23rd May 2008

Dear Parents,

As we break up for an extremely well earned half term holiday, I thought that you would like to catch up on some of our news and also allow me to make some pleas for help.

• Learning and Teaching

We continue to redesign our curriculum in order to promote an enjoyment of learning and allow our children to achieve and grow into good, confident, young people.  Our focus on creativity continues and I was extremely pleased when we were awarded a grant to become a Change School by an organisation called Creative Partnerships, who are part of the Arts Council.  This will allow us to further develop our Creative Minds Curriculum and continue our creative learning journey.  As a High Performing Specialist School we now have a second area of specialism.  As well as being a Technology College, we are now a RATL school!  This stands for Raising Achievement, Transforming Learning.  This new specialism allows us to work with other schools thereby moving them forward in terms of the attainment and achievement of their pupils.

As many of our pupils begin their important examinations, I would like to thank my colleagues for the vast amounts of extra time they have so freely given to organise additional classes, revision sessions and holiday classes.  So many of our children will have benefited from these learning experiences.

• Healthy minds, healthy bodies

As you know, we continue to promote healthy eating and healthy activities.  We are seeing more and more pupils eating in school, whether this be in our dining areas or buying food from our trolleys.  Sadly, some pupils are still eating in the junk food outlets and not on our school site, consequently they are unable to concentrate properly in our afternoon lessons and their health suffers.  I strongly believe that at lunchtime our pupils should either be in school, travelling between sites before eating in our school or at home having a healthy lunch.  If you agree and I’m sure you do please insist on one of these options.

I would like to remind parents that our pupils must not go into the park at lunchtime or at the end of the school day.

Sporting activities continue to flourish and after school clubs continue to be well supported.  Our Y9 boys recently beat Golden Hillock School in the final of the George Welford Trophy and our Y7/Y8 girls’ hockey team have reached the Birmingham Schools final.  Some of our Y8 girls were involved in a three day ‘Dance Exchange’ project which resulted in a wonderful performance in front of a large audience.  Well done girls and congratulations!  Also a group of our Y7 and Y8 girls recently took part in a sports festival held at Bordesley Green Girls School.  I am delighted by this level of participation from our girls.  Several outdoor education residential activities have taken place including a girls camp and a full week of adventurous activities in the Lake District.  As always, I would ask you to support these activities by encouraging your child to participate.

Finally we recently gained third place in a city wide healthy schools competition entitled ‘Innovation and Good Practice’.

• Other News

Many of our pupils took part in the national Maths Challenge and we eagerly await the results.  A large group of our pupils went to the Central Library as part of the Young Readers initiative which resulted in a wonderful article in the Evening Mail on Tuesday evening.  I felt very proud of our pupils when I read the article.  We took part in the ‘Biggest Lesson in the World’ recently
which promoted the fact that 72 million children around the world do not receive any education.  This was a very meaningful activity for our pupils.  Our Y9 pupils have completed their National Curriculum tests in English, Maths and Science and our Y11 pupils and post 16 students have started those important life changing examinations.  We wish them well and hope that they all perform to the very best of their ability.  I was delighted to hear from the Friends of Small Heath School that our school in Barakot was complete and now needs to be furnished.  We will be holding a non-uniform day on Friday 13th June to help raise monies for this final equipping of the building.  I know you will be generous and I thank you for the fantastic support you have given to this project.

• Reminders and pleas for help

-     Should any pupil lose PE kit during the course of the year or need to replace items, then they should approach their PE teacher for replacement kit.

 I do need to remind parents that swimming is part of our physical education programme for all Y7 and Y8 pupils.  It is therefore compulsory and provides them with an essential life skill.

-     I am sure you share with me concerns of internet usage and what is now known as e-safety.  Our school systems are extremely advanced and we are able to block websites and track pupils who are trying to access unsuitable material or send unpleasant email.  However at home, without such sophisticated systems, you may be unaware of what your child is surfing on the worldwide web.  I would urge you to monitor your child’s internet usage and/or purchase some form of firewall software which prohibits access to certain websites.  We will be running a parents information and e-safety session next term and explaining the knock on effects that poor usage brings into our school.  We will also be placing a link on our website to free software that can be downloaded to help parents with e-safety.

As always my thanks go to you for your fantastic support and encouragement.

With my very best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

P. Slough
Headteacher