Head’s Letter to Parents
September 2023
Dear Parents
Welcome back to the new academic year. I hope that you and your families have been able to have a break over the summer and that you have recharged your batteries ready for the term ahead. It is lovely to be writing this newsletter having a year at Chigwell under my belt, and finding I am now able to anticipate the rhythms to the year rather than reacting to them. Last year flew by, but we managed to achieve a lot in that time; not least getting a strategy in place for the next six years, leading up to the 400th anniversary in 2029. Along with reinforcing our values of happiness first, a community of kindness, innovation, courage and resilience, and life-long learning, our strategy is to focus on three main areas in the coming year, and we have already started work towards these over the summer break; Wellbeing, Excellence and Service. I know that parents are the best ambassadors for the school, and I am therefore keen to share our plans with you so that you can see the direction we are heading in, help communicate that to friends and acquaintances, and give us feedback on how we are getting on.
Damian King Head
dking@chigwell-school.org
Contents
Page 1 Wellbeing Excellence Service
Page 2 Sport & Wellness Centre
Page 3 Sport & Wellness Centre
Page 4 Reception
Page 5 Further Work Around the School Staff News
Page 6 Staff News
Page 7 Public Exam Results Calendars
Wellbeing
We are developing an additional layer to our already outstanding pastoral care in order to ensure that we are well resourced to help pupils, parents, teachers and those alumni who have recently started university deal with the mental health pressures of modern life. We have a new Head of Wellbeing, Dr Donna Payne, who can be found in the new Health and Wellbeing Centre, which was completed over the summer.
Excellence
We want to make sure that our provision both inside and outside the classroom is excellent. This could be summarised with the following phrase: we want to be academically excellent but not exclusively academic. We have appointed Mr Philip Harrison to the new position of Deputy Head Academic in order to lead on developing teaching and learning, and we also welcome a long list of excellent teachers this September to join our talented Common Room.
Service
We want to develop links with the local community; both schools and local businesses, to become a considerate neighbour, and learn from and improve our provision by engaging with people beyond the gates of the school. In addition, we are looking to develop our service to the environment. Over the holidays we have engaged in a decarbonisation and biodiversity development programme, working with Arup. The first stage has been to upgrade our minibus fleet to electric minibuses, and we are using them to support a new shuttle service to Buckhurst Hill Station each morning and evening for pupils.
In addition to works pertaining to the three key aims above, a lot of building works have taken place over the holidays to modernise the site and improve our systems. In fact, there have been so many changes that the first week has felt like a series of ‘first’ times: the first time we have used our new indoor swimming pool, the first time we have gathered all pupils in Years 7-13 together for an assembly in the new
Sport and Wellness hall, the first week of our new location for Reception, the first day with the Wellbeing Centre in operation, the first week of the new timings to the school day, with assemblies and chapel being moved to the morning slot. Even for those pupils and teachers who are not new to us, it feels like a different school. I will take a few moments to describe those developments.
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Sport & Wellness Centre
We are delighted that the new Sport & Wellness Centre has opened for pupils from the start of term. As you will see from the pictures, we held a small ribbon cutting ceremony to mark this occasion on the first day of term, with plans to host a grander occasion in due course when the full project, including external landscaping, has been completed. I would like to thank the Bursar and his team for all their hard work over the
course of the last five years leading to the completion, on time and on budget, of this transformational addition to the School’s campus.
We also welcome Mr Mike Twiggins, the Sport & Wellness Centre Manager, and his team to the School and look forward to sharing details with parents before the October break, regarding membership.
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Reception
As you will have seen, the School’s main reception has moved and is now located next to the Hainault car park, at the Prep School entrance. Any pupils arriving late or leaving early must now register at the new reception. Similarly, when parents attend school, either
for a meeting or to drop off forgotten games kit etc, they should report to the new reception area. The drop-off and pick-up arrangements will continue to work as before, and Pre Prep parents should continue to use the reception there.
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Further Work Around the School
As well as the above works, the School has been a hive of activity over the summer holiday. Indeed, it has been the busiest break on record for renovation work, with four new offices added in the Old School buildings. The medical centre has also been completely re-vamped to create a new Health & Wellbeing Centre, with new treatment and triage rooms downstairs and a counselling room upstairs. Dr Donna Payne, our new Head of Wellbeing, will also be based here, overseeing the new wellbeing room for pupils. The centre is based opposite the Sport & Wellness Centre to explicitly draw the link between the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of our pupils.
Staff News
We are delighted to welcome a number of new colleagues and we hope that they will all be very happy here:
•James Bluff is our new Teacher of Music and joins us from KEGS in Chelmsford.
•Adam Burbidge will be a Teacher of Spanish and he is also taking on the new role of Head of Year 12. Adam was formerly a deputy housemaster in Beau Soleil in Switzerland, and prior to that he held the same role at Uppingham.
•Tom Burnside is our new Deputy Head Pastoral. Tom has joined us from Whitgift where he was Head of Sixth Form and prior to that was Assistant Head of Sixth Form at Forest.
•Suzanne Christensen will be a Teacher of English; she joins us from Woodford County High School. Prior to that she was head of English and Deputy Head at Heathside High School, and has worked at University College School.
•Laura Compton will be the new Head of Maths. She joins us from St Edward’s, Oxford where she was second in charge of department, and previously taught at Royal Hospital School in Suffolk.
•Sebastian Grogan will be a Teacher of History and he will be training as a teacher at the same time. He is a career changer, choosing teaching over the law where he was working as a senior paralegal.
•Philip Harrison joins us in the new role as Deputy Head Academic. He was formerly Head of Academic Enrichment and Classics at Merchant Taylor’s School and prior to that he was working at Highgate School.
•Baljinder Kaur will be a Teacher of Computer Science. She joins us from Wanstead High School and prior to that she worked at Woodbridge High School.
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•Glenn Kirkham will take on the new role of Director of Sport. Glenn joins us from The Perse where he held the same role and prior to that held the same role at Newhall School.
•Claire Pearce is Head of Biology. Claire joins us from Godolphin and Latymer where she was acting Head of Biology and prior to that she taught at KEGS in Chelmsford.
•Victoria Robertson will be a Teacher of Design and Technology. She joins us from Forest School and prior to that taught at Highams Park.
•Gareth Thomas joins us in the new role of Senior Deputy Head of the Prep School. Gareth joins us from HABS boys where he was in the same role, and prior to that he was teaching in Kenya.
•Marie Sternberg will be a Teacher of French and German and is a newly qualified teacher having trained around the Dulwich area.
•Grace Whitby will be joining the Biology department, training to teach. She has recently graduated from UCL with a degree in natural sciences.
•Charlie Phillips will be a Year 4 maternity cover teacher, and she joins us from Newbury Park Primary School.
•A face that many will remember is David Hartland who is returning for a term to teach Geography.
•Tracey Hogg joins us as PA to SMT. Tracey was formerly PA to the Deputy Head Academic at Forest.
•Caroline Hurst will be a Teaching Assistant in the Prep School and she joins us from St John’s Primary.
•Rachel Parkinson will take on a new role as Director in Residence. Rachel will be helping with extracurricular productions and teaching some Drama. She was previously a graduate assistant at Uppingham.
•Dr Donna Payne will be taking on the new role as Head of Wellbeing. As the title suggests, Donna comes from the medical profession, where she has worked as a GP and in occupational health. Donna can be found in the new Health and Wellbeing Centre.
The new Sport and Wellness Centre will be staffed by:
•Michael Twiggins - Centre Manager
•Steph Hahn - Assistant Manager
•Alan Peel - Technical Manager
•Nedim Custic - Operational Manager
•Katie Pond - Fitness Manager
Over the summer break, Mr Richard Hume and his wife Alpha welcomed a baby girl Amelia Ann-Maureen, and Aaron Thomas and his wife Chelsea also had a baby daughter Calia Belle. Rebecca Arnold married James over the break and Jonathan Scates married Emily. We wish them all well and offer our congratulations.
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Public Exam Results
We were pleased with the A level and GCSE results this year. As expected and predicted by OFQUAL before the results were published, nationally grades distributions were moved down from last year’s distributions to match the 2019 distributions. This prediction nearly exactly played out in both the
A levels and GCSEs at Chigwell (see the table below). However, in addition to all those who achieved high grades, there were also those who overcame personal challenges to achieve their own goals and we were pleased to be able to celebrate with those pupils on results day.
GCSE A level
27% of all qualifications were grade 9
50% of all grades achieved were 8/9
72% of all grade achieved were 7/8/9
Other notable achievements.
•2 pupils achieved straight 9s
•12 pupils achieved straight 9s or 8s
•30% of students achieved at least
eight grade 8s
Calendars
16% of all grades were A*
48% of all grades were A*/A
80% of all grades were A*/A/B
Other notable achievements:
•26% achieved 3 A grades or higher
•9% achieved 4 A grades or higher
•2% achieved 5 A grades or higher
•10 will be studying at international universities
•4 will move onto degree apprenticeships
•3 medics
•3 Oxbridge
As usual, pupils will be given a copy of the blue calendar with details of all events taking place this term. If you have not received a copy, please collect one from either of the three school receptions. You will also be able to access our online calendar from the school website which is updated regularly. The link can be found HERE.
As you can see, it has been a really busy summer break. It is an exciting time to be at Chigwell, and there is a buzz about the school. I look forward to welcoming you on site in the coming weeks to see our progress for yourselves.
Best wishes
Damian King
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TERM DATES 2023 - 2024
Michaelmas Term
Half term: Saturday 21st October to Sunday 5th November
Term ends: Wednesday 13th December
2024
Lent Term
Staff meetings and INSET on Wednesday 3rd January
First day: Thursday 4th January
Half term: Saturday 10th February to Sunday 18th February
Term ends: Thursday 28th March
Trinity Term (Easter Day is 31st March)
First day: Wednesday 17th April
Half term: Saturday 25th May to Sunday 2nd June INSET Day Monday 3rd June
Term ends: Wednesday 10th July
