Durham High School
End of Week Newsletter
Issue 1 – September 7 2024
Dear Parents
It has been wonderful welcoming staff and pupils back to school this week. We welcomed new staff to our DHS family in a special Induction Day, where we explored the importance of our school ethos and what it means to work at The High School. We shared our 140 Years History and watched the videos of the 140 celebrations, including our Old Girls’ memories of their time at Durham High. We will be introducing them via our social media platforms very soon. Monday saw the first of our INSET Days where we began with a blessing for our whole school community, including staff, girls, parents and governors, and gave thanks for colleagues who left our school at the end of last term, moving onto new adventures.
On Wednesday we welcomed our Year 7 and Year 12 girls for their Induction Days. There were some nerves at the start of the day but by the end of the day, there were smiles all round. It was a pleasure greeting all our staff and pupils on Thursday morning as we returned fully. The rain didn’t dampen our spirits. It was a delight to welcome all our new starters across school into our DHS community.
I’m sure you are all aware of our tremendous A Level and GCSE successes again this year. You can’t fail to miss our banner and social media posts, highlighting these. I would like to again congratulate all our A Level students on their tremendous successes this year, with an incredible set of results. A quarter of grades awarded were an A* and more than 48 per cent of pupils achieved A and A* grades across the board. Overall, 82.6 per cent of A Level grades awarded at the school were A*- B.
Pupils also secured GCSE results of the highest level, with almost a quarter of grades awarded a grade 9, and 48 per cent at grade 8-9. Stand out performances were in all language GCSEs where 41 per cent achieved a grade 9.
I am so proud of these results, which highlight the resilience and absolute determination of all our pupils. My sincere thanks and congratulations to pupils,
parents and staff involved for this incredible success across the board.
Thank you to those parents who completed our survey sent out at the start of the summer holiday. It was wonderful to read so many positive comments about our School. We asked for any suggestions of how we might do things differently to enhance your experience at the High School, and we are very grateful for those comments. We will shortly send out an update in relation to the feedback we received. In the meantime, one of the changes we have made is to reduce the number of emails and letters we send. To achieve this, we will send one letter on a Wednesday and a second one at the end of the week. These will contain links to important documents or letters relating to your daughter’s year group and of course our end of week newsletter. The links will be clearly named so that you know which links are relevant to your daughter, giving you the ability to manage what you read, as well as having all information in one place. Letters containing personal information will of course still be sent separately, but these will still come on a Wednesday or at the end of the week at the same time as the year group letter.
On Tuesday I am looking forward to our final 140 anniversary celebration, where we will come together for a picnic. Hopefully the weather will be lovely so we can sit outside to enjoy our picnic in the sunshine. We wanted to wait so our new staff and girls can enjoy being part of our 140 celebrations.
It has been a pleasure to chat with so many of you during the morning drop-offs, and I truly value these moments to connect and hear how things are going for you and your daughters. I look forward to speaking with even more of you over the coming weeks and continuing to strengthen our school community together. I also hope to see you all at Speech Day on Thursday, where we can celebrate the achievements of our wonderful students.
With best wishes
We are really looking forward to Speech Day to celebrate with you, the achievements of all our Senior Department girls, including the phenomenal A Level results of our outgoing Upper Sixth and the equally impressive GCSE results of our new Lower Sixth girls. As in the last few years, it will take place at 6.30pm on Thursday 12 September at Glow Venue, Long Tens Way, Newton Aycliffe. Our guest speaker and presenter of the prizes will be Steph Edusei, entrepreneur, coach and CEO of St Oswald’s Hospice.
All girls will remain in school to have their packed tea until 4.45 pm, after which we will transport them to the venue. They can bring their own packed tea or school can provide one. If you cannot attend the ceremony yourself, you should make arrangements for
your daughter to be collected from the venue at 8.25pm. Pupils should be dressed smartly in their winter uniform which includes a collared shirt, school blazer and tie.
Please complete the form to indicate your daughter’s packed tea choice/preference (response required whether bringing food from home or having a school provided tea). Packed Tea preference
New Parents’ Supper
This will take place on Friday 27 September, with pre-supper drinks being served in the Dining Hall at 7.00pm. It is our hope that all parents of girls who were new to the school this year will be able to attend the evening, with all parents in Nursery, Reception and Year 7 are also invited. For parents whose children have joined us at any point since October 2023, we would also be delighted if you would be able to join us. On the evening, it will be my pleasure to welcome you, and you will also be able to meet teachers and other parents. This is a lovely opportunity to have a child free evening, enjoying each other’s company.
Communication Protocols
As a school, our first priority is to keep your daughter safe and deliver high quality teaching and learning. We expect our teachers to be fully prepared, focused and engaged with pupils and supporting their learning. However, parental communication is vital and we would never wish to discourage parents from communicating with staff, establishing a strong relationship and working together for the benefit of our pupils.
Therefore, in order to ensure a strong relationship, and that any queries you may have are dealt with in an effective and timely manner, we are asking parents and staff to observe the following:
· Staff will acknowledge receipt of an email or phone call within their working day
· A further response will be provided within 2 working days by telephone or in writing, if appropriate
· If a query is more complex, staff will respond within three working days to indicate a timeframe in which a full response should be expected
· Staff are not expected to respond to queries outside their working day, Monday to Friday during term time. Parents may wish to compose emails at an hour to suit their needs, but there will be a delay to acknowledging receipt of, or answering, a query if sent outside of these hours.
· Staff are not expected to monitor or respond to emails during weekends and school holidays.
· It may not always be possible for teaching staff to call back or respond to parents during the school day, as they will be teaching and carrying out other duties in school. Administration staff are always available to take phone messages, which will be dealt with in the time frame outlined above.
· Whilst this is very rare, if a member of staff receives an email or call which is of an aggressive tone or sets unreasonable demands, they will refer this to a Senior Leader at the school.
You will also find a Communication Protocol attached to this letter, which outlines methods of communication and the relevant channels for different types of queries. We hope this proves useful to parents and staff as it sets clear pathways and ensures that you are able to contact the most appropriate person to deal with your enquiry.
Open Mornings
During this year, we have three Open Mornings. They will take place on Saturday 5 October, Saturday 15 March and Saturday 28 June. Open Mornings are an opportunity to showcase to prospective parents, your wonderful daughters, and the contributions they make to the wider school community, the academic excellence we provide alongside the superb facilities and environment for learning. If you would like to join us, you would be more than welcome.
As you can imagine, our school would not be the vibrant, dynamic environment without your fantastic daughters. All pupils in Year 7-11 and Sixth Form are expected to attend the first Open Morning in October. Pupils in Year 710 and Lower Sixth are then expected to attend the other Open Mornings. The Sixth Form Prefect Team also play a very important role in our Open Mornings. If your daughter is part of this, they are expected to attend all Open Mornings.
Safeguarding on our site
We shared this information towards the end of the school year, but we have many new parents who have joined our community, so we thought it would be useful to send it again. We have gone over the procedures with all staff in our INSET training, so our new staff are aware of protocols. During Form Time on Monday we will reiterate the safety in the car park arrangements.
People on site outside of normal drop off and pick up times
As part of our Safeguarding Procedures and our culture of vigilance, we have always asked staff to challenge any person on site who is not wearing one of our school lanyards (red or green). This is so we can keep all our staff, pupils and visitors safe, and know exactly who we have on site. If you are on site (outside of normal drop off and pick up times), and a member of our staff sees you, you can expect them to come over and in a calm and respectful manner, to introduce themselves and ask if they can help you. If they are unable to help there and then, they will take you to Reception where we can get you the best assistance. Thank you for your understanding of these matters.
Safety in the car park
In School Council last year, some of our girls expressed that they don’t always feel safe in the car park. They said that there are often cars stopping in the ‘no stop zone’ and the big red bus sometimes parks across the zebra crossing making it difficult for them to see if cars are approaching. They also said that some cars drive too fast through the car park. In order to ensure the girls feel safe, we made immediate changes, some of which require your help:
o Girls must only get into or out of a car which is parked in a bay or one of our car parks. Please don’t encourage your daughter to get into the car outside of these areas.
o The big red bus will park in the bays at the top on the way to the exit and our school buses will park in the bays near the zebra crossing. This will mean the zebra crossing is not obstructed.
o If the girls are waiting to be picked up, they know the waiting area is at the top of the steps behind the cones, as this gives them the visibility to see you arrive and make their way to meet you in one of the bays or car parks.
o We ask parents to not stop in the ‘no stop zone’ and we would appreciate it if you can observe the speed limits in place.
Summer Successes
Congratulations to Abigail, who during the holidays, completed a first aid course. She learned how to use AED (Automated External Defibrillator) with confidence and how to perform CPR in a first aid emergency. She also learned how to use various Epipens and bandage wounds. Such important skills to learn Abigail. Well done, we are very proud!
Congratulations to Phoebe, who won the U14 F category at the Dryslope British Championships last Saturday at Hillend, Edinburgh. It is a notoriously difficult slope to conquer, yet Phoebe skied extremely well! That same weekend, Phoebe also won the Scottish Championship too. What a fantastic achievement. We are immensely proud.
If your daughter has any achievements they would like us to celebrate, please send them to enquiries@dhsfg.org.uk so we can showcase them in our newsletters.
Book of condolences
Over the summer, our former Deputy Head Girl, Poppy, tragically gained her angel wings. Poppy was a truly wonderful young lady, with a heart of gold and so much creative talent. She was a fantastic ambassador of Durham High School and we are exceptionally proud of what she achieved and went on to achieve in her first Year at University. She was loved by all who came across her and we will miss her dearly.
There will be a book of condolences in Reception from Tuesday for any member of staff, parent or pupil to sign.
Calendar
The parent calendar isn’t syncing currently with our website. Our provider is investigating why this is, but in the mean time, I have included all the dates for September up to October Half Term in the links section of your communications page. If there are any changes, we will let you know.
In Senior Department, the Key Dates document we sent last year will be sent next week, alongside the Homework Timetables and Extra Curricular offer.