Dear Newboldians,

Welcome back after a long summer's break. I trust you all had some holiday time together and are ready for the new school year.

This new academic year of 2015-2016 brings with it a significant number of exciting new changes. First, we must congratulate Mr and Mrs Milanovic on the birth of their adorable little daughter. Mrs Milanovic's maternity leave is being covered by Mrs Sarah Hawker for the whole year. Mrs Hawker has already settled in very well and has told me how much she loves teaching Years 1-2. We also have a new teaching partnership in Years 3-4, as we welcome Mrs Joanne Cook and Mrs Katherine Lambert to our team. Mrs Proud and Miss Walton have now moved up to Class 5-6 and are very excited about these changes, especially since they have gained a fabulous new interactive whiteboard. Finally, we welcome Miss Sarah Cliffe to F1 as our new nursery practitioner. Miss Cliffe has also brought some excellent ideas on improving the recording of the children's progress through an electronic system called Tapestry.

You will not be at all surprised to hear that all of your children's teachers (including the new staff) have been in and out of school all summer, working hard to get their classrooms just right and to collaborate with each other on how to make everything even better than it already is. Would you believe they have already made plans for our Christmas play? That is pretty amazing, I'd say. I feel truly blessed to have such a dedicated team.

Sadly, we have lost our dear Pastor Patrick Johnson, the Chair to our Board of Governors as he moves on to a new job. We are awaiting the appointment of the new pastor for Newbold Church, who will take Pastor Johnson's place. Also, we have lost two other valued governors, Mr Carlos Pedriera and Mr Johnny Becejac. Mr Becejac's place will be filled by Mr Victor Barendse, who has already met with me and is full of excellent ideas for school improvement. Once we have filled the other posts, I will inform you of the new governors' names. Most of you will have heard that Mr Giles Barham, our bursar, has received a significant promotion and is no longer working at the South England Conference but has moved to the Trans European Division. However, his interest in and loyalty to Newbold School is such that he has decided to keep our school amongst his duties, which means he will remain our Governor of Finance. Needless to say, I am very happy with his decision, particularly as his hard work has played a significant role in the very important announcement I am about to make in my next paragraph.

The brilliant news I have to share with you is that the South England Conference Executive Committee has accepted our business proposal for an extension to the school; they have agreed to grant Newbold School enough money to build a new F1 and F2 building, a more secure reception, and enough storage for some new resources - for which we are very grateful. This decision has been minuted from their meeting, which means there will be no change of plan this time. We have already put the wheels in motion to acquire planning permission and once Historic England has given us the requirements on how best to ensure that our building does not detract from the views of Sylvia's Garden, we will proceed. I will keep you posted as the plans unfold. We are in the very early stages of the process, so there are no definite plans to share with you. There is so much for which we are truly thankful.

Generally, this will be an exciting and also challenging year for us, but as always, when we work together and when God is with us, we can be assured that all will be well. How blessed we are to have such an amazing school.

All that remains is for me to wish you a wonderful year with us and I hope to see all of you at some point, even if it's only in the playground for a quick chat.

God bless you all.

Kind regards,

Mrs J Crissey
Headteacher