At this midpoint of the school year – spring half term – we are at a time of being at our optimal operation for the academic year. Classes are settled, older students focused on exams, Year 8 students thinking about options. The intense learning carried out through the long autumn term has provided a good bedrock for the current term’s progress for all our students.

As a school our priorities mesh very much with my main objectives as a headteacher:

  • making sure teaching and learning – and all that entails – is as good as it possibly can be
  • making sure we provide equal opportunities and equally strong ambition for all in our school – which means providing a range of differing support
  • making sure all in our school are really engaged – and that all have something they enjoy about our school

Alongside leading those priorities is the management side of my job: keeping the show on the road – making sure that the whole school runs smoothly. I am always well supported with all these aspects by the leadership team and the whole staff team.

Teaching and learning

In terms of developing teaching and learning, we’ve had a strong focus this year on promoting subject and course knowledge for our teachers. You may be aware that the examination courses for GCSE and A level are all changing in a staged way over the coming two to four years. That means it is crucial our teachers all get time to understand the changes, plan the alterations to the courses needed – and use that opportunity to make the new courses in our school as exciting and engaging for all our students as possible. Much time on our training days has been spent working on any new approaches for the new syllabi which will be needed this year or next year. The Heads of Subject have been ably leading this, supported as necessary by external experts.

We’ve had some new developments in the area of equality and closing gaps this year. We’re determined that every child who comes to us will be in a very strong position to do well throughout their time in our school and beyond. For most students the mainstream classes provide sufficient challenge and support. However for some students who find some aspects of literacy or numeracy more difficult it is necessary to provide additional classes. We’ve put additional after school and Saturday classes in place for Year 7 and 8 this year – so that students who are below level 4 or below target and need additional support are getting it. These classes have been really well attended: thank you to parents who have supported this so thoroughly. We’ve also been impressed by how much uptake there has been of our homework clubs. Students of all ages have been attending homework club which is now open until 6pm each night. I recommend this to all.

The final area I outlined above is that engagement with school. We provide a really wide range of options for students to be involved in additional activities. These range from sporting endeavour, our school performances (musical and dramatic) , through debating clubs to lunchtime film clubs and the chess club. We warmly encourage all students to take part in these sessions. Of note at this time of year are the debates, which Ms Begum organises: look out for the next one about climate change on Wednesday 10 February 2016.

Annie Gammon – Headteacher