Staffing news
Miss Owen – Nursery
Unfortunately Miss Owen has been extremely poorly this week. Earlier in the week she was admitted to hospital with sepsis. As you may know, sepsis is a dangerous and potentially life threatening infection. I am therefore very relieved to be able to tell you that she is now recovering and has just been released from hopsital to go home to continue to recover.
This obviously means that Miss Owen will not be in school next week. At the end of the week she is hoping to call in briefly to see both groups of her Nursery children. She wants to try and come in to say goodbye to them. But this will only be if she is up to it. But fingers crossed.
Mrs Taylor – Year 1
Mrs Taylor (HLTA) is very sadly leaving us on Tuesday next week. She has made the decision to retire. Mrs Taylor has worked at our school for a great many years. Her own 2 daughters came to our school and have both gone into teaching. Her husband was also our Chair of Governors a number of years ago. So she will be hugely missed. She is leaving before the end of term as she unfortuntely needs an operation. But once she has recovered I am sure she will have many adventures and new experiences ahead!
Miss Fox – Year 1
Miss Fox is leaving us on Friday, as Mrs Farrell is returning to our school following a secondment. Whilst we are sorry she is leaving, she has successfully got a new job at another North Tyneside primary school. We wish her all the best as she continues her career.
Mr Routledge – Year 2 and Assistant Headteacher
As you already know, Mr Routledge is leaving us at the end of term to take up his first post as a headteacher! He will be missed in many ways, but we are excited for him as he takes up this new challenge! Hopefully he’ll take up this new challenge without having to deal with the challenges of COVID as a headteacher! We will definitely be keeping in touch with him and look forward to hearing all about his new school.
Mrs Leese – Year 5
Mrs Leese is going on maternity leave at the end of term. We wish her and her husband all the very best as their lives are turned upside down by the happy arrival of their new baby! We hope it all goes as smoothly as it can and we look forward to meeting their new baby when they arrive.
Mr Gannon – EYFS cover teacher
Some of you will also know Mr Gannon. He has been with us this year in the EYFS building providing teaching cover in Nursery, Reception class and Year 1. This has been his first year of teaching and we wish him all the best in the rest of his career.
Miss Parnaby – Getting married
Our fabulous school business manager is getting married in just over a week! When she returns she will be Mrs Hunter! Their wedding has been cancelled and hugely delayed due to COVID. We hope that their very long awaited wedding day is special and memorable! We all wish them a long and happy future together.
COVID impact on staffing
We unfortunately have a number of staff in school who currently have COVID. This is not a surprise gven the rapidly increasing rates of COVID nationally. It means that I am anticipating further staffing absences will be likely over the coming final week. We will work together as a team, as we have throughout, to cover any current or new COVID staffing absences. But it may mean some disruption during the final week. Therefore I thought it was worth letting you know in advance about our current situation, due to the potential for disruption in the final week.
Leadership team changes from September
As Mr Routledge is leaving us, myself and the Governors have made the decision to restructure our school leadership team. This is something we have done a number of times based on the skills of staff at each time and the needs of the school.
Therefore from September, Mr Denton and Mrs Brown are being promoted to the roles of Deputy Headteachers. Their new roles will be slightly different from one another despite the same job titles. For parents and carers this means that if I am unavailable, Mrs Brown will deal with parents or carers.
After an internal recruitment process Mrs Laidler has been appointed as Assistant Headteacher.
Last words
At the end of a third year impacted by COVID, I know that staff and children are all more than ready for the summer holiday. We are of course hugely sad to see our Year 6 children leave, but we know that they are all more than ready for High School, despite COVID! They have worked tremendously hard this year and have become a year group to be truly proud of. As well as winners of the football league for the first time ever! But I would like to just say how incredibly proud I am of how amazing all of your children have been this school year. They have been very resilient and have coped fantastically well with 3 years of disruption. They should all feel very proud of themselves. This is of course in no small part down to the efforts of our hugely supportive, hardworking and caring staff team. Without each of them and the part they all play, then our school would not be in the strong position it is after the last 3 years.
I am immensely proud to be headteacher of our school and I hope everyone in our school community has a happy, fun and relaxing summer break.
Miss Byrne, Nigel and Winnie!
