Great to be back! It is always great to be back to school after the long summer vacation to re-make old acquaintances and get back into some kind of a routine again! We all had a great summer filled with fun and laughter, sunshine and showers as well as lovely family times; good times, noodle salad is what we call it at my house!

Busy Summer Term! We had a fabulously busy summer term and the children excelled themselves yet again with their enthusiasm and excellence in all things. We performed Oliver! Brilliantly with some stunning individual and group performances and I know that lots of you will have seen it and hopefully it will live long in the memory. Memories were also made during our fabulous Olympic Week which took place in July! These themed weeks are just brilliant and the children love them and they learn more about life, themselves and what they are capable of achieving in those weeks than in any other. The way they support each other and work as a whole team is very powerful and wonderful to see. We also took the Sportshall Athletics team down to the Olympic Park in London to participate in the national Go Run for Fun event... just an amazing (but very long!) day!! Add to all of the above a sleepover in school for the Golden Star chil- dren and a trip to Filey for the winning house so... all in all we were very busy indeed!

Sporting Successes: We enjoyed even more sporting success over the summer too. The U11 boys’ football team finished off a brilliant season by being crowned West Yorkshire champions, runners up in the champions league (on penalties) and also Catenian Cup champions for the 2nd year running; the first ever school to achieve that honour. Similarly the girls’ netball team also held on to the Archbishop Roche Netball Catholic Cup for the second year running too! Add to this all their other sporting successes last year and all in all it was a very good year!

Great news! Many of you will know Mrs Miller who teaches in one of our Reception classes. Mrs Miller added to her lovely family over the holidays when she gave birth to baby Heidi. Mum and baby are both fine and dandy and Freddy is loving his new little sister! Happy days!!

And finally... We said a few sad goodbyes over the summer too and to some very longstanding and highly valued members of staff. Ann-Marie Gill (36 years service between St. T’s and St. G’s) and Kathleen Falkingham (21 years service) both retired from school and both were great servants of the school, popular with all concerned; parents, children and colleagues. We also said sad farewells to Mrs Lyttle and Mr Rushfirth, both of whom are taking new career paths. Big thanks also go to Alison Armitage, Melissa Robinson and Francesca Russo who have all worked in our school over the past year and have now moved on to pastures new. As with all of these things as people leave they are replaced by new ones and we welcome Ted Kazlauskas, Michelle Phillips, Aimee Stephens and Katie Jeffreys to the support staff team and Lucia Mulkeen, Trupti Acharya and Richard McCarthy (Troops into Teaching) to the teaching staff.

It really is great to be back and I look forward to seeing lots of you around and about the parish! We are in for another exciting and busy year at St. Theresa’s and the whole thing starting again!! There’s lots of information and things to see on our website www.st-theresas.leeds.sch.uk please feel free to have a visit!

Until next time, yours in Christ;

John Hutchinson, Head