Perry Wood Primary and Nursery School
Monthly Newsletter
Edition 10 (20 July 2017)
Telephone: 01905 354800
Office email:
Perry Wood Primary School www.perrywood-gst.orgHead’s Lines
What a glorious last few weeks! We have enjoyed our traditional Sports Days including some photo-finish parent and staff races. Many thanks for your good humour and energy and for joining us for this proud tradition. Our children never fail to impress me with their sportsmanship, perseverance and sheer determination whether its egg and spoon, space-hoppers or the 400m relay! The 3-legged race was definitely a highlight I shall remember with great joy. Many thanks to the staff who spent long hours training their classes for the events and running the sports days over several mornings.
Our proud traditions of Induction Days & Reception “Graduation” have been held with great ceremony and sense of occasion and we are delighted to be encouraging our youngest children on the next leg of their educational journey.
The Griffin Arts Festival was better than ever this year. It was great to see so many of our parents at the events throughout the festival. The children who went to London for GAF were a great credit to us all; many thanks to the staff who looked after them during the 4 day residential and for inviting me for party night!
A group of year 5 children have been working on a performance of the children’s opera ‘The Cotton Mill’ since October. We travelled with their parents down to London to perform it with a professional opera singer and children from other GST schools. It was spine-tinglingly brilliant and an experience I shall treasure. It was recorded (by somebody from London) but due to a technical hitch no sound was recorded so the children have been invited down again with their families at a date to be confirmed in the Autumn Term. I hope we can then share it with you all on our website.
We were blessed with the right weather for our Summer Fayre and community picnic this year and had a great turn-out for both. We raised £950 at the Fayre - many thanks for your generosity. Seeing the field become one giant picnic one day each July is so heart-warming!
Various school trips and events have filled our days: Birmingham Conservation Centre, London GAF, Laser Tag and Witley Court to name but a few. At every event, our children are praised by others for their great behaviour which is a source of great pride for us all.
The children have represented school in numerous sporting games and tournaments (including qualifying for finals in Boccia and Tri Golf and the football semi), culminating in the Sports Awards evening this Wednesday. This is a sparkling event introduced by Miss May and is a proud tradition we are looking forward to continuing. We had a full house - fantastic to see so much parental support and to celebrate the huge amount of sporting talent we have here at Perry Wood.
On Monday I watched our last football match- the other team won the match but will never win the beautiful game. Our team were subject to some dirty tactics but at all times displayed exceptional sportsmanship and were the living embodiment of fair play. I could not be more proud - you are the future of the beautiful game in every sense.
The Year 6 production of Macbeth was sensational in every way. The acting was superb throughout including the enthusiastic assassinations! The Year 6 Shakespeare workshops held earlier in the year had a real impact on the quality of the children’s acting. The singing moved us along with the plot and with more unintentional humour and real blood than originally intended, it was a theatrical triumph. Thank you for your support on the evening and many thanks to the staff who slaved over costumes, scenery and artistic expression throughout the many weeks of preparation.
Party Day & Leavers’ Disco are in full swing as I write - I have led some ‘how to dance round you your handbag’ workshops and been introduced to the actions to ‘Let it Go!’ - how much better can it get?
The Year 6 Leavers’ Assembly and Special Assemblies this Friday will round off a spectacular year in which the children have excelled in every area and risen to each challenge with enthusiasm. I wish our Year 6 children and all our departing staff members the very best of luck as they move on to the next stage of their journey in education.
I have been treated to a marvellous range of leaving activities: Mrs Beston planned me a timetable of quality time in each year group and the teachers arranged wonderful and thoughtful activities for me to do with the children. I have been decorating biscuits, testing chocolate (may need to run some more tests…), learning street dance, making salt dough hand prints and friendship bracelets, making ‘chatter boxes’ (we used to call them fortune tellers), attending tea parties, listening to a story the children had illustrated for me, watching some beautiful interpretive dance and playing croquet on the lawn.
On Wednesday your children performed the most touching and heartstring-tugging assembly for me which I will always treasure.
Perry Wood is not like any other school: I could feel how unique this school was the first time I walked through the door. I expected to make a difference here but did not know at that time that it would be as the Head teacher. This has been the proudest achievement of my professional life and will be part of me forever. I have had the privilege of celebrating the many successes of our wonderful children, presented countless certificates and stickers, seen more amazing work than should be humanly possible, witnessed sporting triumph that took my breath away, been brought to tears by beautiful performances, been asked the trickiest of questions (Stevie: So Mrs Kelly-Freer, what do you think the meaning of life is? Me: I thought we were doing cut and stick.) and been told the BEST jokes.
In the last four years, we have achieved better results for all our children, made the curriculum more enjoyable, been on more trips, had more exciting visitors in school, played in more sporting tournaments than ever before, raised more money for more charities and served our community in more ways. We have served breakfast, lunch and tea 5 days a week and opened from 8-6pm daily. We are here 50 weeks a year for our youngest children, have supported more vulnerable children and their families than ever before, have run Saturday and Easter school for Year 6 for the first time and offered 33 free clubs every week. Our job is to ensure our children do not know their place in the world, but that they choose the place they want and take it. We make sure they can do this through education because education is power.
However, what makes us most unique is, as Ofsted said, that the children here are loved. And that love took me by surprise: I expected to feel passionate and driven but I also love our children and our school. That love comes from the joy the children bring in to school every day, the extra mile every member of staff goes for our children every day and the many and varied ways the children repay that effort. We teach like other schools but we do so much more: we widen horizons, celebrate our traditions with pride and work our socks off so every child can reach their potential. We are always asking ourselves: Have we done enough? What could we do better? As our school song goes - we do not cease from mental fightand we do it this to make Perry Wood Perry Wonderful.
This is a great school because of our staff, our children, families and our community. Next time Ofsted come, they will see what we all see every day - be not afraid of greatness for we have achieved it. Our children are our future and as a school and a community, we must show them how to sieze the day - carpe diem!
As I sign off - Yours in partnership - for the final time, I would like to thank Mrs Beston wholeheartedly; I feel Perry Wood is in the safest of hands going forward and will flourish under her inspiring leadership.
Tracy Kelly-Freer
Term Dates For 2017/18
School Days / Primary SATsBank Holidays – School Closed
School Closed / Curriculum Days – School Closed (TED days)
Mon / Tues / Wed / Thurs / Fri
Sept 2017 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / Children return to school 5th Sept
11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15
18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22
25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29
Oct / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6
9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13
16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / Joint GST training day
23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / School Closed – Half Term
Nov / 30 / 31 / 1 / 2 / 3 / Children return to school 30th Oct
6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17
20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24
Dec / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 / 1
4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / Last day of Autumn Term 20th Dec
11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15
18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22
25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29
Jan 2018 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / Children return to school 4th Jan
8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12
15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19
22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26
Feb / 29 / 30 / 31 / 1 / 2
5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9
12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16
19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / School Closed Half Term
March / 26 / 27 / 28 / 1 / 2
5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9
12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16
19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23
26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 / Last day of Spring Term 29th March
April / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6
9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13
16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / Children return to school 17th April
23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27
May / 30 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / Bank Holiday 7th May
14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / SATs Week Year 6
21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25
June / 28 / 29 / 30 / 31 / 1 / School Closed – Half Term
4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / Children return to school 4th June
11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15
18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22
25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29
July / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6
9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13
16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / Last day of Summer Term 20th July 2018
23 / 24
Don’t Forget to Sign Up for the Summer Reading Challenge 2017