Dear Parents and Carers
Next week is a snapshot of school life; the Duke of Edinburgh trip is out over this weekend, we have the Year 7 Bushcraft trips starting, moderation in Art, Photography and ICT, speaking exams for GCSEs in Modern Foreign Languages, evening events and it’s the last week before the full cohort GCSEs start. It will no doubt be busy but rewarding for everybody and I am delighted to see so many students on the DofE trip and the Bushcraft trips. These are fun opportunities to learn new skills but for me, some of the greatest gains can be made in social development. It is this area that we believe the most work must be done to catch students up post Covid. A lot is spoken of academic gaps but they can be assessed, and gaps in knowledge taught, even Ofsted recognises this is happening throughout the sector. Less is spoken about social gaps; the ability of young people to interact with each other, recognise and defuse potential conflict, share experiences, listen, work together to deal with stress and other demands of modern life. I suppose this is harder to quantify and measure and of course, many students got through the pandemic with little or no impact in these areas. However, many didn’t and we can see that here each day.Our education system values personal development, it forms part of Ofsted judgements, but paradoxically the system doesn’t facilitate as others do. In many education systems, the sit down formal part of learning doesn’t start until around age seven with the years prior to this focused on teaching young people how to deal with all the things their school life and beyond will throw at them. Here, this is woven into the school journey rather than a distinct part so when we close the system down on and off for two years, all students get set back somewhat. We have and continue to adjust to how we approach this part of education and in response will be rolling out a far more structured experience in personal development as we move towards next year. However in the meantime, and also ongoing as part of what we will do in this area, these trips where students must collaborate, listen and focus on achieving their aims are gold dust.
Best wishes
Andy Perry – Head Teacher
