Blandford St Mary Primary School Newsletter Headteacher: Mr Paul Lavis Deputy Headteacher: Mrs Sam Harris
25th January 2010 Volume 2
Issue 6
Contents:
Our children
2
Surveys
2
Football report
3
School Nurse drop 3 -in Pots and pans
3
Blue Light Day
3
Haiti Appeal
3
Diary Dates
4
Upcoming Events
Friday 5th February ~ School Disco
Monday 15th– Friday 19th February ~ Half term
Dear Parents I’m writing this letter on a Sunday afternoon. The football has finished for the weekend ~ with mixed results for the Lavis family. As my children create mayhem in the living room, thoughts are now returning to work and the next week at school. Football aside ~ I have spent a lot of the weekend reflecting on the news story concerning the two children in South Yorkshire who endured a horrific attack by two similarly aged children last year. The two perpetrators have of course been detained indefinitely and thankfully the two victims have made recoveries. Throughout my time, following the story on the TV, internet and in the newspapers several thoughts kept coming to mind. ‘Where were the services?, and ‘Where were their parents?’ How did those two boys become so violent? How could their behaviour become so dangerous and thoughtless? Why hadn’t somebody intervened? Why hadn’t something been done? Of course, when you dig deeper, there appear to be explanations and excuses. There are also apologies made and an acceptance that ‘more could have been
done’ to prevent what happened. As a parent it just doesn’t seem good enough. Of course, when Sunday rolls on to teatime, I begin to think as the Headteacher again and ask questions of our own school and our systems. Do we do enough? The balance between academic and social education and citizenship is a difficult one. I feel we generally get his right at Blandford St Mary Primary but I’m not blinkered enough to say we can’t improve ~ as I say to the children. ‘All we can do is try our best, learn and improve’. (At the bottom of this letter you will see you have the opportunity to give some feedback on this). What this weekend’s reflections have reinforced for me however is that we have a responsibility to our children as a community. School and the local authority have their responsibilities. Parents and their families have their responsibilities. Together we can make quite a force! Our recent workshop evening on Rights and Responsibilities showed very clearly the commitment the school and its