Another busy week saw New Bridge School and Hollinwood Academy host a joint open evening on Monday for all SENCOs to share our curriculum offer and facilities. It was well received and POINT (Parents of Oldham In Touch) also attended and offered support and advice about their service.

On Wednesday night our New Bridge Scouts visited the lights in Blackpool and had a bite to eat. As always their behaviour was impeccable – our Scout Leaders and volunteer staff were very proud of the group and have sung their praises.

It’s always lovely to see parents, grandparents, carers and friends at our coffee morning. An amazing 90 families made the time to come into school and although the exact numbers at the Learning Centre haven’t been counted up yet we certainly enjoyed our largest ever turn-out there today – we had to scramble to find more tables and chairs, and all cake eating records have definitely been broken! We hope you had a wonderful morning with your children, their friends and the staff. We really value these informal times where concerns and celebrations are shared and new friends are made, it means a lot to the young people and the staff (it’s nice to be able to put faces to names!). Thank you to everyone who was able to join us, including POINT who once again were on hand to provide advice to families. We are already looking forward to welcoming you all to our next event.

Can we also take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support, especially those parents who collect their children from the school site at the end of the day in relation to the changes being made after the half term holiday. We thank you for understanding that the new arrangements have become necessary at school due to the increasing numbers of children who are now picked up by parents at home time. We know you share our common purpose in safeguarding our young people and we appreciate immensely your co-operation.

Parents and careers will be receiving a letter today with a print-out of some of the information held by us along with news of a photographer coming into New Bridge to take individual pictures of every young person. Please could you check that the details we have on record are up-to-date and return the form to us after the holidays. We will be sending out information about our procedures in the event of snow after half term and it is even more important that we have your correct contact details in case of bad weather.

Next week is half term, enjoy the break! We are back on the 2nd November.

Judith and Roger

• Graham has the latest from across the New Bridge Group on his blog here.