Colmore Junior School

Highlights of the week

Respecting Our Environment & School Property

In Monday’s assembly, we spoke to the children about the importance of looking after their own belongings and showing respect for our school environment. It has been wonderful to see the immediate impact of this, with a special effort being made by everyone to keep the dinner hall, corridors, and playground tidy. On a practical note, we have noticed a large number of oversized rucksacks being brought into school, many of which are nearly empty. These take up a significant amount of space in our corridors and cloakrooms. We highly recommend the bookbags used in the infant school; they are the ideal size for everything the children need and help us keep our shared spaces safe and clutter-free.

Creative Characters & Outdoor Learning

It was fantastic to see the school filled with such inventive book characters recently! From the wonderful costumes to the incredibly creative decorated potatoes, the children’s imaginations truly shone through—thank you for all the effort put in at home. We also want to thank you for the brilliant feedback from our INSPIRE workshops; it was lovely to read so many positive comments, and you can find more details on this further down in the newsletter. Finally, we have made the most of a dry, sunny week! Some classes have enjoyed the rare sunshine by eating their lunches outside on the picnic benches in front of the Jubilee Court building.

Sporting Success

Huge congratulations to both our girls' and boys' football teams! Both squads performed brilliantly in the recent competition hosted by Birmingham City Football Club, with both teams finishing as proud runners-up. Well done to all involved for representing Colmore so well! Have a lovely weekend Mr Gale

The Philosophy Man comes to Colmore! It was an absolute pleasure to spend two days with the wonderful staff and pupils at Colmore Junior School! I joined the school for a two days of pupil workshops and then a twilight staff training. What a strong statement that makes about the school’s commitment to developing the communication skills of every child. To start the term by investing in talk, thinking and confident expression says so much about the values and ambition of the school.  It was a real joy to visit each classroom and run workshops with the pupils. Wherever possible, I modelled games and activities designed to help children find their speech-confident selves. And the children loved the topics we talked about: from the the ethics of farting (and confessing, and taking responsibility, to who has more freedom, children or adults? We also looked at some more curriculum-based questions such as when did the Vikings and Saxons become one community with Year 4, and with Year 6 - if you leave to fight in a war, and come back to find someone else has taken your job, do you deserve to have it back? What stood out straight away was the culture the school has created: pupils were engaged, thoughtful and eager to share their ideas. They threw themselves into meaty philosophical debates that really stretched their thinking. In the staff training, we explored different principles to help everyone find their voice in the classroom, and there was a real sense of enthusiasm and openness from the staff. Teachers left full of ideas for embedding opportunities for purposeful talk across their subjects. Seeing everyone throw themselves into lively debate showed exactly the kind of playful, courageous learning culture they are building for their pupils. A huge thank you to Miss. Bond for inviting me in. I hope to be back before long in some form! If you're interested in what this all looks like in the classroom, plus some ideas useful at home, take a look at our special page on oracy on the button below:

Congratulations to the boy’s football team. They won their group games to top the league. In the final they played Witton middle school and lost 1-0 in a very close game. Both teams earning a place in the next competition at St. Andrews, Birmingham City football club, home ground. Massive thanks to Mr Smith for all his hard work with the team.