On Saturday 19th October, WCM hosted the second cross country race of the season.  The weather just about held off for us and despite the recent heavy rain, the course also held up well! It was a resounding success and an amazing team effort from all those who came to help and support and our WCM runners.

Many people commented on the day about what a well organised event it was and what a ‘proper’ cross country course it was. Around 30 of our staff, families and friends were on site by 8am making sure everything was in place and clearing up afterwards. I think the area had less litter than when we started and certainly less ‘dog mess’ thanks to Mr Gill’s early morning removal exercise!!!

All the runners did themselves proud! They all finished and finished strongly, they supported each other and many achieved a PB with a top 10 finish for Megan in the Y4 girls race and top 5 finish for Lucien in the Y4 boys! 

Mrs Graham and her team also did a fine job selling drinks and food and raised between £150-200 for school.  It was also lovely to see Mrs Kingdon who was in Sheffield over the weekend and came along to cheer on and be our VIP marshal!

Thanks to everyone who was a part of the event and made it such a triumph!

Mrs Bradley and I would like to say a huge thanks to all the parents who came along to the talk and discussion in the hall on Friday.  We were really pleased not only with the number of people who came but also the level of support you showed for our school and some of the excellent questions that you asked.

We will put a proper summary in this week’s Green Un but below are some of the key points:

• Becoming an academy looks inevitable for all schools
• For WCM it would make more sense  to go sooner rather than later as we are likely to have more choices
• We would prefer to be what is called a ‘converter’ academy, which basically means we have more choices about what we do
• We don’t want to change fundamentally what we are about and what we strive to do for our children and families
• We definitely do not want to change our school name
• We definitely do not want to change our school uniform – shirts and ties are not for us!

We said at the meeting that increasingly there are  greater advantages to becoming an academy than staying with the Local Authority where support is diminishing at a fast pace.

Quite a number of parents said that they would be interested in being part of a parent forum who would like to play a role in moving forward with the discussions and finding out about the best academy sponsor for WCM.

Look out for information in the Green Un but in the meantime, please come and see us if you have any questions or concerns.

Wow! Arts Week has been amazing this year, our children (and staff) never cease to amaze me.  The theme this year has been ‘Inspire or Aspire’ and the week started with a fabulous assembly led by Mrs Gordon and a rather odd looking William Shakespeare.  There was also an excellent dance performance by 3 girls from Longley College who told us about their aspirations.

The whole week has been looking at people that inspire us and people or things that we aspire to be.  The workshops on Wednesday produced some very impressive art from printing to, 3d sculptures and there was even a group producing their own pop videos.

Performance was definitely an important feature of this year’s Arts Week and every class was paired up with another to perform something that they put together over the week.  These were drawn randomly from William Shakespeare’s hat on Monday. Mr Read and I got to watch quite a number of the performances on Friday and not only were the performances (including props, masks and outfits in some cases) pretty impressive but it was also really lovely to see how much the audiences appreciated watching each other.  We haven’t done Arts Week in this way before but it certainly made it a very special end to the week. I’m sure pictures or videos will end up on some of the class blogs for you to see.

We also had quite a number of visiting artists over the week and they all went away very impressed with the enthusiasm and engagement of our children.  A huge thanks to all the staff for their huge contributions to making it a special week and to Mrs Gordon for co-ordinating the events of the week!

It has been really nice to see everyone back after the summer break. Lots of smiling faces and people seem genuinely pleased to be back.  We have had 2 days with the staff and I have to say we have such an amazing team of people at WCM who want to do the very best they can for all the children and families that come through our door.

We welcome Hannah Mallinson and Clare Wilson into our Y3 team and say congratulations to Emma Walker who had a baby girl, Isabella Hope over the summer.

You may also have noticed that over the summer we had some building work done on the lower floor to create a permanent ‘break out’ dining space; our new ‘Oasis’.  Although the room is finished it will be a few weeks before we are able to properly furnish the room with the eventual furniture that it will have as we couldn’t order it until the space was completed.  Space is a premium at WCM so this room is certainly a welcome addition to our school.

Mrs Bradley and I are very keen to make this our best year ever at WCM, although I am sure we will say that at the start of every year.  Please come and see us if there is anything that you are worried about or have thoughts on how we can make our school even better. We will always be striving to improve on what we already do for our children.