7th June 2024
HEADLINES
By James Saunders
Happy Friday everyone! We return full steam ahead for the final part of the term. With one week down already the summer holiday is going to be upon us in no time. There is still much to achieve so it is vitally important that learners maintain the high standards and positive engagement in their lessons that they have demonstrated across the year. I have enjoyed welcoming in the warmer weather, however, I know that concentration can be difficult when temperatures rise, but collectively I know that we can work together to maintain our purposeful and productive atmosphere around school. This week we have communicated with learners that they may not wear blazers for the remainder of term. FRESH EYES ON LEARNING Wednesday was one of those days where I got to spend all my time in the classroom. As part of my job I am afforded the privilege of being able to see our learners in action on a regular basis and watch them respond to the input of our great teachers. Wednesday however, was slightly different. Normally I pop into lessons on my own as I am walking around school but on Wednesday I had a few visitors. One of the great things about working in a trust of schools is the ability to share ideas and collaborate with others and that was indeed what we did this week. We hosted our yearly trust review. This involves the headteacher and a senior leader from each of our partner schools, the head of our teaching school, the CEO of the trust and of course, our staff. The day involved visiting lessons across the school (every subject and teacher was seen), talking to staff and talking to children. The day was a real success and provided us with the opportunity to get some external “fresh eyes” to look at the improvements we have made - the last time they visited was over a year ago before our Ofsted inspection. Teaching came out strong, however what sits beneath teaching is the culture of the school which was recognised as being excellent. Some of the great things that the team had
seen included the following: •
Extraordinary inclusive culture based on strong relationships and understanding individual children.
•
Collective effort and a well led drive to improve attendance with creative strategies, which has clearly impacted on progress and well-being.
•
Maintaining a positive outlook and strong progress through strong leadership at all levels inlight of the challenges faced.
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Improved communication between teachers and TA’s is having a positive impact in lessons.
A few of the team members had never been to Honywood before. The feedback they gave was lovely. They could not stress enough just how wonderful our learners are. I will feed back to you with more details once we have compiled the report. In the meantime I would like to leave you with a quote from our CEO, Caroline Derbyshire. “Always a pleasure to spend time with the delightful learners and lovely staff at Honywood School. It is such a calm, kind and caring school. You would want your children and grandchildren to go there.” There are just over three weeks to go until all of C11 will have completed a gruelling exam season. They will then have one final goodbye at the C11 prom. Prior to the C11 prom we have our intake days for current C6 learners. Currently we are set to have 200 learners attending Honywood in September. We have seen a lot of positive interest in the school recently and are proud to say that we will be well oversubscribed in September. Normally we would cap our numbers at 180, however, the Local Authority asked us to take a bulge year and agreed to fund this upfront. This came about due to the fact that we received so many first choice applications. We only agreed to this