so feedback would be great. A little heavy going but very innovative for Lyndon Green.

Write more tomorrow.
Mr. Rothwell

Monday 15th November

Back to the old days!!

Have we gone back in a time warp? Can you tell me what year it is? The reason being is that I came into school today and desks were in rows and some members of my staff looked very mean and scary (you know who you are. And yes more than normal) We seem to have been transported back to the Victorian era, children were truning up to school in flat caps and mop caps, very peculiar indeed, but it was good to see order instilled into them at such a young age.

The current Year 5's were experiencing their Victorian day and by the sound and the look of it, it was very realistic.

Year Six were treated to a discussion about the life at War from some of our elderly community. 102 years old and looking fab. It is so good to have real life history for the children to listen to.

A super day, but for a while can we revert back to 2010, or actually I quite liked the Victorian style.

Mr Rothwell

What's next? Tiddly Winks

Great news! The girls represented the school fabulously and were victorious in their match over in Northfield. 5 -1. Mr. Crees reports that the opposition seem to be in the fledgling stages of development. I'm sure with Mr. Ellicott and his enthusiasm and encouragement that they will get better and better. That is now Tag Rugby and Girls football challenged. Hence the title.

Well done to class 6W on their class assembly, written and performed all by themselves, it gave a real insight into their learning this school year so far. Lots of yellow certificates handed out for superb reasons, well done to you all.

That wraps up another week in school, everyone should have had this weeks newsletter if not I will try and learn how to upload them myself, rather than asking someone else to do them. Next week starts with a bang with Year 5 Victorian day. We will look forward to seeing what everyone is wearing and I am sure that I can rise to the challenge of what a traditional Head Teacher (Headmaster) was like. It is also the start of the national anti-bullying week and we will be participating in this with a series of activities. The week will end with the school sharing in with Children in Need, so lots to look forward to. Have a great weekend.

Mr. Rothwell

(P.S. super week my maths group, let's keep it up)

Wednesday/Thursday 10th/11th November

An exciting couple of days. The children were really excited about the arrival of Jeremy Strong into school, and there were many envious eyes fro Years 5 and 6 to their peers in 3 and 4. The demand for signed books really did surprise us all and therefore we have had to order even more into school. I was greeted on the playground on Wednesday morning with yet another trophy that the school had managed to win. This time we had to settle for second and third place in the Gateway Cluster Football competition. Well done to everyone that participated even in the cold weather. The staff had a really useful Staff Meeting on Wednesday night. We were looking at Reading within school as well as how children learn. Two very stimulating conversation which will have enormous consequences for our school.

Thursday was a day to remember. Our whole school came together to remember those who courageously have fought and are still fighting so that many people can be free in this world. Having children in our assembly whose families are still out in Afghanistan really does bring home the message to our community. The children were respectful whilst we heard about the good work of the British Legion. The children then marked 11 o'clock in complete silence whilst we ran the single from the British legion.

Later on we wished the girls all the very best as they took on Mr. Ellicott and his girls football team over in Northfield.

Tuesday 9th November

Super day today, what with the excitement of Simon Cheshire being in school. Having listened to him on a number of occasions throughout the day, I found him to be very easy to listen to and very inspirational with what he was saying. And yes, teachers are right when they say things!
Simon joined us all day and I'm sure you will see and hear more about his visit on different blogs attached to the school website.

Clubs are just finishing in school, the first choir club met, think i need to give them miners lamps if they are going out into the solardome from now on. Waiting to hear the news from the football competitions that took place tonight, whatever the result we are proud of the children anyway and I am sure they have represented the school to the best of their ability.

Write more tomorrow

Mr. Rothwell

Monday 8th November

A really busy day today for myself. Finally left school at about 9 o'clock after a Governing Body meeting. The day started with teaching of my maths group and I must give them a mention for their hard work in the lesson, they really are impressing me at the moment so I hope that they keep up the good work. This was followed up by having our monthly meeting with the Infants to make sure our schools are working well together.

The atmosphere in the school is growing with the children getting excited by the imminent arrival over the next couple of days of the authors Simon Cheshire and Jeremy Strong. We really are excited about having them in school.

The weather was terrible today which meant that we could not get out all day, let us hope for better weather tomorrow as it is one of the first competitive events for our football teams. Good Luck everyone!

Thursday and Friday

Apologies for combining these two posts, it just helps to finish off the week and by now parents of the school would have received this weeks newsletter anyway. Saddening news which I am grateful for the parents letting me know about, is the future redundancy of our two crossing wardens. This is a whole community issue as it means that our children are at risk. I can assure you that we were the last people to know which leaves me perplexed at certain decisions. As we are aware, Birmingham City Council needs to make cutbacks and this seems to be one of them. I can assure you that I will be ringing them to see what happens now!

Thankyou also to the anonymous poster that informed us about the typo error on the main school website. This has now been rectified as well as an update. We recently swapped our website to a better provider, but still it seems you have to have a degree in computing to add new content. We all learn something new everyday!

Good news on the request for Parent Governors, we have received four candidates for two positions. I am delighted with all the prospective candidates. The accompanying statements really show their desire to enhance the school and take it even further. I look forward to the elections, and may the best candidates win.

A super assembly this morning,really rewarding to give out certificates for brilliant contributions to the school. I also thanked our councillors that have been completing toilet duty this week. The toilets downstairs are well underway to completion and like The Great Wall of China, I am sure you can see the pink colour from space!!!

An exciting week next week, two authors are visiting school, Simon Cheshire and Jeremy Strong. More information about them can be found at:

www.simoncheshire.co.uk

www.jeremystrong.co.uk

Have a super weekend everyone and please be safe. I would also like to wish Happy Diwali to those in our community that are celebrating it.

Mr. Rothwell

Wednesday 3rd November

A quick post today as it was quiet in school. The problems of swimming kits seems to have abated and that all the children are now swimming, let's hope that this is a thing of the past.

Wednesday is a staff meeting night for us in school and this week we were looking at how we can support our children even further in school. This always stimulates lots of conversations, but they are really useful.

That is it for today but will post more tomorrow

Mr. Rothwell

Tuesday 2nd November

Welcome Back!
The children all arrived back into school and enthusiastic for their learning. We tried to get everyone back into the swing of things as quickly as possible. The children coped admirably with the new toilets and they can see even more developments whilst they have been away. We have no downstairs toilets at the moment so the children moved sensibly around the school using the other years. They will all soon be finished and we will have to have a grand opening.
I spent alot of the day over at the Martineau Centre in Harborne getting updates for our school, lots of information. The rest of the day was spent getting ready to have a meeting with our other leaders in school, where I asked them to look at the standards in your Literacy books. We aim very high here and hope you see that we want the best for everyone. The books we took in looked great, lots of hard worked and some superb comments from your teachers about the work that you have completed as well as how to help you even more.

Tomorrow is a much quieter day for me so lots of paperwork to be completed.
Mr. Rothwell

Monday 1st November

Firstly, we have had a hit from Russia!!!! Please if you do read this blog, comment because i will share it with the children of Lyndon Green Junior School.

Well first day back after the half term, and no children. This did not mean we had our feet up, drinking tea. We were all very focussed. The teaching staff of the school were engaged in the new learning platform and looking at how best it can be used. You will hear much more about how you can access it and access extra resources for the curriculum that you are learning about.

Roll on Tuesday and the arrival of the children. More tomorrow

Mr. Rothwell

Another busy day yesterday, with the later Parents Evening which again was very well attended. Today has a full day in store with the presentation of achievement certificates and then trying to calculate the Walk to school numbers. It seems that once again we do not have enough badges for October. 335 children walked at least once a week, every week this month and the original number of badges sent to us was 240 badges, we then requested another 90 but we still find ourselves way short. Well done to all our children and families. We are gearing up to our sponsored walk this afternoon. The weather looks great and I am sure that we are going to have a great event. If the children finish the 10 laps they will have completed 5 miles. A great achievement. All we ask is that the children continue to collect their sponsorship money and let's see if we can beat last years total of £1600, I am sure that we can!
No newsletter this week, but we will make sure we have directed everyone to this blog and see how many comments we get back. Having a bit of a problem with the comments section.
It is interesting to see who reads the blogs that the school has set up, at the moment we are getting hits from the UK and America. I find it fascinating that someone in America is reading the blog of a Head Teacher in the UK.

A reminder that school reopens to the children on Tuesday the 2nd November at normal time.
Have a great half term, hopefully no more painting for me but a trip to Cambridge.

Mr. Rothwell

Apologies firstly if you are following this blog for missing yesterdays post but it was a long day with Parents Evening. It was great to see so many people attend. The night was very busy but very positive, so we look forward to Thursdays from 5.00 - 7.00. The best news of the day was the result from the Tag Rugby festival where we managed a first and third. Our children always make us feel very proud and yesterday they did this in the pouring rain. The win was made even more special because we beat Mr. Ellicott's new school.

Today has been its usual hectic pace. I have been interviewing for 2 new lunchtime supervisors and we have managed to succeed in appointing which I am delighted with. Meeting with lift engineers who officially declared our lift one of the the oldest they have ever seen and think the Thinktank would be interested in it because of its age. Funny old day.

That is the end of Monday, the bell has just rang and I am waiting for the clatter of feet going down the stairs and out of the building. Lots going on again today. Year 3 have been to Lunt Roman Fort, just waiting for the afternoon group to return, I am sure they will complete their blog about it. The biggest news of the day is Mr. Rothwell has been teaching today, yes i know, enjoyed every second of it. Thanks to Year 5 I really enjoyed my morning teaching Numeracy and P.E.
School is gearing up for the first Parents Evening of the year, I look forward to seeing every body there, attendance is usually fantastic.
Roll on Tuesday.

We have finally made it to the end of the week. The morning started with our Harvest celebration and our yellow certificate presentation. Well done to everybody who received one today. Newsletter next, and trying to explain the swimming debacle. I hope that everybody is happy with the explanation and the apology from the swimming pool. School is eerily quiet with all the children working hard is preparation for next week. The top floor toilets have now been finished and they look fantastic, just hope the children keep them to this high standard. Ok, that is enough for this week. Off to enjoy the weekend, more painting for me!

This second clip is the new girls toilets after the refurbishment. The children chose the colours and the fixtures and fittings. Comments back so far,

Wow!

Can we really use them?

A really, really busy day to day. I was visited by our school improvement partner today, Mrs. Hazel Pulley is another Head Teacher in the city and she visits six times a year to check on the progress of the school. I always look forward to showing her our school. We had the final performance of Language Alive, very successful. The rest of the day was spent fielding calls about the problem we had at swimming the previous day as well as talking to the swimming baths about what had happened. I was happy with the outcome, an apology, but will put more details on the newsletter tomorrow. Mrs. Harris arranged all the Harvest food that has been donated so far, it looks great. Friday is always busy, with assembly, writing the newsletter and completing all my jobs before the Friday feeling kicks in.

Language Alive in school today, children in Year 6 really enjoyed their sessions. We look forward to them coming back again tomorrow. This meant 150 children in Fun Factory for Star of the Week, a little bit of a squash. Another lovely day in school and everyone busy, busy. I'm sure this will continue tomorrow. First competition of the year next week for the Tag Rugby team. Rumour is Mr. Ellicott is bringing a team! Can't keep away!

Thankyou to those parents that attended Star of the Week today, but i suppose the first thing i should comment on was the annual Year 3 Roman day. The children looked fabulous and I especially found it amusing to watch the Romans playing football at lunchtime, priceless. Year 5 completed their second day at Wightwick Manor and at last i can confirm that the first set of new toilets are to be opened tomorrow for those girls on the top floor.

Another busy day in school. Half of Year 5 visited Wightwick manor and had a successful trip, it looks like Year 6 have started their Wake and Shake routines, very entertaining. The work on the toilets is proceeding well and the upstairs should be completed by the end of this week. Looking forward to Roman day tomorrow, always fun to see the children dressed up and the staff!

The rebirth of the school blog!

Having started this blog in 2009, I thought it would be a good place to complete a reflective diary of the school and the events that happen. So it is nearly the end of Friday and I am just waiting for the final Welcome meeting to commence, it has been a busy day. It started with the Year 4 Welcome meeting, moved on to issuing badges to Year 6 for their WOW walking campaign and then the newsletter as well as a number of administrative jobs. It has been the busiest week so far of the new term and I only feel it can get busier. I am looking forward to the weekend like most of the children but looking forward to welcoming Language Alive back in next week.

Have a good weekend

Mr. Rothwell