Dear Parents and Carers, 

I hope you're well.

Another busy week has flown by and the Easter holidays are nearly upon us. 

This has been an extra special week for me. After a challenging interview process, I was overjoyed to be offered the Substantive Head Teacher position at Danebury. My role up to this point had been Head of School, I've led the school daily but have been well supported by our Executive Head, Jo McKeown. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jo for her unwavering support and guidance during my time as Head of School. Jo is an incredible leader in education, and I've learnt so very much from her; we have been well supported by Jo and the Trust in our school improvement journey. Jo is also HISP's Executive Director of Education. I know we will continue to work in partnership to take Danebury into this next exciting phase of development. 

On Tuesday we had another Trust review. The focus was on Safeguarding. We are really pleased with the initial feedback and await the final report. Our aspiration is to have an exceptional safeguarding culture, the feedback indicated that we are well on our way to achieving this. We were able to provide evidence of impact for each KPI, data is strong, pupil voice and staff voice are also strong. An area we continue to work hard to improve is bullying. Sadly, bullying happens in all schools, it happens far less now at Danebury and is dealt with swiftly. Pupils are more open and feel safe to report it. Going forward, we will continue to work on the education around bullying and empower pupils to work with us to stamp it out. 

To help empower Danebury pupils, I've created more student leadership opportunities. Year 10 and Year 9 pupils have been encouraged to apply for a whole host of leadership posts, which I've advertised. I look forward to reading their applications over the next few weeks. 

Enjoy the sunshine this weekend. 

Nicky Goodridge, Headteacher