Welcome back to all our wonderful staff, children and their families.

To all our new staff, children and families, we warmly welcome you to our wonderful school and look forward to many years ahead of the partnership between home, school and parish. We look forward to working with you throughout your child's education, building on existing links and providing the best education possible for you child. We hope you have had a positive start to your new school journey and we look forward to getting to know you a little better, and seeing you all in Assemblies or Mass on a Thursday morning; you are all most welcome!

It has been lovely to see the children looking so smart in their school uniforms- thank you parents for your support with this. I know how difficult financing school uniforms can be, so if you do need any support, please come and see me; I will do my best to help you.

What a lovely summer holiday we have with regards to the weather. I hope you managed to spend quality time with your families and even get to the park or the beach. We have had a few new babies born into our school family over the summer - how exciting! We look forward to watching them grow and develop into little people and then we can welcome them to our Pre-School. I too, had a new granddaughter during the holidays- shes adorable. We are all truly blessed.

It has been a crazy, but fabulous start so far; the staff have worked so hard to ensure that school, inside and out, is ready for teaching and learning. Thank you to them all, for their passion, drive and commitment to making our school such a wonderful place to learn for all of our children.

We have had lots of refurbishment completed over the summer with builders/roofers, new roofs, new sky lights, new carpet to the corridors. New Fire Doors have been fitted throughout KS1, the Y6 Exit and the school hall, and Mr Cooper has been busy refreshing some of the learning areas with paint. Classrooms look absolutely lovely.

You will also have noticed that the road at the bottom of Bundle Hill has been widened and a new path has been created. This was part of the planning application for the new homes in Otterbourne Court when they were built a few years ago. I think you will agree, it is so much safer with the new path and railings. Please ensure that you use the new path and not the road, to walk up to school. I am pleased to see that no parents have been parking on this road and are taking advantage of the free parking down in the town and walking up the hill to school. This keeps everyone safe, especially your children.

We hope you have found the Welcome to Class meetings informative and to those of you who joined Mrs Turner for her RWI workshop, thank you for your time. Please fill in the electronic evaluation form that was sent out to you for the RWI meeting; this will help us in the planning and delivery of any future sessions. We have lots of activities planned for this academic year, so please keep an eye on the school website for more details.

As you know the Government announced that there will be an additional bank holiday on Monday 19 September 2022, to mark the occasion of the State Funeral of Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Therefore school will be closed on this day.

What very sad news it is! Her death is the fulfilment of a long and fruitful life and we commend her soul to the loving mercy of God. In school, we have set a place for prayer in the Mary Chapel, so support staff & children who want to pray, and the Y6 Liturgy Leaders have set up a Book of Condolences, to allow the staff and children to write down their thoughts and prayers for the late Queen & her family. We will then send the book to the King. We pray for her and for all those who mourn her loss, especially her family.

We pray for our own school community and ask Mary our Mother, & Patron of our school, to watch over us all this academic year and guide us on our spiritual journey.

God Bless,

Love from Mrs Finnegan and all our OLSK staff and Governors.