I do hope that you had a good weekend .

I am very grateful to all the staff at Chantry who volunteer to run extra curricular activities and lead residential experiences.

Year 5 spent last week at the Hawkhirst Centre in Kielder and I spent Wednesday afternoon with them. On my journey to Kielder it made me realise what a beautiful county, Northumberland is. It was great to see the children take part in a range of activities from archery, abseiling, crate towers, den building and cooking doughnuts on a camp fire. The children certainly promoted our school values of resilience, aspiration, co-operation, respect, reflection and responsibility. Thank you to the staff at the centre who made me feel so welcome on my visit – the evening meal was beautiful!

Thank you to Mrs Irving, Mr Hutchinson, Dr Jackson, Miss Collings, Mrs Craigs, Mrs Reay and the parents who accompanied the children on the trip. On Friday evening Mrs Irving reported to me that all the students had been a credit to the school – well done! Look at our twitter account for some fantastic photographs!

There are many more residentials coming up before the end of the year including Kingswood, Austria, Belgium and London. Please remember that Dr Jackson is holding an information session for Belgium on Wednesday evening at 6pm – we do hope that you will be able to attend.

Good luck to all the students who are completing their SATs tests this week. I spoke to all Year 6 students on Friday afternoon to wish them the best of luck! They have worked hard and I am sure they will all do well. I do hope that you agree that we do work hard to develop the whole child at Chantry and give them a broad and balanced curriculum. We prepare them well for tests and give them skills and strategies they will need next week and later in life at GCSE and A-Level. We are aware that children do sometimes set themselves very high standards and can at times get very anxious and make you anxious too! On Wednesday 20th May we are offering a parents session about anxiety. Please see the newsletter for more information.

With best wishes for the coming week

Steven Johnson