Dear Parents and Carers,

Time certainly flies - it feels like only yesterday we were breaking for the holidays! It was a joy to welcome the children back on Tuesday and the sunshine provided the perfect backdrop for the start of our summer term. I hope you all enjoyed a restful and happy Easter break with your families. For me, I was able to bask in the joy of a Wembley win as well as enjoy some time relaxing and planning for the busy term ahead.

While the children returned on Tuesday, our staff team was back on Monday for a productive INSET day. We spent the morning revisiting our school standards and exploring new, effective ways to track pupil progress and close learning gaps. The afternoon was particularly high-energy, as we continued our preparation for the implementation of OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) across the school. We are incredibly excited about the enriched play opportunities this will bring to our children and I will certainly keep you all updated as and when new play areas and resources are introduced to our site. 

We kicked off the week with the children with 'Welcome Back' assemblies, where we compared Easter egg tallies (one ambitious claim reached 24!) before discussing our school standards. To ensure we are all working together, I wanted to share these expectations with our families so you can reinforce them at home. At De Havilland, we strive to:

Move with Purpose: We take a 'trust note' whenever we leave the classroom. This allows any adult in the hallway to give us a friendly ‘check-in’ to ensure everyone is safe and on track.

Take Pride in our Environment: We keep classrooms tidy using helpful labels and dedicated class monitors, followed by a quick, efficient tidy-up routine at the end of every lesson.

Model Professional Transitions: To keep our hallways calm, we move through the school like pros - walking in single-file (register order), keeping respectfully quiet, and sticking to the left so others can pass.

Celebrate our Learning: Our exercise books are a showcase of our hard work. We keep labels clean, use rulers for neat underlining of dates and learning objectives (LOs), and fill every page with our very best effort.

I have spent much of this week showing prospective staff members around our school, and the feedback was unanimous: De Havilland is a fabulous place to be. Our visitors were struck by the smiling, engaged children and the welcoming atmosphere created by our staff. Thank you for your continued support, and a huge well done to the children for showing such immense pride in their school. Please do keep discussing these standards around the dinner table to help us maintain this environment and ensure De Havilland remains a school we can all be proud of. 

Enjoy your weekend,

Mr Bostock

Headteacher