We were delighted to receive a copy of "Langdale Express" the newsletter of this small Cumbrian School in the heart of the Lake District. It reported graphically and intriguingly much school and local news including the 21st. May visit to Hadrian's Wall as part of their studies of Romans and Roman Britain. At Birdoswald Fort they spent the day directly involved with things redolent of Roman life. Every Tuesday after school in the late summer half-term the school ran a club for circus skills, including feather balancing. The series of sessions naturally finished with a performance.

Links with local schools saw Football, Cricket, Athletics (infants) and Orienteering activities that suggest sport is far from neglected in small schools.

Reports of local family holidays add colour and interest while mention of Aidan's dad, Dot's b&b, new babies for two families and a surprise birthday party show fine and warm levels of interaction between school, families and local community, an example the Riga "Family-friendly schools" conference will enjoy when we share it with them in November!

Local animals naturally find mention- puppies, hens, baby bunnies, Scooter the cat, a hedgehog and of course a farm and its animals tell of the children's ready everyday contacts with living things and related biology and environmental learning. Six pupils manage the vegetable patch each year and were growing runner beans, lettuce, courgettes onions, strawberries and nasturtiums. Unfortunately rabbits got the pumpkin.

The attractive and colourful newsletter describes the wide range of practical events, experiments, investigations and other studies telling of the School' special Science Week. The opening of the school's new office was also important and of course there were items of individual pupil news.

Well-produced, this newsletter gives the whole community useful information about the school and its role in the community, but also tells of the quality of interaction between home, school and community so often reported across the UK in small school inspection reports. Well done, Langdale! We often mention Jenny Dixon at Armathwaite as a fine small school in Cumbria but of course there are others and Mark Squires is another example of an enterprising leader working in what OFSTED accurately described as a remote and isolated area. It has won a "Go4it" award for precisely its efforts to make childhood and learning enjoyable. We have earlier described how appreciative were inspectors of the school's previous work on wartime evacuees.

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