DCSF: fact finding visit

The Department of Children, Schools and Families periodically send out their civil servants to spend time in schools to gain an insight into how their 'end users' function and the effect of the Department's work upon their daily lives. From Monday to Wednesday, we welcomed Trevor Spedding to our school. Trevor spent most of the time shadowing me through meetings, tours of the school and work with students. He also spent a morning with different classes to get a feel for their experience. I have just received his email of thanks, which I reproduce below:
"Thank you very much for letting me visit your school this week under the School Immersion Programme. I really enjoyed it. Please can you also thank all the staff and pupils who made me feel very welcome throughout. My visit gave me a good insight into how a school is run and the varied issues that are involved. I especially enjoyed the tour of the school with the prospective parents, the sitting in on lessons (even the Year 7 History lesson where they told me all about the Black Death !!!) and the meeting we had in your office yesterday about the Academy. I can really tell that the staff care about the school and the pupils and want the best for them."

Unfortunately for Trevor, he missed today's exciting activity, which was Year 9 students' involvement in the BBC School report initiative.  The reports should be on the system imminently. They interviewed local people, staff and students about issues such as the impending Academy and social networking sites.  Another exciting activity he will miss is next Monday evening's Shene's Got Talent, which promises to be a smorgasbord of song, dance, music and theatre. Tickets are going fast, so book now if you want to come along and share some of our talent.  He is also missing the activities for Science week. Ms Knapp writes:

"National Science and Engineering week is here and we are doing quite a few things to celebrate! The year 7’s will be having a bridge building competition in lessons next week, while the year 8’s will be participating in a borough wide science experiment during their lessons.

We are also running a famous scientist poster competition for all students. We would really like students to find some scientists they can relate to (not just the standard scientists like Isaac Newton or Marie Curie!) and the posters can be done by hand or using a computer."