Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope this newsletter finds you well and it has been a successful first week back for you and your child(ren). I have to say, on countless occasions this week I have had to check my calendar to ensure we have in fact only been back for seven days, as it certainly feels much longer!

Undoubtedly one of the highlights from this week has been seeing the youngest members of our school community either return to or begin their time at De Havilland. To see so many happy and excited faces bounce into Nursery and Reception on Monday morning is something I will remember for a long time... and that was just the staff! The children have settled really well and are becoming more familiar with their new surroundings and routines. I must pay a huge tribute to Miss Miles and her fantastic team of professionals in our Early Years who have worked tirelessly to prepare a warm, welcoming and safe environment which offers a rich variety of stimulating activities that meet all of our children's developmental needs.  

Each summer, Hertfordshire Libraries presents a summer reading challenge for all children to take part in. The challenge encourages children to keep up their good reading habits over the summer holidays by reading any six library books. We were absolutely thrilled this week to learn that Autumn in Year Three was the first person in Hatfield to complete this challenge and successfully read her six books. To reward her hard work and dedication, she was awarded with a medal which she brought in to show her classmates. We are all really proud of you Autumn! 

Another personal highlight of this week for me was on Wednesday when I had the privilege of teaching our new Year Six cohort. I have to say, their learning behaviours and the enthusiasm on show was as pleasing as I could have hoped for: we are grateful to last year's Year Five team and all of their other previous teachers who have clearly instilled some good De Hav habits into them! 

Next week we are excited to host you at our 'Meet The Team' evenings, which will be taking place straight after school. Please do feel free to come into your child's classroom on the designated day to meet the adults they will be working with across the year and explore their learning environment: we hope to see as many of you there as possible! 

Wishing you all a very restful weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.

Mr. Bostock