Dear Parent(s) and Carer(s),

I hope you have all had a lovely summer and managed to enjoy some time together as a family. And, to those families joining KCEPS for the first time this year, a particularly warm welcome - I hope you and your children very quickly feel at home as part of our school community.

While the children enjoy their final couple of days of the summer break, our staff team is back in school today for the first of two INSET days, getting everything ready to welcome them on Thursday.

It therefore seemed a good moment for me to write and say how excited I am to be joining KCEPS as Headteacher.

I am not the only new face joining KCEPS this term. I am delighted to welcome Mrs Chapman in our Pre-School, Miss Wilson, who will be teaching in Year 2, and Miss Gardiner, who joins our Year 5 team. I know you will join me in making them feel very welcome. I am also really pleased that Mrs Reid and Mrs Moore, already familiar faces to many of our children and families, have been appointed as Assistant Headteachers. We have a strong staff team at KCEPS, and I feel very fortunate to be joining and leading them as we begin the year together.

Starting at a new school is a big moment - something I share with quite a few of our children and families this week! - and I have been really looking forward to getting underway. Over the coming days and weeks, my priority will simply be to get to know the school properly: the children, the staff, our families and the wider community.

I know already that KCEPS is a school that means a great deal to the people who are part of it. I am very conscious of the responsibility that comes with leading a school, and particularly of the trust that parents place in us each day when you send your children through the gates. I want KCEPS to be a school where children are happy, feel safe and known, are challenged to do their very best and have plenty to be proud of.

For me, strong schools are built on strong relationships. I hope you will find me visible and approachable, and I am looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible over the coming weeks. Please do come and say hello if you see me at the gate - although I may need a little forgiveness while I work on putting several hundred names to faces!

There will be plenty of time during the year to talk more about our plans and ambitions for KCEPS. For now, our focus as a staff is on making sure everything is ready for Thursday, so that the children can have a really positive first day back, reconnect with friends and staff, and come home excited about the year ahead.

Thank you for the warm welcome I have already received. I feel incredibly fortunate to be joining the KCEPS community and I am very much looking forward to everything we will achieve together.

Enjoy the final couple of days of the summer break, and I look forward to welcoming the children through the gates on Thursday morning.

Best wishes,

Mr Norman

Headteacher