Dear Parents & Carers
We are now two and a half weeks into the new school year and routines are well-established as students get to grips with their timetables and moving around the site for the first time in 18 months. Apart from a few lost Year 7 students, or the occasional older child managing to find a 3-mile route between two classrooms in the same block, the students have made a confident start. There are over 1,760 of them this year, our largest-ever cohort.
Guiding our students through their studies are our Heads of Department, who have written the curricula the students will be following. Over the last two weeks, all Heads of Department have been meeting with Deputy Head, Dr Menezes, and me to inspire us with what our students are going to learn this year and why. These meetings have been fascinating, and a feature of all of them has been just how determined the Heads of Department are to push their curriculum beyond their classrooms; whether that be through industry links, guest speakers, local trips or visits further afield. Now that we are allowed to plan visits and trips again, everybody is doing so.
This brings me to the five priorities in the social (blue) side of our improvement plan that I promised to share with you this week. It says:
“Develop respectful students who can use their rich experiences to present themselves confidently by:
- Embedding a shared understanding of respect through active teaching and role modelling.
- Teaching students what good learning behaviour looks like and underpinning it with clear systems and rapid support.
- Developing effective emotion coaching skills throughout the staff.
- Ensuring all students attend school, particularly disadvantaged students and those with SEND.
- Creating a menu of extra-curricular opportunities to rival the private sector, ensuring all students benefit.”
When we discussed what really matters, the school Governors (who are nearly all Myton parents) really wanted to ensure their children – and all Myton children – had experiences to draw on which opened their minds and introduced them to the rich culture around them.
One of the priorities in the plan – “Creating a menu of extra-curricular opportunities to rival the private sector, ensuring all students benefit” – relates to the fact that extra-curricular activities is where the private sector is streets ahead of state-funded education. There are obvious reasons for this in terms of the income of private schools and how much they can invest in this aspect of education; however there is also a mindset. We have a very good relationship with our neighbours at the Warwick Foundation, which includes the Warwick Schools and King’s, and I have visited them frequently. What always strikes me in conversation with their students, is that they talk about any number of interests they have but rarely about their classes or qualifications. It is an assumption that all students get involved in activities beyond the classroom, so they do. And they enjoy it and talk enthusiastically about what they do.
It is that mindset we want to crack here at Myton. There is far more to school than classes. We were very proud last term when Mrs Ealden, Miss Blackburn and many other staff led trips to Newquay, despite the Covid restrictions and the fact that most schools were opting out of all trips. Not only did they take Year 9, as we do most years; they also took Year 10, who had missed out the previous year. It was important to them, and us, that they had this experience because when we talk to the older kids about Myton, Newquay is often what they want to talk about.
The determination to get our kids out of school and around the local area, the country and further afield to Europe and beyond is well and truly established here. With the public health barriers to this now reduced or gone entirely, we look forward to many more opportunities for your children to see the world around them over the next few years.
With best wishes
Andy Perry – Head Teacher
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