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Pupils attending The Hollins, West End Primary School and Huncoat Primary School have celebrated the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.

Pupils were treated to a day of fun to celebrate The Queen’s 70th year of service. Both pupils and staff dressed in red white and blue to represent the Union Jack, and were encouraged to take photographs with their friends using royal inflatable props!

At Huncoat, pupils enjoyed a royally-good picnic, after decorating their school hall with bunting, balloons and streamers. Everybody in school read a new book too! Either ‘The Queen’s New Hat’, ‘Once Upon a Queen’, or ‘Where’s Mrs Queen?’. Classes competed against each other in a castle building competition, and pupils took part in a competition to design a new first class stamp.

Pupils at Huncoat also learnt facts about The Queen (for example, did you know The Queen can speak fluent French?!), and created a timeline of her life and time on the throne. Pupils also learnt the National Anthem, ‘God Save the Queen’ to perform in assembly, and Huncoat will hold a ‘Sing for the Queen’ national sing along!

Meanwhile, at West End Primary School…

In true British fashion, West End’s plans for an outdoor picnic were scuppered by the rain, but students enjoyed a fantastic Jubilee Lunch indoors instead. Pupils produced a special assembly for their parents all about the most significant moments of The Queen’s life, from her birth in April 1926, her marriage to Prince Phillip in November 1947, and her Coronation in June 1953.

Students ended their assembly by performing ‘God Save the Queen’ in sign language variation, Makaton.

At The Hollins…

Ms Hargreaves was very busy in the kitchen, baking over 800 traditional British scones for pupils and staff to enjoy. Miss Robinson invited Darwen Brass Band to take part in the celebrations by performing some traditional pieces for our pupils.

Pupils were also invited to wear uniforms that represent British organisations, such as Scouting and Army Cadets. Big shout out to Liam, Will, Louis, Conrad, Melissa, Seweryn and Daniel for donning their uniforms for the day!

LET Education Trust held their first staff event last Friday, 29th April with staff from The Hollins, Rhyddings, Huncoat and West End coming together at the Dunkenhalgh Hotel in Clayton-le-Moors.

Colleagues were welcomed by CEO, Steve Campbell who gave a brief introduction to the Trust, its members and trustees, its governance structure, as well as introducing the four headteachers, James McBride, Rachel Dickinson, Sam Haydock and Andrew Williams and Carmel Trickett, the Trust CFO/COO.

Staff spent the afternoon working collaboratively to identify current good practice and opportunities for the Trust to improve ‘Cultural Capital’ in our pupils, with many excellent ideas and suggestions put forward. They then moved on to looking at how the schools could collaborate to improve areas including transition, curriculum, sharing best practice, sharing facilities, leadership development and others. All of the information put forward will now be considered by the Executive Board of the Trust and an action plan drawn up to implement the priorities.

The final part of the afternoon allowed staff to network and form links with primary and secondary colleagues which can be further established outside of the event. One colleagues said

‘I just wanted to say thank you very much to you and the other heads for today’s meeting. I was really looking forward to it and it didn’t disappoint. It was great to connect with the other schools, as well as seeing the bigger picture of us all together for this community.’

Another colleague added ‘I just wanted to thank you for today, I think it was really informative and I found it good to talking to people face to face rather than just a phone call or email. I think it also made me realise that we are all important no matter how small a part we play in the whole process and that can only be a good thing.’

The Trust is already making plans for further opportunities to collaborate including a Trust Training Day in January 2023.

LET Education Trust schools took part in ‘A Day for Ukraine’ on Friday 25 April.

Students were asked to donate £1 and wear yellow and blue clothing as a symbol of solidarity towards those in Ukraine affected by the devastating war.

Each school also asked students to donate items and produced parcels of food, toiletries, and sanitary products. The money raised and parcels have been donated to charity ‘International Aid’ – who are hand delivering the items to the Ukraine border.

Some pupils went one step further – pupils at The Hollins school designed and manufactured pin badges with messages of support – profits were also donated.

We would like to thank Intack Van Hire for supplying a van which allowed us to collect and deliver the parcels to the International Aid base in Leyland.

The LET Education Trust was launched on Tuesday 1 March, as a not-for-profit educational trust and approved academy sponsor.

The LET Education Trust combines two primary schools and one secondary school: The Hollins in Accrington, Huncoat Primary School in Huncoat and West End Primary in Oswaldtwistle.  Rhyddings School in Oswaldtwistle plan to join LET Education Trust on Friday 1 April.

CEO of LET Education Trust, Steve Campbell said: “We are an inclusive partnership that has come together through a shared belief that all our children deserve the very best.”

“We are ambitious for our pupils, staff, and communities — our purpose is to create opportunities and experiences for all of them to reach their potential.”

Headteacher at Huncoat Primary School, Rachel Dickinson said: “We believe that transition is an important part of young lives and to be able to offer high quality education from 3-16 across the trust will enable children to thrive within their education and learning.”

While the headteacher of Rhyddings, Andrew Williams added: “Working collaboratively has already begun, bringing many benefits, and will ensure our school and the trust as a whole will go from strength to strength.”

Headteacher of West End Primary school, James McBride said: “We are looking forward to becoming part of a larger organisation and developing the links between our schools further with the aim of improving outcomes for the young people of Hyndburn.”

Headteacher at The Hollins Sam Haydock said: “Our care, compassion and high academic standards will continue to go from strength to strength with the support of a wider team of professionals.”