We are moving swiftly towards the end of term and another school year is nearly over. I am currently working with all leaders in the College on our improvement priorities for next year to make sure that we build upon the high expectations we are embedding. We will have a team of ‘Lead Practitioners’ next year to help improve the quality of teaching across the College.

The GCSE exams are now over and I am very pleased with the attitude our Year 11 students showed towards these exams. Their attendance was excellent and they appeared to be reasonably unfazed by most of the exams. I look forward to sharing their successes in the summer. 

It was a pleasure to go to the Gilbert Hannam service this morning with our Year 11 and 13 students. Their behaviour was exemplary on the way to and from the College with members of the public commenting to me that they are great ambassadors for the College. 

Expectations of students’ behaviour, work and effort are much higher and I can see a tangible difference to learning and progress in every lesson I visit. We will maintain our focus on this area as this is now part of our everyday practice. 

In addition to expecting more from students in lessons, leaders and teachers in College are working to make sure that the level of challenge is high in every lesson too. This means that each lesson has one challenging learning objective, which is aimed at the most able students in every group. We are also catering for every student through making sure activities are appropriately differentiated for all. Our drive, though, is that all students must be challenged to achieve their personal best and we will only accept their very best work. 

We are moving ahead with a new system to reward students’ good work, effort, attendance and behaviour. The system we will move to is called ‘E-Praise’ and it allows students to exchange reward points they receive for prizes.

The list of possible rewards is currently being discussed and agreed by our student council and I hope they will be able to launch it in assemblies in the week before half-term.

We were privileged to host a Holocaust survivor on Thursday afternoon, who came in to College to speak with all Year 9 students and Year 11 RE students. Students found the talk very interesting and it gave them a real account of a dark period in recent history.  We have also completed Futures Interviews with Year 11 students and have the highest number of first choice applicants for our sixth form in the last few years.  We also hosted visitors from Sky Sports last week and ran a programme of activities for some of our Key Stage 3 students, which involved a range of activities throughout the day. 

It is my intention to use this blog as a means of regular communication with parents. It will contain information on recent events in College, as well as providing information forthcoming events.