School Blog
Letter to Parents from Ms. Kent, 4th Jan 2011
Tuesday 4th January 2011
Dear Parents and Carers,
I would like to being by wishing you all a very happy and peaceful 2011 and welcoming you to Term 3 at Colston’s Primary School.
Although I plan to meet as many of you as I can on the playground before and after school I appreciate it may take some time to meet you all so I thought a brief letter of introduction may be useful!
I live locally in Bishopston with my son Tom who is training to be a teacher at UWE and my stepdaughters Lucy and Eleanor who attend local secondary schools. I have two other children, Charlotte who is a primary school teacher in Thailand and Joe who is studying for a degree in architecture at an international university in Bangkok. Before moving to Bristol in 2005 I lived in Devon and I regularly go back there to visit my parents who live by the coast and to walk on Dartmoor with friends
In my spare time I enjoy walking my lurcher Alfie…he enjoys this too! I like to go to the cinema, to hear live music and I read when I have a quiet moment. I really enjoy travelling and visit my children in Thailand whenever I can. A highlight of 2010 was a jungle trek in Laos and staying in a mountain village where we taught the children to dance the Macarena!
I have enjoyed a long involvement with primary schools and have always found the close contact with children and their families particularly rewarding. Colston’s will be my fourth Headship. My first in 1996 was of a very small rural school in Devon, then I moved to a larger school within Dartmoor National Park. When I moved to Bristol I became head of a school in Yate which had just gone into special measures and was thrilled when four years later Ofsted recognised the school as ‘Good with many outstanding features’. However it has always been my intention to work within the Bristol community close to home so the move to Colston’s is perfect for me.
I consider myself to be respectful of all individuals, fair, honest, approachable and I hope you will find this so too! As a parent of three very different children, one who has dyslexia, I feel that I am in tune with the needs and concerns of parents and know how important it is to keep you fully informed about your children. Children come first and in all that I do I ask myself and others: ‘What positive impact will this have on our children?’
I am very excited about my new post at Colston’s. It is clearly quite a unique school and I will be very keen not to lose this important aspect of the school’s ethos. I am very much a team person and I aim to improve on the schools existing strengths and will not make changes just for the sake of it. I intend to spend the first term getting to know the school, it’s children, staff and families. The Ofsted inspection has highlighted some areas for development and I will address these as well as some other areas identified by staff, Governors and parents. As a headteacher I have always taken the views of the school community very seriously and I will be looking at ways to improve the communication systems and provide you with regular opportunities to meet with me and the leadership team.
I look forward to a happy and productive relationship with the whole school community over the coming years and am confident that we will work together well to provide the best educational opportunities possible for the children at Colston’s Primary School.
With kind regards
Maddy Kent
