Over the past week, it's been a pleasure to observe the diversity of our school curriculum in action by seeing how the children thrive when given the opportunity.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Milepost 2 children experienced the 'exit point' for their inquiry learning of 'Pack Your Bags'. In a nutshell, the children were tasked with taking on the role of travel agents, selling carefully packaged holidays to the public. This drew upon traditional National Curriculum subjects of ICT (spreadsheets), Geography (comparing and contrasting locations, physical geography), Maths, English (exposition) and much more.

But, in addition, and perhaps more importantly, the children learned to develop all-important attributes that will inevitably contribute to their future Readiness: Teamwork (negotiation, dealing with conflict, prioritising, collaborating...); Flexibility of Mind (identifying mistakes or dead ends and finding a better way); International Mindedness; Responsibilty (sustainability, ethics...); Influencing Others (Emotional Intelligence) etc. 

Seeing the children thrive when talking to both familiar and unfamiliar faces in the form of our parent body, when it came to the moment of the 'big sell', was deeply satisfying. Parents were very much on-script having been asked to challenge the children to answer the typical questions required to book a holiday. The children held their nerve stoically... and the smiles on faces when securing the 'sale' was something to behold! Parents, thank you so much for attending and you made the event a truly memorable experiences for our agents.

Despite the weather, there were Year 1 and 2 smiles on a grey and damp day when Class Kingsley took to Forest School this morning. The children engaged in various forms of nature art, creating 3-D sculptures from natural materials based on the Advent theme we are celebrating in school. It's wonderful to see the children build something from (seemingly) nothing and the sense of pride they experience as a result.

Blue Coat has a legacy of sporting excellence with a long list of winners at a district, county and even, on occasion, national level. Last night, our Year 5&6 girl footballers did us proud having competed in and won the District Finals previously. This time they were representing Blue Coat in the County Finals. Sadly, they didn't progress to the next stage on this occasion. Nevertheless, the teamwork, grit and buoyancy they showed throughout gave us plenty to smile about and be proud of. Well done, girls!

We'll be cheering on our mixed team next week also in their County Final stages.