Well – Christmas Day at last!! It’s all excitement at my house – where the girls are trying on clothes and attempting to play their new Wii game – “You Sing – Girls Night Out”. I had some lovely presents – lots of chocolates from children at school and a couple of mugs (and a fiendish puzzle!) I also got a bit of a furry hat (see below)  – which I am not entirely sure about, but there you go… I hope everyone enjoys this special day – make sure you say thank you plenty of times! And do blog and tell us all what you got and how you spent your day. We are going up to Uncle Daran’s in a bit for Christmas Dinner and then we will probably all watch Dr Who later.

Well, it has happened at last…Ofsted have decided to pay us a visit. It is four and a bit years since they last came and we have been expecting them for ages. We are all very excited because we will be able to show what an amazing school we are. Inspectors will be arriving on Tuesday morning and staying until the end of Wednesday afternoon – and in that time they will watch lots of lessons, talk to children, teachers and parents and have a good look at the way we do things. This will not affect the end of term timetable – the Nativity and Christmas dinner will go on as normal.

I have sent home the parent questionnaire today (Friday). Please, please fill this in and send it back on Monday (or Tuesday at the latest). Oftsed actually send someone whose only job is to look at these questionnaires and to collate all the information, so it is very important. I am confident that parents and children will want to make sure that Ofsted know what they think of the school and every tick and every comment will be important.

I do hope that children and parents will also use this opportunity to blog this weekend. This is quite a nervous time for teachers – you tend not to get too much sleep before an inspection so every blog will be appreciated. I am sure that everything will go very well- and thank you in advance for your support.

I have just come away from all the noise of the pantomime for one minute – I can hear all the children shouting “Buttons! Buttons!” at the tops of their voices because Tiddles the cat is trying to eat the two mice. Later we have the discos and they will be noisy as well – my poor old head. So did you enjoy the panto? What did you like about it? What would you like to see next year? And how about the disco – which one did you go to? Did you have fun?

It looks as though the worst of the weather has gone and that school will have a relatively normal last couple of weeks of term… though we can’t rule out an Ofsted inspection at any time. We are not setting homework for the last two weeks – particularly as the homework we set last Monday should accompany lessons that did not get taught in the following days when the school closed. After school clubs will all be cancelled with the exception of 1-to-1 lessons which will go ahead.

Let me remind everyone that we have the pantomime this Wednesday morning (8th December) and the school discos on the same evening. On Friday, children from KS2 up will be going to St Peter’s Church for a Christmas Service – KS1 will be working on the Nativity, which has lost nearly a week of rehearsal! On Tuesday 14th December we have Christmas dinner followed by the Nativity in the afternoon. The Nativity will also be performed on Wednesday 15th in the morning. Having missed time, we are determined to have a great end to the term – I hope that children will get the opportunity to have a run around on the snow at school – though we will not be letting children out unless they have wellies or spare shoes, outdoor coats, hats and gloves. There are lots of opportunities to have fun and to learn from this weather – but we don’t want that spoiled by being inappropriately dressed for it! Thanks for everyone’s patience and support through this horrid weather!

I left home at 5.ooam today (Wednesday 1st December) in order to get to school. I got to the bus station and found that no buses were running. I sprinted to the train station and just got on the 6.18 am to Conisbrough. When the train arrived, I walked up the road to see that it was all blocked by heavy lorries, buses and cars that had been foolish enough to try to move in that snow! We rang Trax FM and told them that school was closed – but it seemed to take them a very long time to put it on the web site so lots of parents were confused. I would think that school will be closed on Thursday – but I will make that decision later today and make sure it is on the website and on Trax FM. I haven’t seen weather this bad before – with all the roads blocked. At the moment I have no idea how I am getting back to Sheffield – I may well be walking! So – what are you doing in this awful weather? I am already fed up with it – what do you think?