The Start Of The Michelmas/Autumn Term 2026!

Here were go again, another year flew by and we begin again, this time with a little girl not new to school anymore but somehow going into year one, a “baby boy” who grew so much over the summer it was almost visible as he did it, a young man going into his first proper GCSE year and a little lady starting sixth form. Lots of firsts, which follow lots of lasts and my heart feels both full and a little bereft at the same time. We had a summer of fun, long days, late night, lazy mornings… Lots of time together and you know when it feels like it will go on forever, well, yeah, that! I didn’t let myself think about it often, I fully embraced my time with them when they were just mine and the sun shone, oh how it shone, and now we go back to the real world. But… Only for a bit! October is just around the corner and I’ve lots of weekend fun planned before then too!

Florence goes into L6 (sixth form)!

Florence wowed us with her GCSE’s gaining one 8 and all the rest 9s. She also had a very special note from school on why she deserves her place there, and an extra prize for last year which is given at prize giving at the start of this year for her GCSEs. Tomorrow she will receive the prizes at prize giving with one for gaining more than eight 8s at GCSE, and one for drama. We know she will continue to work hard in sixth form and make the most of the scholarship in performing arts that she was awarded a while back, and also will do herself proud on all the other things. I cannot wait to see her perform the part of Beverley in the sixth form production of “Come From Away”, as well as her independent project which she would like to be directing a musical. She has talked of other great performance plans and alongside them I know she will work hard towards her A-Levels (nuts that I have a sixth former)! She also got a place at the Italia Conti Sunday School which happens once a month and with all these balls being juggled she will be in her element – go my big girl!

Jimmy begins M5 (Year 10)!

My Jimmy, where do we start with how wonderful he is?! His brilliant brain and thirst for facts still amazes me now just as much as when he was a tiny boy. He is still the 2 year old who would sit and watch diggers and trucks for hours, not because he liked diggers and trucks but because he wanted to work out how they worked, so big and so powerful yet they could transport materials from A to B swiftly and he wanted in on the mechanics. He was the same at a party at The BT Tower once at about age 5, there were balloon modellers and party food was in the offing of this fun morning we’d been invited to but Jimmy lay on the floor where the tower rotated and had a gap, looking through it to see how it worked, to try to understand what was making us, inside the tower, turn. He went on like this and is still the same now and I am so excited to see what he works out next. He loves to draw and create, it’s all part of the same bit of his brain I think and when he’s not being a moody teenager, wow is he good company too! Jimmy can laugh at himself and be the kindest, softest when he wants to be. This year he assures us he is “locking in” with the school work so let’s see how much he can do when he does that!

Raffie heads into Year 4!

Raffie Roo Ra! What a boy as he steps into year 4 with gusto, I wouldn’t say he’s pleased to be going to school but he is happy and likes his new teacher and the friends he is with so he’s gone in feeling positive and happy! He has had a funny old friendship with school, he loved reception but in year 1 he didn’t like his teacher, year two he loved his teacher and this enabled him to getting back into enjoying school again, but then year 3 threw a curve ball with the year 3 teachers doing a mass exodus at Christmas. He really liked the teacher who came after but it did always feel a little out of sorts after that. So, I am hopeful year 4 will be the good year he so deserves. Dance and performance we hope to reignite too with auditions for some youth theatre coming up after it went on the back burner last year. We never intended to leave dance but things got trickier and trickier with how the school was run and I had more than a few reservations and then when Posie had been poorly at their show and I didn’t feel it was dealt with at all well, all my children left the dance school after I spoke about how unhappy I was on Instagram. This strangely made Raffie a little happier which I’d not expected but as the dance school owners had been very shouty he had said, and he really doesn’t enjoy teachers in shouty mode, this had been causing him upset. The reset of leaving has made him so much happier and he has concentrated so hard on football he is now BRILLIANT at it! But… He does want to perform so we will make that happen this year in hopefully a place he will feel confident, looked after and valued!

Posie takes on Year 1!

Oh my Posie Pops! Where to start with the baby of the family going off to year 1, which seems impossible! It was five minutes ago my heart broke when she started school in the first place but a whole year in and she is a seasoned school girl now. With that comes the knowledge that it is relentless and in many ways that realisation makes it even harder to sned her this year than last when she was so excited about her next new chapter. This week she said on the way home from a day out “I loved being out today, it took my mind off school but now we are going home it is all coming back to me!” and that breaks me just as much as it does her. I will never be ok with them all being at school so often but I know Posie, like her brothers and sister, will do so well and be the bright little button she is. Always kind, always happy, always wanting to help people and work hard, she makes me beyond proud! What a gal!