Letter from Mr. Gulley 6th October 2010
Dear Parents,
A belated happy new school year to you all. I hope that your child has settled in well to his or her new class and is enjoying each day.
I am writing with some important news. I would like to confirm that, after nearly thirty years as Headteacher at our school and forty-two years in education, I am retiring at the end of this academic year. I have notified the Governing Body and they are very busy planning the appointment of the new headteacher. The interviews for the post will be held in early January and you will be notified as soon as possible after that.
Our school year has started with many exciting events already happening. You may have seen our Choir members at the Southend ‘Blessing of the Whitebait’ Ceremony in the Evening Echo. We were invited to be the choir at the event out of all the schools in Southend, quite an honour. We were also invited back to perform again next year. Our Year 5 children have already been on a memorable educational visit to Buckingham Palace, another honour. Their writing about this trip is currently on display outside our West Hall – it makes good reading! Thirdly, our Table-Tennis team was successful last week, winning the Southend Championship. They will now represent Southend in the County Championships. They were quite brilliant in their performance. Finally, our school received a very prestigious award at the Southend In Bloom Prize-giving, a Gold Award for our Vegetable and Fruit Garden and Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards for our World On A Plate Art entries. Quite a start to the school year!
Our Circle of Friends ran a happy Quiz Night last Saturday. We could have done with more participants but those who were there enjoyed the evening and raised much needed funds for the school. Their next event is a Pamper Evening on Tuesday 19th October. It would be good if you could attend and bring your friends. All dads can stay at home and watch football with the children! We do need more volunteers to help our Circle of Friends – please join in if you can.
I also would like to make a plea for volunteers to help me in the running of St. Edmund’s Community Centre in Pantile Avenue. I am a Director of this organisation – we took over the running of it over four years ago when the Council declared that it could not afford to keep it open. A group of us have managed to do that and even improve the building. Most of the work is done by a small group of local pensioners who have worked very hard and quite brilliantly. They would very much appreciate a new generation of volunteers to help in this work and even take over in the future. I would love to hear from anyone who feels they would like to get involved in such valuable work. Get in touch with me and I will let you know what is involved. It is an important part of our community and one I would love to see develop and last long into the future. I look forward to hearing from you.
You may have read in the Echo that I am still trying to achieve better health facilities in our area, without great success at the moment I am afraid. In order to help this work I need stories of local people who have to travel out of the area to receive essential medical care. Please could you let me have any accounts you have of such occurrences. I need to keep the pressure on the local NHS.
One complaint from me. We have had several parents causing problems by parking in our overcrowded car-park before school and at the end of the school day, then bringing their children in the main entrance. Some of those same parents have then been abusive to school staff when the practice has been pointed out to them. A reminder – the entrance for children and parents is via the Norwich Avenue and Lewes Road Gates and parking in the car-park is not allowed. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
A reminder to Year 6 parents that you should be completing the necessary forms for transfer of your children to secondary school. If you are in any doubt about this, please come and see me at any time for advice. The deadline is drawing near.
I hope to see many of you this week at our Consultation Sessions and I am looking forward to a very happy year ahead with many successes for all our children.
With my best wishes
Mr. Gulley
