Blog 4

The time has come for parents to start to look for a school place for their child for September 2024 and this could be for Year R or Year 3. Doesn’t time fly when you are having fun. It is quite scary too isn’t it.

Last night was the first session for prospective parents to look round and meet myself and my deputy Mrs J. We both had rather nice frocks on and had applied our lipstick. I also offered a sweet to everyone as they arrived as a little friendly gesture, not bribery. They were a truly lovely crowd, no heckling and thankfully asked questions we could answer!

I have been at Tavistock so long that I know every nook and cranny inside out. It was obviously very quiet and all the loos were flushed because the children were all tucked up in bed but they definitely got a mention. What is Tavistock without the children? Nothing! My trusty PowerPoint had been updated and I talked about admission criteria and application dates first of all to get the dull bit out of the way, then went on to celebrate everything we do at Tavistock. One of my favourite slides is when I am able to sound slightly intelligent about our curriculum and I am sure you remember this and often glance at our website when you have a moment to spare…

As I said last week we teach so children will learn. We plan our curriculum with the children at the front of our minds. We choose what we think they will be interested in and not know too much about already. We have so many dinosaur experts in KS1 but when we start our new topic after Christmas, we still find new learning to extend their thinking and knowledge. If children can ‘teach’ someone else by helping and explaining how to do something then it shows that they have really learnt and understood the task in hand. We love children having the confidence to ask questions. We do like the questions to be relevant to the topic in hand as much as possible but no question is a ‘bad’ question! If children leave Tavistock and we have equipped them to face and conquer challenges then we have done a pretty good job.

I went to visit the lovely Mrs Brunton HT at All Saints yesterday because we like to work closely together and they also make a lovely brew over there. She always talks about the attitudes to learning your children take from Tavistock to AS and how much they care about each other. This makes me so proud. I always have a walk round when I visit and I was delighted to see how well the children had settled into Year 3. They looked so grown up and were all so happy. The older children who came to Tavistock have definitely grown, in fact quite a few were almost as tall as or taller than me. Some have changed facially quite a lot but many look just like they did when they started in Year R; they just have longer legs.

Right, I am going to have a left over sweet, log off and go home. As always have a peaceful weekend and see you on Monday.

P.S. One of my other favourite slides is the Year R mud kitchen because as my mum used to say ‘If you come home clean from school you haven’t had a good time.’ I know your children get a teeny tiny bit grubby some days but at least you don’t need to go down to the canal to wash their clothes because washing machines have now been invented.