Alumni

December 2020

As we come towards the end of the latest national lockdown (and look forward to moving back into Tier 3) I thought you might be interested to hear how Westfield is doing. The rules for schools are somewhat tighter this time round, albeit we are still open, and we have had to cancel school tours and visits from parents alongside taster events and some clubs after school.

We are still working hard to make sure that Westfield still feels like Westfield despite the restrictions and have managed to continue to run Big Sister/Little Sister activities outside around our new Forest School firepit – hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows at lunchtime are very popular!

Within school we have a one-way system in operation which, while inconvenient, helps us achieve our daily step count rather than taking the usual, shorter, routes. In Senior House, everyone has to wear masks in the corridors but thankfully, at the moment, not in the classrooms.

We have a number of staff and girls absent most days and so we are getting used to ‘blended learning’ with some girls at home and others in the classroom all having the same lesson. Our proficiency and use of technology has increased many fold over the last few months!

In case you haven’t seen it, I am sure you will love our latest video showing all the new developments at Westfield. 

Tour Video

We are working on ideas for an event to bring everyone back together physically in the summer and we look forward to being able to celebrate the end of our 60th birthday year properly even if we have had to put celebrations on hold so far. One event that has taken place is the placing of our ‘blue’ plaque to celebrate the life of William Cochrane who built Oakfield House. Plaque News

The Lord Mayor of Newcastle and other dignitaries will be attending an unveiling ceremony during 2021 and it will be lovely to share our current successes with them then.

Although we cannot come together as a community for events such as the Carol Service and Christmas Soirée, the upside is that we can share the amazing talents of the girls more widely by going online. We have decided to release an advent calendar of performances at 3.30 pm each day of term through December. Please see News Section of this website.

This will come out on Twitter and Facebook (apologies to those who don’t have these) so please do watch out and enjoy these treats to brighten a winter’s day.

There will be links put onto the website to a weekly compendium every Friday. I do hope you enjoy watching and listening to them.

We are always pleased to hear from our “old girls” so please email Jane at westfield@westfield.newcastle.sch.uk with your news. If you are in touch with fellow old girls and you know they are not receiving emails from us, then please ask them to get in touch with Jane and she will add them to the database.
I hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas and 2021 sees us able to hold a long awaited reunion!

Kind regards
Neil Walker

A very merry Christmas from some of our younger girls!

If you would like to be added onto the main mailing list please get in touch with westfield@westfield.newcastle.sch.uk