Dear Colleagues and Friends,

I hope you have had a lovely summer holiday. I hope you’ve had time to switch off from school and make happy memories with family and friends. Hopefully you will be feeling refreshed and ready for the new academic year ahead of us. I am sure it will be another busy year with lots of exciting opportunities as well as some challenging moments along the way. Whatever the year throws at us, we will remain strong and resilient as a church school family.

At the end of the last academic year, we said our farewells to a number of colleagues in schools including headteachers, teachers, support staff and governors. Some colleagues chose to take their well-earned retirement. Others chose to move to a new post, mostly in education and pleasingly a good number still within the church school sector either within our family of schools or multi-academy trusts. As they moved to pastures new, we appreciated and valued the contributions they made to church school education and we wish them all the very best for the future.

We also gave our best wishes to lots of pupils, mainly Y2, Y6, Y11 and Y13 moving on to their new phase of education this September. Many will be starting new schools, colleges or an apprenticeship and we can be confident that they have secure foundations built upon a set of strong Christian values to sustain them through their life-long learning.

People may move on but they are never forgotten. We have fond memories to treasure, various means to stay in touch and we welcome staff and pupils who return to the church school family. God’s love is constant wherever we go, wherever we are, no matter however long we may be ‘away’.

This leads me on to announcing some very exciting news!

On behalf of the Lincoln Diocesan Board of Education, I would like to welcome the return of Fulstow school to the church school family. In the 1800s, Fulstow was established as a church school but at the turn of the 20th century, it somehow lost its church school status. The record keeping at that time was not what it is today! It was about five years ago when the headteacher and Governing Board discovered the school had lost it church status.

Since then, the school, Local Authority, diocese and the Department for Education have been working together to overcome a mountain of bureaucracy to recover the Church of England designation for the school. And we did it!

From 1st September, the school is the 142nd church school in the diocese. We are all delighted! The journey we’ve been on reminds us of the Parable of the Lost Coin.

In the Bible passage above, Jesus tells us about a lady who lost one of her 10 silver coins. She looks high and low and goes to great lengths to find it. When she finds it, she invites her friends to celebrate with her.

From this parable, we learn that God never gives up. God’s love is so great for all of His people that if ever we drift away from God for whatever reason, He will always be searching, hoping, and waiting for us. His love never fades. Each person who returns to Him is cause for great celebration. 

We are joyful that Fulstow is officially part of the church school family again. A special church service and presentation will be held for the school community later this month. Some of you will already know the headteacher Jonathan Grant as he is also the headteacher at North Cotes Church of England Primary School.

To end this bulletin, I would like to take the opportunity to welcome all new pupils, staff, headteachers and governors to the church school family. The DBE team is excited to get to know you and support you all over the coming months and years. The newly appointed headteachers since January 2023 are listed on the next page.

Whether you are new or you have your feet well under the table, please remember the DBE team is always here to support you. The DBE team is here for you. We provide support by phone, email, virtually and of course in person. Please remember our website also has lots of resources, support and guidance materials for you - www.lincolndiocesaneducation.org

I wish you every success for the new academic year.

Best wishes—

from Paul Thompson, Diocesan Director of Education