I hope that you had a good weekend.

Thank you to those parents in Key Stage 2 who attended the Mothering Sunday assembly on Thursday morning, led by Val Cowan from the Mustard Tree Trust. I do hope that your children spoilt you on Sunday and made you realise how special you are. Thank you to the PTA who provided the daffodils and the refreshments. We hope to make this a regular date on the Chantry calendar!

At 6.55am on Saturday morning, 49 students left Newcastle Airport bound for a week’s ski-ing in the Alpe d’Huez region of France, with Mr Hutchinson, Miss Edwards, Mrs Brown, Mrs Craigs and Mr Robson. At time of writing this blog, the group had settled in well to the resort and were looking forward to their first ski lesson! Please follow tweets from the ski trip #CMSski15.

I am very grateful to the staff for the residential visits that we afford our students at Chantry. The Year 8 ski visit is the first residential of the academic year. Over the next four months, students will be visiting Hawkhirst, Kingswood, London, Belgium and Austria. Keep referring to the school website to read updates on the various trips!

As a geographer, I really value fieldwork in supporting the curriculum, whether this be using the beautiful town of Morpeth as a resource, or further afield. Giving children the opportunity to go away with their peers on a residential experience prepares them for later life if they decide to get a job or attend university away from home.

Thank you to the staff who organised an outstanding British Science Day, led by Miss Edwards. All the children spent the day experiencing a range of activities both in and out of school. Year 6 thoroughly enjoyed the exploits of Technology Tom and holding a snake in the Creepy Crawley workshop! How frightening! Year 8 enjoyed taking part in the CSI investigation learning about fingerprinting and chromatography, with representatives from Newcastle University. Year 5 visited the Great North Museum in Newcastle whilst Year 7 visited Alnwick Gardens to study structures.

We also hope that the day will give the children the opportunity to begin to consider the career opportunities within the STEM ( Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) subjects and how they could pursue these at college, at university, in an apprenticeship or a full time job. Thank you to all those parents and organisations, which supported us on the day and to the PTA who offered some additional funding to support the day.

As you can see it has been a very busy week in school again!

I do hope that you have a good week and please remember that I am hosting a Parents Forum at 10.15am on Tuesday 17th March – please feel free to come along.

With best wishes

Steven Johnson