13th September 2024
HEADLINES
By James Saunders
WELCOME BACK “If you accomplish something good with hard work, the labour passes quickly, but the good endures. If you do something shameful in pursuit of pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly but the shame endures.” Gaius Musonius Rufus The first couple of weeks of term are always important ones. After the long summer holiday both learners and staff often find it hard to get back into gear. I am pleased to say that everyone has embraced the first full week of their timetable with focus and enthusiasm, ready to reflect on the prior year’s performance and embrace the challenges ahead required to succeed. After welcoming our newest cohort of year seven learners I have been continuing to welcome the rest over the course of the week. More so than ever it is crucial that learners balance the ability to endure, with the pursuit of enjoyment. Learning should be hard. It should challenge us to think. It takes discipline to not succumb to the temptations and distractions that surround us. Perfecting the art of listening and being present in the moment is vital within the learning environment - both in school and at home. At Honywood we continue to place relationships at the heart of learning. Effective relationships lead to psychological safety and security, which in turn ensures the creation of a climate conducive to learning. By understanding our learners as individuals we are able to support them when things get tough so that when they reach the end of the journey and they look back on all they have enjoyed, as well as endured, they are truly happy and successful. Our Core Values (Trust, Respect, Equity and Excellence) and Capitals (Moral, Social, Cultural, Knowledge and Professional) remain at the heart of what we are trying to achieve.
We are all really looking forward to the year ahead. We have entered this term on the back of an improved set of exam results that have validated the improvement work we have been doing over the last five years. We were very pleased with the performance of our outgoing learners in the summer; each one faced their own individual challenges. These results build on the success of the last five years and are a real testament to the hard work of the staff. A real highlight was our improvement in grades 7, 8 and 9. Challenge has been a key focus for us over the last few years so these results are particularly pleasing and validate the work we have done. Improving a school year on year is always a tough task, however, that is what we have all been able to achieve with your support. I shall leave you this week with some highlights from my assemblies to cohorts 10 and 11. The focus was most definitely on maintaining a positive mindset and, in the words of Sir David Brailsford, marginal gains his key to olympic cycling success. My recurring theme was ‘...if not now, when?’ and ‘... if not you, who?’. I talked about the forgetting curve and the need to revisit and review learning regularly. It won’t surprise you that revision featured heavily.