
Dear Parents and Carers
Thanks to the Year 7 team who hosted our first transition event for our children arriving in September last night. Lovely to see our new intake with their families starting the process of becoming a Myton School student and arriving with lots of questions. Whilst our presentations covered tutoring, the curriculum, SEND, extra curricular and aspects of welfare, the students’ questions covered the most in demand topics – what they can buy in the canteen for lunch and will they get lost (lots of different things and, yes!) This year, my own child moves from Year 6 into Year 7 and he is really looking forward to it, though is naturally apprehensive. I am hoping that the move into secondary may unlock some slightly more informative conversations about his school day than we currently have. He never commits more than one or two words to an answer after I have physically wrestled the Xbox headphones off him in order to engage in a productive learning conversation. He clearly and obviously resents every second he has to discuss his school day with me (unless it’s time for bed and then I can’t shut him up). It may be in vain but I am looking forward to a more interesting dialogue with him as he gets to year 7 and I hope we can make sure that the experiences of our new intake are the same for their parents. Studies have shown very clear evidence that a child discussing their learning for just 15 minutes each evening with their Parent/Carer embeds learning in long term memory so, whilst a quarter of an hour is ambitious (15 seconds would be a record at the moment), it’s worth pursuing and we will certainly do our best to make it a fascinating 15 minute conversation.
Best wishes
Andy Perry – Head Teacher