Don't forget to follow 
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. (more…)
