The warmer days this week seem to have really started Spring. The trees and shrubs are suddenly showing signs of buds and on Tuesday ladybirds seemed to have appeared from nowhere, having emerged from hibernation. Children spotted these and were fascinated by their sudden arrival which was lovely to see. The photo above shows children counting them! Other children were studying lines of ants which were also active.

Children from Year 5 took part in a vocal festival yesterday. This is organised annually by all the headteachers, of all of the Wyvern cluster of schools, and involves groups of infants, junior children and the senior choir from Wyvern. It is a wonderful opportunity for our children to sing in large choirs, with different, complex choral arrangements. It also helps them aspire to how they might pursue singing at secondary school.

The theme this year was ‘Rivers and Oceans’ and they had learned the songs in school with Mrs Miller over the last few weeks. The whole arrangement was put together and conducted by choral director Paula Thomson. The preparation culminated in a concert to parents at Thornden Hall theatre and the singing was superb! My thanks to Mrs Miller who has been teaching the children the songs and gave up her evening to accompany them. Mrs Miller is amazing in so many ways but supports so much singing work across the school, especially at Christmas and this is another example of the contribution she makes!

What a lovely day we had yesterday on World Book Day. Children had some amazing costumes, so many clever creative ideas and fun outfits. It created lots of discussion and chatter at playtimes with children often playing in role of their character. In addition, for the last session of the day staff swapped places so they read a story to a different class. Everyone should have brought home a voucher with them (anyone absent can get one the next day they are here). These can be exchanged for free special books produced for World Book Day – at book shops and also online.

I am starting to feel like a broken record by mentioning the weather again but it seems to be a relentlessly wet winter – I hope as today is the first day of spring, technically anyway, that things are going to improve. Our climbing area that was put in last summer and the refurbished Coronation Garden area are certainly proving their worth as all-weather facilities for the children whilst we wait for the field to get a chance to dry out. The daffodils and crocuses at the front of the school are starting to look more lively at least!

After a horrible week’s weather, it was lovely to have a fun day today with children wearing onesies of every design, colour and style imaginable! This also generated lots of nice chat at playtimes! Of course, the reason was to raise money for Diabetes UK, a charity our school council wanted to support, particularly because one of its members was recently diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Thank you to everyone for the donations, we raised £216. In worship today, we discussed this briefly and helped raise understanding about what this condition involves which is so important for that child to feel understood.