Dear Parents, Carers and Families,

If you ask students why they come to school, you’ll get a predictable range of answers. “To see my friends” will often be the most popular choice, along with “my parents make me” and then a variation of “to get good grades to get a good job”. Sometimes the answers are a little more off-piste – in preparation for this update I asked students this question over the course of the week and one Year 7 replied by playing a few notes on a harmonica they had before running off to play – but in general most of the responses might be groups in this fashion. I’ve written before that while seeing their friends shouldn’t really be the main reason why children come to school, the social aspect of school is important and rightly so. It's also true to say that the biggest determinate on people’s earnings (which is what children usually mean when they say, “a good job”, but not always) is your educational achievement and the single biggest factor in determining your grades at school is attendance so again, this is right. However, if you take the time to really explore with children why they’re here at school, they do become more reflective and at heart they’re here for a whole host of factors, some out of their control, but what keeps them here is their sense that they belong in this community. Of course, it’s the students who aren’t here that miss out on all of this.

In the autumn term of 2019, across this country children lost 6.8 million days of learning due to suspensions and absence from school. That may seem like a high figure, and it is, but it was roughly in line with most other economically developed countries. However, the same period in 2023 saw a 67% increase in absence across the country and while absence is higher than pre-pandemic in other countries, in England and Wales it is taking longer here to return to the levels it was at before Covid. The causes of this are not well understood and certainly complex but in general the pandemic broke the taboo that said school wasn’t optional and instead across the country more and more students are spending more and more time at home. The reasons for this will vary for each individual child but the broad trends are clear. Students with poor attendance are much more likely to underperform in exams, they’re more likely to already be at an educational or economic disadvantage or both, and they will in general be more likely to report issues like mental health problems. It’s become easy to see why in this context students might not be able to face school but not attending rarely makes any of these issues better and in many cases can make them worse.

We encourage every student to be present, be ready, be here. We want students to want to come to school not because they’re being made to but because they feel a sense of belonging and community. We believe that coming to school is one of the best opportunities young people get to develop their character, get support for achieving their dreams, and to take important steps in becoming who they want to be. This might be in terms of their academic achievements but should also be about so much more than that. Making mistakes but knowing how to find the resilience to overcome them, spending time learning how to navigate the up and downs of friendship, feeling the deep-seated joy that comes from laughing with others and making them laugh in turn, all important, all more likely to happen at school surrounded by your peers than in isolation. This doesn’t mean that school is perfect all the time for all people but opting out of school doesn’t just mean missing English, Maths or Science, it means missing out on real opportunities for young people to feel part of something bigger than themselves and develop the skills needed to make navigating the adult world so much easier. Every time a child stays at home, they miss another opportunity to be a part of this and over time this can have real consequences for them. Our job as a school is to make every child feel they can be a part of our community and go beyond this to help make this school and community ever more welcoming and we hope that you as parents and carers can support us in this by encouraging your child to feel the same.

Many thanks for your continued support of the school; I hope you all have a good weekend.

Michael Wright

Headteacher

Training Update

We met as a whole staff body this week to look at practical strategies to support students with speech and communication difficulties. Departments will then further explore what this looks like in their subjects.

Hive Writing Competition

The Hive Writing Competition is open to young people living in the north of England and is a fabulous opportunity for them to have their work read by published authors. The competition is highly competitive, with entries showing exceptional creativity and writing expertise.  This year, Beth Knapton in Year 10 has achieved the "Commended" category for a short story about loss and grief. The judges particularly commented on Beth's writing due to its "strong descriptions of setting". Well done Beth!

Parental Focus Groups

A massive thank you to everyone who joined us on Wednesday evening to share their thoughts about various aspects of the school. One parent wrote to me to ask if we’ll be running these groups again. The short answer to this is yes, the longer answer is while they’ll be a feature of how we engage with parents while I’m in post here, we also need time between them to make some changes and then look at the impact and therefore it may be some time until we meet with parents again in this way. It was really useful for us as a school and again I thank people for their time.

Key Stage 3 Assessment Week

The annual KS3 assessment week is the week beginning 2nd June, the first week back after May half term.

Weeks beginning 12th and 19th May - Students will receive 'How to Revise' tutorials on Fram’s 6 revision strategies during tutor time.

How can I support my child?

  • Talk to your child about their assessments after they have had their assessment assembly.
  • Help your child to be organised by looking at the dates of the assessments on ClassCharts and getting them to record it on their exam timetable.
  • Encourage your child to make a revision plan following the steps in their revision booklet to alleviate stress.
  • Actively help your child to revise by engaging in the ‘How to Revise’ tutorials which will be made available to you via ClassCharts.

Ms Lutynski, Assistant Headteacher

Exam Stress and Support

The NSPCC has reported that contact with Childline about exam stress has increased in recent weeks. Their data shows that:

  • Between 1 April 2024–31 March 2025, Childline delivered 1,647 counselling sessions where the young person mentioned exam/revision stress, an average of 137 counselling sessions per month.
  • Their monthly counselling sessions about exam/revision stress peaked in May 2024 with 359 counselling sessions, which is over two and a half times higher than the monthly average.

Key themes were:

  • putting pressure on themselves to do well.
  • feeling pressure from parents and family members.
  • struggling to balance revision and other parts of life like friends and hobbies.
  • losing sleep over revision, exams and the idea of failing.
  • feeling conflicted between knowing breaks can help with revision and stress but feeling guilty for taking breaks.
  • comparison to friends in how well they’re doing in class/mock exams and how much revision they’re doing.
  • having little motivation to revise because it is hard and being convinced that they will fail regardless.
  • feeling hopeless about the future if they don’t do well in exams.

We know this is a difficult time for young people so we have shared some links and sources of advice that you might like to look at.

https://www.mind.org.uk/for-young-people/feelings-and-experiences/exam-stress/
https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/coping-with-life/exam-stress/
https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/school-college-and-work/school-college/exam-stress/
https://www.annafreud.org/resources/children-and-young-peoples-wellbeing/self-care/revision/
https://www.mentallyhealthyschools.org.uk/factors-that-impact-mental-health/school-based-risk-factors/academic-and-exam-stress/

Mrs Osborne, Director of Safeguarding