A warm welcome to the families of our new Year 7 students and other students who have joined year groups further up the school this week. It is great to see our new students arriving, looking immaculate and ready to learn. Also, a very warm welcome back to all other families and students after the summer break, I hope you are well rested.
I am sorry to have to start this newsletter with the tragic news that Myton student Cameron Smart died the day after collecting his excellent GCSE results. On behalf of everybody associated with Myton School, I have written to his parents, extending our condolences. Our thoughts will be with Cameron’s family as they make the extremely difficult preparations for his funeral. We will be marking the occasion in school and we will send out more details later. A condolence book for Cameron will be available for signing in Upper School Reception on Tuesday and Wednesday next week from 3.30pm until 5pm.
Students arrived back this year to some changes around the school site. We have a new base called ‘The Hub’ which has been built as a centre for students who need additional support to succeed in a busy secondary school. Our dining halls have been completely refurbished, and for the sixth form, we have a patio area attached to the coffee shop. As happens with buildings of a certain age, a small area of asbestos has been discovered by the site team. It has been securely covered, fenced off and assessed by the Health and Safety Executive pending safe removal. There is clear signage and we have followed the instructions of the authorities to ensure the area is completely safe and secure.
Our results published during the summer are excellent and we are delighted for the students who achieved so well at GCSE, AS and A Level. The work put in by staff, parents and students has really paid off. When the analysis is complete, it is likely that we will be celebrating GCSE results in line with our best ever year of 2014, record AS results and A Level outcomes which place us in the top few comprehensive sixth forms in the county. In light of this, we have started the term in high spirits and the atmosphere around the school is very positive. We have some changes to behaviour procedures which will ensure all classes are calm, allow all students to learn, and support our clear school priority which is to provide an excellent education to all our students in every class they attend.
Our school improvement plan, featured in the newsletters last term, is still in place and is constantly under review to ensure progress. Section one on literacy is of increasing importance. Our GCSE results show that our boys read and write less well than our girls, so whilst we will be consistently ensuring all students read frequently and their writing is marked for literacy, we will be really scrutinising the work of boys, particularly those who arrived on level 4 or below (with scores between 80 – 100 for Year 7 students). Please be on the front foot with this at home, making sure your children read often and have opportunities to write. By the time students take their places in the GCSE exam hall, correct spelling, punctuation and grammar must be an ingrained habit, as time pressures often mean that students lose attention to detail in an effort to finish a question.
Many thanks for your continued support of Myton School.
Kind regards
Andy Perry
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