Dear Parents,

We have had a very exciting week with the opening of The Lind Room on Wednesday.  Each class had worked hard to prepare a song for the assembly and the children were excited and proud of our new room.  It was a wonderful afternoon; the children enjoyed performing their songs which were all linked to wellbeing and our sense of self.  Rosefinch sang colours of the rainbow, Bullfinch sang Love is something if you give it away, Chaffinch sang This is me and Year 6 sang One little voice.  The Year 5 children spoke clearly and reflected on the hard work that had gone into the build.

Our Lind Room is a beautiful nurture space and will provide a calm, comforting environment which is exactly what I had hoped for.  In April 2018 Fofsa and in particular Mr and Mrs De Meyer, organised a walk to raise money for Sue Ryder and our school.  Sue Ryder had provided great support for The Arlon family and it was incredible how much money was raised.  I soon realised that this would never be enough money to create the nurture space I wanted but with the wonderful generosity of The Barley family, we have the room and have used the money to furnish it.  Lind is an Arlon family name and we are delighted to name the conservatory with Jamie, Penny, Meg and Tom in our thoughts. As part of the conservatory build, The Barley family put in a new patio and we were delighted to celebrate our new Ingwe Garden.  Ingwe Garden will be developed over the next two terms as a continuation of the nurture space.  It will be a reflective, contemplative bible garden.  We are very excited about this next development; if you have any knowledge or skills that would help I would love to hear from you!  The garden is a named Ingwe as a celebration of Honour Nyasha Mareya and we look forward to seeing it thrive.

We had a fantastic number of parents and guests at the opening and I wish to thank you all for your support.  Mr Barley was proud to cut the ribbon. 

Rosefinch and Bullfinch were delighted, nearly as much as Mrs Guillaume and Mrs Metcalfe with the installation of new Smartboards in the classrooms yesterday.  They have been lowered so the children can have easier access and better use.  Half of the cost of the boards will paid by school and half through FOFSA, thank you Fofsa for making these developments possible.

Following the visit from Anne Stropforth, our School Improvement Partner, today I spent the afternoon with Robin Sharples our Diocesan Advisor.  It has been wonderful to develop our vision and launch it last Friday with Phlippa Hanna.  Following my work with Anne, Robin and our governors I am delighted to share with you that Mrs Dodds will be taking on a new role of Wellbeing and Aspiration Leader.  Much of the role will be a continuation of what Mrs Dodds already does but with the vision leading us forwards Mrs Dodds will be working to ensure positive mental health and well-being enables our children to learn with high aspirations.  We look forward to sharing more information about the role but I am sure you can see that it all links brilliantly with The Lind Room, Ingwe Garden, our vision as well as the positive feedback on our teaching and learning from our Learning walk last week.  It is an exciting time for the school.

We have some parents coming in each week to support with reading; this makes an enormous difference to the children and we would be delighted to extend this.  If you are able to come in, even just for 15 minutes, we would be incredibly grateful of your support.

Mrs Martinez took 4 Year 6 children to the Eagle House Maths Challenge on Tuesday; it is a great experience which they enjoyed.  The football team are playing this evening against The Colleton and I wish them luck!  Mr O'Reilly has sent home leaflets about the Holiday club and it is great to see people booking spaces already.  It is open to children from any school so please feel free to pass on the information to friends and family; it is great value and the children always have so much fun.

For 18 months I have been writing my newsletters directly on the website and the same has been done for the office updates.  We are aware that a reminder on a Friday, when this is published, would be helpful and we currently do this on Facebook.  Today we have set up a new email account for the parents.  We would ask you to send an email to the account if you wish to receive a weekly link to the newsletter and office updates.  Please use this email address to inform us of absence and other communication with the office or teaching staff.  We hope you find this useful   Finchparents@finchampstead.wokingham.sch.uk

I wish you a wonderful weekend

Jacquie Vanstone