14th November 2025
HEADLINES
By James Saunders
FRESH EYES ON LEARNING Yesterday 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. I have managed to get into classes frequently over the last two weeks. Wednesday however, was slightly different. Normally I pop into lessons on my own as I am walking around school but on Wednesday we 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. This was our first review with Mark Guest, the new CEO of the Saffron Academy Trust. The day involved visiting lessons across the school (every subject and teacher was seen), talking to staff and to children. I had to step out of the programme for part of the day as I did not want to miss teaching my year 9 class. 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 since they last visited at the start of January. Teaching came out strong, however what sits beneath teaching is the culture of the school which was recognised as being excellent. Whilst the team will put together a more detailed report I thought it would be nice to share a few comments from the end of the day debrief. They are not in any order - but I did put the ones that filled me with a warm glow first: •
This is a kind school!
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Inclusion is exceptional
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Children are happy in school
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There are strong relationships
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There is warmth and positivity
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Learners are well known by staff
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Learners feel safe, happy and staff care about them
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Learners are happy to talk and love their school
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Improvements in quality of teaching and learning are clear
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Excellent practice around modeling
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Assessment highlights some great practice clearly visible and embedded
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Pupils have high aspirations including pathways beyond school
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Behaviour is excellent
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The strategy around attendance is good as is the communication and reward system
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Staff are happy and proud of the school
Some of the team members had never been to Honywood before. The feedback they gave was lovely. The whole team 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. I wish you all a lovely weekend.
James Saunders