As you read this, we are in the last week of a very busy term. Last week alone there was a lot happening in our College. I’d like to thank you all for your participation in the carol services and for your behaviour, attitude and engagement both in the Church and on the way there and back. The orchestra and music were fantastic – my thanks to all involved. As a College, we welcome students of all faiths and none – in this respect we mirror the society we live in. We have a faith room in College, which will be opened after the Christmas break and is in the AEN corridor. It will be run by Beth Pinder from the Church for two lunchtimes per week and will be open to students of all faiths and those of no faith.

We live in a democracy and this week on Thursday, a General Election will take place. We will have the opportunity to choose our leaders this week, including the political party(ies) that will eventually govern us.

Our school community has grown over the last few years and we now have just under 1100 children. One of our values is respect and it is essential that we all show this to each other, all the time.

We want to make sure that you all achieve your very best results in your GCSE and A-Levels. This will only happen if you work hard in every lesson, every day

This blog goes ‘live’ for tutor time every Monday. Therefore, by the time this is read our Armistice assembly will already have taken place. In my assemblies last week, I stressed the importance of the Royal British Legion poppy appeal and that we should support it and remember those who fought and lost their lives in order that we can live our lives in freedom. We owe a debt of gratitude to those people and it right that we show our respect in the assembly and in the subsequent activities in tutor time. I was pleased to see increasing numbers of you wearing a poppy throughout the week. I also know how respectful you always are with regard to marking this occasion and I would like to thank you for the fantastic levels of respect you showed in the assembly.

Welcome back! I hope you all had a really enjoyable half-term and are feeling refreshed for the run up to Christmas.

This is one of the longer half-terms in the academic year and I would like to start by thanking you for your good manners, politeness and positive behaviour over the last seven weeks. I know that we all don’t get everything right all the time – and I include myself in that – but we must all remain determined to do better when we get things wrong. My message in assemblies this term has been about kindness, respect and hardwork. We must keep all those things uppermost in everything we do.

I wanted to start by thanking all the students who helped on the open evenings we had over the last two weeks. We had two very busy evenings – one for year 6 and also for Year 11. Lots of families and students came to visit our College and what impressed them most, as always, was your behaviour, manners and politeness – thank you. I’d also like to thank the students who helped by giving tours to Year 6 students and their parents – parents were very complimentary about you.

I hope you all had a very good longer weekend. Last week was very busy in the College. We had 270 year 6 students in College, which definitely made it feel very busy! I would like to say a huge thank you to all of you who were involved in the day as helpers, but also to everyone else for making the year 6 students feel really welcome.

I remain incredibly impressed by the way you are working in lessons. I have been into several classes this week and have seen you working hard and making progress. Well done and keep it up! One of our values is achievement and within this, there is the statement: we do what it takes for as long as it takes. I am pleased to say that I am seeing this in lessons – it is important that we all work to maintain and improve these high levels. You do not get to the top, or stay at the top without putting in maximum effort all the time. Whilst I have seen you working hard, I will challenge you all to work even harder.