Dear parent/carer,
I hope you all had a wonderful half term break, and managed to enjoy some of the lovely weather that we had.
Students have settled back into our routines very well, and it has been great to see the positive impact of some of our new initiatives this week. Firstly, our focus on punctuality has significantly reduced lateness to school, with instances decreasing by more than 50% this week. This improvement will contribute to better overall attendance and help students reach their target of 95% attendance, which will allow them to participate in a mufti day. Students have four more weeks to achieve this goal.
We have an important evening coming up for parents of Year 9 students on Thursday, 13th March, where we will be sharing information about our Key Stage 4 options. This event is crucial for Year 9 students as it provides them with the opportunity to explore available subjects, speak to key teachers, and make informed decisions about their courses for Years 10 and 11. Further details, including a link to book a slot for one of our talks on the options process, will be shared with you soon.
At the end of last half-term, our performing arts students delivered an Internet Safety performance to a local primary school, and we received outstanding feedback. We were informed that, as a result of the performance, a young pupil was able to report a significant concern after learning about specific online dangers. This reinforces the importance of our work with the local community and reminds us of the real impact we can have.
Next week, we will be celebrating National Careers Week in school. A variety of activities will take place during form times to help students explore the wide range of career opportunities available to them and inspire them to think ambitiously about their futures.
Finally, we know many of you are eager to access the parent portal of our new management information system, My Child At School (MCAS). We are working hard to ensure everything is set up correctly before launching it next week. While we understand the current lack of access to school data may be frustrating, we want to make sure the transition is as smooth as possible. We will provide further updates on this next week. Staff have been adapting to the Bromcom system in school, and we are confident that once MCAS is live, you will see the benefits of this significant upgrade.
I hope you have a lovely weekend, and I look forward to sharing more updates with you next week.
Yours sincerely
Jonathan Firth
Principal
