Dear Families,

The summer GCSEs are now well on their way. I will remind parents/carers that teachers are always prepared to support students, should they need clarifications and support with upcoming papers. I wholeheartedly thank parents/Governors and the members of our local community who are supporting the school by invigilating, or volunteering to be readers/scribes. Thank you.
Year 10 End of Year exams will start with English Language (Paper 2) on Wednesday 12 June. Please encourage your child to start a revision plan to cover bite-size chunks in preparation for these.

We have had a flurry of student entries for the History KS3 competition. Students were tasked to choose a historical hero and make models using eggs! The finalists were displayed in the staff room and colleagues have been voting for the top three places! Mrs McGarry will share the award winners names next week. Again, the ideas, research, creativity, the humour and the hard work that has gone into these models is hugely impressive. Thank you for your input in supporting the homework projects. We had KS3 students from our Student Movement, presenting their case for more project based homeworks to all Curriculum Leaders. Three Curriculum Leaders are revising the school’s homework policy and will want to take students’ views into account.

We are ready to welcome our new cohort and are delighted to start our transition programme. Mrs Whitlock is in touch with our new families. Mrs Whitlock and I will endeavour to meet all of our new cohort this summer. We look forward to welcoming them into our community.

Thank you to parents who have contacted the school to raise their concern over the change in the summer uniform. I will start by saying that whilst the school amended its uniform policy last year, this was not highlighted to parents – an inadvertent error as the leadership of the school changed. You may find a copy of our uniform policy here. In addition, parts of our school website have not been updated for quite some time; some information is repeated under different headings and unfortunately had not been updated to reflect the changes. I recognised this and have mentioned in one of my early communications that this is something we are gradually addressing. My apologies for the errors at our end. I am mindful that this may have added to the confusion.
Please be assured that the website is being updated every month and is changing gradually.

As regards the polo shirts and shorts, in conversations with students, I have explained that students will not be expected to wear ties/blazers when the weather gets hot. When the temperature soars high, we will trial the use of our school’s PE kit to be worn instead. Parents will be advised via Bromcom when students may wear their PE Kit. We will review this at the end of the summer and I will keep parents informed.

I would like to draw your attention to a change to the uniform policy. This will only affect students who are currently in Year 9. They will have a choice between the tartan skirt and/or black trousers. In the recent years, the school had allowed Years 10 and 11 students to wear a plain navy blue skirt. The majority of the students who opted for this choice have not adhered to the agreed skirt design. This has caused numerous issues at school with consistency and appropriateness of some students’ choices. This option will be no longer be available. An informal student voice from Key Stage 4 students and staff voice are in agreement. We are mindful of the cost implications for parents and therefore this will be gradually phased out. To reduce any financial burden on parents, current Year 10 students will be allowed to wear the navy blue skirt as they go into Year 11.

Thank you for your support.
Mrs A Sharma
Head teacher