19^th January 2009 

To All Parents / Guardians of children at PPP.  

Dear All, 

It is with great sadness that I must announce the decision by Mrs King to retire at the end of this school year.  I guess that we all knew that this day must come sometime but I am sure many of you, like me, had hoped that it wouldn’t be soon.  As Chair of Governors I am so grateful that Pam agreed to stay on beyond the age when she could have retired but now I must concede that, after 19 years as Head Teacher at PPP, it is the right time for her to pass the baton on to someone else.

 I am sure that between now and July there will be many opportunities for us to express our thanks to Mrs King for all that she has done at Princes Plain and to show our appreciation of her as a person and as the ‘inspirational leader’ of the PPP family.  I would like to put on record now my appreciation of her dedication and commitment to the school and her undeniable passion to give her best for every child at Princes Plain. 

When Ofsted declared that we were an ‘Outstanding’ school it was only the official recognition of what we all knew to be true.  Since that judgement Pam has led our school to continued improvement and has established a strong foundation for her successor to build upon.  She will be a hard act to follow but, rest assured, your Governors will do all that we can to ensure that the distinctive ethos and success of PPP continues to provide ‘only the best’ for your children.  

Mrs King will, as I am sure you would expect, continue to lead the school with the same dedication and commitment for the rest of this term and the next.  Please do continue to give her and her staff team your full support.  If you have any questions or concerns which I can answer you may contact me via the school office. 

Chair of Governors.

Indian Tea Party Reports by Middle L (Year 4) 

On Friday, 29^th February in Middle L’s classroom, Middle L held the most amazing Indian Tea Party. The whole reason why we did this was to raise money for Action Aid. It was very successful because lots of people came and all of them gave some donations. People knew we were having a party because they could smell the sweet scent of curry! 

For our Indian Tea Party we had all sorts of jobs, such as greeting people and saying “Namaste” (that is how you say hello and goodbye in India). There were waiters and waitresses who took people’s orders. There were people in the kitchen making tea, coffee and hot chocolate. The most popular drink was hot chocolate – it went so quick! Also, there were people serving the food – yummy curry and onion bargie. We had music playing in the background while the people were coming into classroom – they could smell all of the food! 

Everyone in Middle L wore wonderful, interesting costumes. Some people wore suits and some people wore saris. A lady called Miss Ahmed did our hands with henna. She was excellent at it, she did it so carefully. Miss Ahmed did a flower pattern on one hand and wavy lines with it. On the other hand she drew a huge sparkling star. 

The donations that all the children gave came to a total of £220.57. It was a successful day and it was also Mr. King’s birthday. He said that it was a very special day having the Indian Tea Party on the same day as his birthday! 

Many thanks to Chloe and Leah for writing this report for the school’s website. 

Areas of particular strength or effective practice The following is a list of good practice characteristics or features found during thecourse of the site visits. These are recognised as being of good practice or exceeding the requirements of the Investors in People Standard:

• The School has a clear Vision and purpose which has been clearlycommunicated to staff in an effective and understandable way – and to whichall staff are totally committed to achieving.

• People clearly believe that the Head Teacher is providing excellent leadershipand her “open door” policy of support and encouragement is described by allinterviewees in a positive light. Although it is still “bedding itself in”, the newly expanded Leadership Team is also seen in a positive light and people clearly respect all senior managers and value their support in developing staff skills in order to ensure the continued success of the School.

• There is a clear – and very strong - culture of empowerment running throughout the organisation, with people giving a number of examples of how they are involved not only in decision making but also how they are given the responsibility for taking the actions resulting from them. The success of this culture of empowerment lies not only in the trust that senior managers place in more junior staff, but also the “no blame” approach to any mistakes that are made – which again several people commented on in a positive light.

• Equality of opportunity around access to learning and development is also a key part of the School’s overall strategy to improve performance. Everyone feels Managers go out of their way to ensure everyone has a chance to improve their skills – and that a variety of different learning activities are in place to meet people’s needs. These include whole School INSET sessions, external workshops, team meetings, mentoring and encouragement to learn from each other (e.g. through peer observation and shadowing). 

• Another particular strength that the Assessor identified was also cultural in nature – and that was the spirit of team work and peer support that pervades all parts of the School. At no point did the Assessor pick up on any feelings of a “them and us” situation between teaching and non-teaching staff (which is still found to some extent in many other schools), and everyone stressed the importance of helping each other in order to help the pupils within the School to achieve their full potential. 

• Finally, the Assessor was very impressed by the level of pride that peoplewithin Princes Plain have for the School, its achievements over the few yearsand the part they have played in that success. Everyone interviewed felt theywere making a positive contribution – and more importantly, that it wasrecognised and truly valued by Managers and the organisation as a whole.