Dear Parents,

A busy half-term concludes with festivities in school today as we celebrate Carnival. It is one of those days when each of the school communities comes together and children from all year groups have fun together – a gathering that was sadly missing during “the Covid years”.

No doubt, you will have noticed an upturn in the weather conditions and I am sure that this has also helped lighten the mood of the children (and staff).

Throughout the term, many activities have occurred around school ranging from the opening tournament in our new (and improved) indoor sports facility to the Year 6s yesterday inviting their parents into school to celebrate the conclusion of their IPC topic “Mission to Mars”. The Year 11s and 13s have finished their mock exams and should have a clear picture of what they need to focus on before their final exams in a few months’ time. Some year groups in the Senior School have already held their second parent-teaching meeting while the rest of the school, including Junior School, will hold their second parent-teacher meeting next half term. As always, if you have concerns regarding the progress of your child, please reach out to the relevant year tutor/class teacher.

I hope you read my email last Friday on behalf of ISI which invited all parents to complete an anonymous questionnaire ahead of our upcoming inspection. It is important that as many parents as possible complete the questionnaire. I thank those of you that have already submitted the questionnaire and ask anyone who hasn’t to spend a few minutes to complete it. A reminder, that the web address is https://surveys.isi.net and you will then need to input the code XQDW-PWNV-JKQB. The questionnaire will stop accepting responses at 10:00 pm tonight (Friday).

It has been notable in the last few weeks that an increasing number of children are attending school missing an item of uniform. I hope that you are able to rectify this over the break. There have also been numerous children arriving at school by car after 9:00 am. Arriving late not only affects your child’s learning but also everyone else in their class so I hope that the late arrivals can be put down to the cold weather and punctuality can be improved as we enter the longer and warmer days of March.

I wish you and your family a relaxing and enjoyable half-term break and I look forward to seeing the children back in school on Monday 6th March.

Best Regards,

Mike Henderson
Headmaster