Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope you and your families are well.
Half term is fast approaching, we are trying to squeeze in a few more trips, events and sporting fixtures to ensure pupils are learning beyond the classroom as well as within. With only nine school days left, we are challenging pupils to ensure every second counts in their learning. We had a big boost to the number of positive behaviour points last week, even hitting an all-time high of 2,850 on Wednesday. Despite the high positive points, we still have a relatively high number of negative points. The vast majority of these are because of lack of homework. Please can you support us on our homework drive. As explained last week, most homework is set on Educake and is based on knowledge retrieval, a fundamental to the learning process.
Year 11s have been working hard preparing for their last set of Mock exams next week. We hope they are revising at home with the past papers and knowledge organisers they have been given. I met with Yr 11 on Friday and reminded them of the importance of taking regular breaks when revising, exercising and getting fresh air. Good luck to everyone taking their core mocks next week. Also, well done to all Year 11s who watched Inspector Calls at the Mayflower on Wednesday. Mrs Dunn tells me their behaviour was excellent and they enjoyed the performance. Thank you to Mrs Dunn for organising the trip and the staff who accompanied the trip.
Well done to our Year 9s who went on the Jane Austen trip on Thursday. A great learning experience! Thanks to Miss Barton for organising and Mrs Vaughan for driving.
Congratulations to our Year 8 Boys Basketball team who played in a tournament hosted at Danebury. One team went unbeaten in all the games, an excellent achievement! Thanks to the Year 9 boys for refereeing the tournament.
Uniform standards are good in most cases. However, we still have a small minority wearing trainers. I clearly communicated the new uniform policy last summer and again in September, we do need a united front with parents and carers to uphold excellent standards. We have purchased a number of pairs of shoes and are giving them out if trainers are worn.
This week I attended the Western Area Head Teachers termly meeting. We always discuss common issues and strategies to overcome these issues. Something we discussed was the Government's vision to have Smartphone free schools. A small number of schools have moved to magnetic pouches or phone lockers which pupils put their phones in as they come into school in the morning and open when they leave at the end of the day. The pouches and lockers cost thousands of pounds to install but the schools using them report that they do make a difference to pupil engagement, a reduction in mental health issues caused by social media addiction and an improvement in social skills over time. We will be looking into our options for September and may well carry out small trials in the summer term.
We still have some tickets left to see the stage performance SIX in Portsmouth on 2nd April (matinée performance). If your child would like to come, please complete this expression of interest form (link). Thanks to those who have completed the form already, we will add payment information to Arbor this week.
A polite reminder that we have an Inset Day on Monday, February 10th 2025 and school is closed to pupils. We will be spending the day working on developing KS3 Assessment.
Following our excellent Christmas Carol Concert, we will be holding 'Danebury's got Talent' on Thursday 13th February 2025 6:30pm-8:00pm. Tickets are £2 and can be purchased at the door. This will be an evening not to be missed. I do hope you can join us.
Have a good weekend.
Nicky Goodridge, Head of School
