This morning as I was happily gritting, I was called a ‘Jack of all trades!’ A couple of you had commented that it was quite a comical blog yesterday as it highlighted just how diverse my job actually is. Being a head teacher is far removed from the days of teaching. You really do have to know things about things you didn’t even know existed. I was speaking to Mr. Gilmour about this today because the drains in the playground had flooded again. For that job, the animal net remained redundant and the long prodding stick came out. It was not glamorous in any way but it got the job done. Playground safely gritted and drained-for now!

Following on from yesterday’s brief blog, Mr Gilmour reminded me of yet another animal escapade. This particular event had taken place at 2.00am on the school field at the Year 6 sleepover. On hearing some rustling near the fence, I decided to see what was going on. A tiny hedgehog with a not so tiny head had got itself stuck in the wire fence. Obviously, I came to the rescue. You can just about see the hedgehog inside the baseball cap!

Other days, it is school promotion that takes priority alongside deadlines, curriculum, assessment, policies, procedures, meetings and the day to day running of a school. All in all-an exciting adventure every single day. It certainly cannot be described as boring.

I loved walking around school today. In UFA, there was a wonderful smell of baking that came from the cottage, the children were working on the next school magazine, I was supervising chicken welfare and Mrs Blair was teaching French. The children in Beacon had their first keyboard lesson today and Fairsnape really enjoyed the ukuleles. Fencing has begun in Fairsnape-a huge well done to Dylan for winning the ‘Fencer of the Week’ certificate. All classes have started new topics and the children have amazed us with their creations. I love how they are all unique-just like us. One of our Pre-School group has now stopped calling me ‘Deakin’ and is able to say ‘Miss Deakin.’ Although this may not seem such a big achievement, it is actually one of the greatest things I have heard since coming back to school as I have been working on this since the beginning of November. It seems that my skin coloured tights have cause great confusion though to this little boy as he looked concerned when plucking my ankle and, to him, my skin stretched to at least two inches! A great start to the new year! Have a lovely weekend. I hope to see you at family mass this Sunday. Beacon Class are presenting a creative poem based on the theme of water and Laudate Sii-Care for our common home. We taught the children a new song in choir today-‘When you Believe’ and it was amazing. We will be singing this at the Goosnargh concert on Sunday 29th January. The band will also be playing ‘This Little Light of Mine’ with one of our Year 2 children featuring as a soloist.