6 months ago
Posted on 17th Oct 2025 by Penny Lyall

Hodnet School Bonfire and Firework Night- Friday 7th November 6pm

Book early to avoid disappointment.

6 months ago
Posted on 17th Oct 2025 by Penny Lyall

Dancing superstars

Our Hodnet 318 Dancing Team were outstanding this week, performing in two evening shows at The Edge theatre in Much Wenlock with other schools in our trust. They were both superb nights, with many positive comments about our puils which was lovely to see and hear. Great to see so much talent within our trust schools. They also shared their performance to the whole school this morning. We are incredibly proud of them.

Mrs MacCallum and Miss Manton gave up their time to support the pupils, choreographing the dance and enabling them to succeed with multiple practises over the past few weeks. Thank you for all that you do. Mrs MacCallum also gifted the pupils with a special star, to remind them just how fabulous they are.

6 months ago
Posted on 17th Oct 2025 by Penny Lyall

Sporting success

Well done to our netball team who are the North Shropshire winners! We have the trophy proudly displayed in school. Well done to everyone who worked so well as a team with dedication and sporting values to achieve this success.

Well done to our cross country team – the children represented our school with pride. Overall we finished fourth out of the nine schools. A great achievement.

6 months ago
Posted on 17th Oct 2025 by Penny Lyall

Harvest donations

Thank you for your generous harvest donations, we took them to the Food Bank in Market Drayton this morning. The children enjoyed seeing how the food bank operates and learning how their kindness impacts positively on others.

6 months ago
Posted on 17th Oct 2025 by Penny Lyall

An amazing Careers and Aspirations week

What a week!

School has had even more of a glow this week – with excited faces all around, being inspired by multiple volunteers and staff members.

We plan to produce a website page in addition to this post, as there is so much to share! But a few highlights are:

The Helicopter from RAF Shawbury landing on our field! Huge thank you to the team of service personnel who enabled this, we are very appreciative. The children went inside the helicopter and even tried on a few helmets to try them out as pilots of the future. Beautiful reactions from some of our pupils when they realised it was actually their parents bringing flying the helicopter. A great experience for us all.
Y6 had a Learning with the Lords session. An online meeting with Baroness Harris who told them about the House of Lords and Parliament. What an experience! Well done to our confident Y6 pupils who thought carefully about their questions and asked them with courtesy.
The team from Mickley Stud kindly brought a mare and foal and told each class about how to look after horses, in particular race horses. This was a wow moment for our classes.
Our author visits were simply superb. James Warwood was inspiring. Sharing the message that you can be anything you set out to be. Teaching children step by step how to draw like an illustrator and reading them extracts from his latest books. Michael McCarthy shared his inspiring story and brought a book for every KS1 child. A pleasure to have in school.
Royal Baker – Mrs Thorpe brought cakes made by Fiona Cairns – delicious! The children decorated them adn listened to tales about cake production.

Our amazing staff, parent and community volunteers who spent time with each class in our rotations, showcasing their careers and inspiring our pupils – thank you!

Engineer, archaeologist, pilots, careers advisors, scientist…
Radiographer, nurse, veterinary nurse, firefighter, zoo keeper, fashion designer…
Primary teachers, secondary teacher, teaching assistants…

We’ve covered such a lot this week, with the message – local people go on to do great things, our children can and will do great things. Aim high and dream big!

6 months ago
Posted on 10th Oct 2025 by Penny Lyall

Careers and Aspirations week plan

As you are aware next week is our careers and aspirations enrichment week. We are so lucky at Hodnet school to have so many people who are keen to come in and support with our learning and we are thrilled with the volunteers that are joining us next week.

In our Monday carousel we have a staff careers talk, RAF careers officer, a scientist, a nurse, a zookeeper, a firefighter and an archaeologist.
On Tuesday we are welcoming an Author/illustrator to lead workshops all day. He is a dyslexic author so will have faced challenges along the way, we hope he can inspire with the message that you can be anything, always follow your dreams!
We also have a horse visit to show how to care for animals.
On Wednesday we have a local Author visit for KS1, Michael McCarthy, and a Secondary teacher visit, Mr Winter, for Y5&6
On Thursday we are hoping to have an RAF Helicopter visit, landing on our field for us. We also have a message from fashion designer Scamp and Dude.
On Friday we have another carousel where we are welcoming a female commercial aircraft pilot, a radiographer, an armoured vehicles engineer, a veterinary nurse, a message from a royal baker, a pilot and an air traffic control officer.

We will be running a competition alongside the Royal baker workshop. More detail to follow about this next week. The baker is Claire Ptak, who has a connection to Mrs Thorpe our vice chair of governors. Mrs Thorpe is running the workshop which involves decorating a cup cake.

We are hoping for a really exciting week with fun alongside ‘real life’ preparations for the big world, with messages about enterprise, life skills, jobs and adulthood. We will keep you updated with photos on the website.

6 months ago
Posted on 10th Oct 2025 by Penny Lyall

Baby news!

Congratulations to Steph from our Kitchen team who is having a baby in April. We are thrilled for her and her family.

We will be advertising a maternity post to cover Steph’s leave. Please look out for information on our website if you or someone you know is interested. This will be a kitchen assistants role, working from 11-2pm daily in our school kitchen for approximately 9 months starting after February half term.

6 months ago
Posted on 10th Oct 2025 by Penny Lyall

Omega Pupil Pals

As part of our community work, we support Omega in their Pupil Pals programme, sending cards and letters to people in need.

They have contacted us to say that they are desperate for Autumn pictures to send to their clients. They currently do not have enough to send at the start of November. If children would like to create an autumn picture at home before half term, please send in to school and place in the Pupil Pals box in the hall. We have paper in the hall which children can collect then return decorated.

No names on any creations please.

6 months ago
Posted on 09th Oct 2025 by Penny Lyall

Harvest assembly Monday 13th October

Rev Becky will be joining us in school to lead the Harvest assembly for the children on Monday. Please send any donations for the food bank in throughout the week. We will be taking the donations on Friday 17th, I will be taking some children and to experience the food bank in operation – hopefully helping to process the food and stick on some stickers.

Dried/tinned products only please.

Thank you for supporting local families in need through our Harvest donations.

Mrs Lyall

6 months ago
Posted on 09th Oct 2025 by Penny Lyall

Safeguarding concern reminder – Spy Dogs books

On 8/10/25 we were alerted to this safeguarding concern and sent out the following message:

Dear Parents/Carers,

We have been made aware by the LA safeguarding team that several titles in the Spy Dogs, Spy Pup, and Spy Cat series by Andrew Cope contain a weblink at the back of the book that no longer directs people to information about the books. Instead, the link has been compromised and now leads to inappropriate and unsafe material, containing pornographic content with no age restrictions.

We have removed copies of the book from our school library and classroom book corners.

Below are images of some of the front covers in the series to help you identify the books should you have any at home. We advise you remove them immediately. Should any be the property of the school, please return them and we will dispose of them accordingly.

Mrs Lyall.