Dear Parents and Carers, 

I hope you and your families are well.

I can't believe half-term is upon us already, 8 weeks have flown by! We've had a very busy week indeed and I'm excited to be able to share some really positive news about our wonderful pupils as well as feedback from our two-day HISP Trust review this week.

Firstly, huge congratulations to Ted T in Year 10 for gaining a place in the Bath Rugby Development Squad. Such an impressive achievement and testament to the hard work and determination Ted has put in.  We have another professional in the making in Year 7. Huge congratulations to Freya E for gaining a place in the Chelsea Girls Development Squad. What a talent Freya is. We are very proud of them both!

Despite it being week 8 of the half term and everyone feeling tired, we've had an increase in positive points awarded as well as a reduction in negatives this week. Pupils have shown kindness to each other on the whole. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday we had our Trust Inspection, the Trust brought along a practising Ofsted Inspector to ensure the self-evaluation of our school improvement journey was accurate. Although an intense two days for staff, I am beyond proud of the feedback we received. Here are a few quotes from the provisional report.

"The Executive Headteacher and Head of School are relentless in their pursuit for excellence; this is becoming embodied by all stakeholders. Leaders know their school well; the transformation in culture has been as a result of a systematic and collaborative approach to developing a shared vision, based on shared values and high expectations."

"Safeguarding is effective, with leaders fostering and embedding a culture of belonging that is centred around the child and where their voice is sought out, listened to, and valued; students feel safe and respected. Relationships between students and staff are strong."

"Behaviour has improved significantly since the 2022 inspection. Daily ‘line ups’ support a positive start to the day and provide an opportunity to highlight the successes and achievements of the students to the whole school community. Students feel safe and happy and can articulate the demonstrable improvements in behaviour over the last year."

" students feel that they are treated with respect. Relationships between students and staff are strong, with staff presence being a key element of why students feel safe."

"A clear reading strategy has been put in place which aims to promote a positive reading culture across the school"

"Leaders are developing an ambitious vision for the curriculum"

" Safeguarding and Behaviour has rightly been the focus of leaders' improvement work to date, and they are united in their recent shift in focus to rapidly improve the Quality of Education."

"The Danebury Teaching and Learning Principles have been developed so that all teachers are clear about the principles of best practice. Thought has been given to how the curriculum is sequenced to ensure that students secure the key knowledge they need."

"All students clearly articulate that the school has improved, and that it is a safe, happy environment. Older students recognise the journey that the school has been on and are excited about how much it has improved and how this is having a positive impact on their learning. There is a unanimous feeling that ‘everything is better"

"All students could describe what and how the school supports them in their personal development such as police workshops around e-safety, workshops, age ratings on social media."

"Students report valuing LORIC and could describe how it was supporting their personal development."

"The link between the pastoral leaders and middle leaders was evidenced through the communications mechanisms that are now in place to ensure that learners are supported in lessons."

The feedback above was gratefully received, but as ever there are areas we will continue to work hard to improve. 

They include:

• Raising attendance
• Embedding the adaptive teaching strategies we've implemented to ensure the needs of all our learners are met.
• Embedding the wide range of reading strategies we have recently implemented.
• Strengthening assessment and feedback to ensure adaptations can be made more frequently.

Our school improvement journey has been fast paced since January 2023. We are incredibly proud of how far we've come. We will take a moment to celebrate these milestones over half term, but please rest assured we won't be sitting on our laurels; we will continue to pursue excellence in all we do in order to give your child/children the very best start in life both academically and pastorally.

I hope you all have a restful weekend and enjoy half-term.

Nicky Goodridge, Head of School