I hope this letter finds you and your families well; a Friday update for you as always. I hope you all
had a fantastic Bank Holiday weekend and that families celebrating Eid had a wonderful time
together. I always enjoy speaking to students about the celebration they have had, and the delicious sounding food that families prepare and enjoy. In my experience, Bank Holidays always tend to lead to particularly busy weeks, as five days’ work is crammed into four – this week has not disappointed in that regard.
Year 11 are moving ever closer to their GCSE exams that begin in a few weeks’ time, this is, of
course, an anxious time for all concerned. One of the best ways of dealing with this anxiety is to
work hard both in class and out. There is still time to affect grades for the good with a final push in
the remaining weeks. Year 11’s last day with us will be Thursday 23rd June. There will be no
study leave this year, as we strongly believe that the best place for students to prepare for their
exams is with their expert subject teachers, here in school.
It was great to see the Globe Players theatre group in school yesterday performing Macbeth before
break time, and An Inspector Calls after break, to a mixed group of Year 9, 10 and 11 students.
Students’ behaviour was impeccable throughout the morning, hopefully the performances really
brought the play to life for them, and further enhanced their understanding and appreciation of the
texts.
On Wednesday, Year 8 had their HPV injections. This brings to mind some headlines this week that
hepatitis, chicken pox and scarlet fever infections are rising in the country. It might be worth
families checking the symptoms so we can remain on guard:
We have improved our hygiene measures these past few years of course, in terms of hand washing
etc. and, again, these continue to be very important measures to keep illnesses at bay.
As inflation continues to rise, we would like to do a better job of recycling school uniform that no
longer fits your child, so we can potentially donate to younger students in the school. If your child
outgrows their uniform, and it is still in good condition, we would be thrilled to receive it from you.
You are most welcome to drop off any uniform items to the school office or your child can pass it on
to their form tutor, during AM registration. We hope to be in a position, in the not too distant future,
to have a school uniform shop in school, where students or families can pick up required items of
uniform, for free. Any help here gratefully received. This will hopefully dovetail nicely with our
foodbank to support our families during these challenging times.
Next week, we welcome next year’s Year 7 students and their families into school for a meeting with staff to find out more about them. We had confirmation last week that we will have eight tutor
groups in Year 7, such is the demand now for places at the school. This is very heartening to see.
We look forward to welcoming our new cohort in due course.
Finally, congratulations to Viky Tacuri Naranjo in 8C who topped the rewards points charts last week, keep up the good work.
Yours sincerely
Mr Sam Jones
Headteacher