Well, it is nice to be missed. After the launch of our brand new website, we took the decision not to continue the blogsite, as it was felt that we would be doubling up, and that the website would suffice. However, it has been missed by too many people to disband it, so here we are again. What a lot has happened since I last wrote.
*We have had some wonderful volunteers over the last few months. Gabrielle fitted in so nicely, it was hard to remember a time she was not around. We will miss her terribly, and we hope she keeps us up to date on her progress. Deanne, who is a warm and engaging presence every Tuesday and Thursday: a lovely reassuring individual with so much to offer. The sprite- like Jennifer, who flitted in and out everyday with a smile on her face, and took everything in her stride: a true Tinkerbell.
*We held two workshops for new volunteers, which were very well attended, and helped us secure around 15 new volunteers.
*In addition, we ran a parents workshop which was attended by around 40 of our parents: it was very rewarding to share our knowledge, and a delight to meet the parents of the children that we teach every week. We are scheduled to run these twice a term, to help build a firm relationship between the parents and the school.
*We have started the process of working with two new volunteer programmes, and we look forward to receiving our first long -term volunteers from these individual programmes in the next few months.
*We have had lots of overseas visitors this term, amongst them the Bacon family of London, Richard Jackson and Kevin Caulfield, the Patterson family from Boston, USA. All were very supportive in their individual ways, and we thank them enormously for their kindness and generosity.
* Carrie and Gabrielle ran the swap-shop with great aplomb and crowd control last term! It is a constant source of pride and joy for me to see our children clambering to change their books, desperate for something new to read. My personal quest with Observatory Junior School is to create an atmosphere which helps instill a true love and passion for books: through books comes knowledge, entertainment, enlightenment and a lifetime's enjoyment. To this end,we have managed to form a partnership with a German company who are based locally, who will provide volunteers to help the school run the library. We will be opening it on the 21st of April 2008. We are very excited, and grateful to all the people who have helped make this possible.
*And finally, the students: we have had a very productive term with the children: they have worked very hard, and although it was a short term, we managed to cover a lot of ground. We continued to place our children with individual learning partners, as well as run literacy hours for the grade 3's and 4's.We were able to ensure all the children went home with a book and some extra work to do over the holidays, so they would not 'go off the b oil' after such a long break!
We look forward to welcoming them all back next week, refreshed and ready to learn!
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