Message from the headteacher

Isn’t it brilliant when someone is excellent at their job? Earlier in the year I developed chronic headaches and stumbled about from medic to medic, from doctor to hospital to clinic without much luck. In desperation I went to a dentist called Mike who was recommended by a friend. He immediately made me a jig to stop me grinding my teeth at night and a few days later the headaches disappeared and haven’t reappeared yet. His professional brilliance made an immediate impact on my quality of life.

We have similar people in our school. The other day I noticed a head of year on bus duty whose name wasn’t on the rota. When I asked him about this he said he wasn’t there for bus duty but instead was watching a little group of students as they made their way offsite. I think they must have had some kind of conflict and he just wanted to ensure that any end-of-school-day issues were avoided. Not many people would have that level of attention to detail given the number of demands made on their attention. I think he’s great.

Talking of great we took a moment on Thursday to remember the fallen in the Great War and in other conflicts. Eerie to hear Michael H’s trumpet reverberating the Last Post around the school just after 11am…

Meanwhile in lessons this week I have mainly been enjoying DT as we are having a bit of a shallow dive into their classrooms (shallow because they are experiencing slightly reduced capacity at the moment). These ‘dives’ are attempts on the part of SLT to learn more about an area of our curriculum. I really enjoyed speaking to Emel and Zaina in Y8 who were making an electronic game. What I found impressive was the way in which they would respond to a difficult question from me by calmly looking through their carefully highlighted notes until they found the answer they were looking for.

And in sixth form assembly this week it was Mrs Cruise who took up the reins from Mr Flett as she explored the question of ‘banter or bullying’ which was delivered as part of our Stop It Now project this year which focuses on peer on peer abuse.

Finally, a little bit of head-teacherly love for Y8. On Monday morning a bird got into the Bowler Hall as hundreds of students prepared themselves for assembly. The bird was tiny and frightened and some year groups would have been unable to resist the temptation to get over excited and to further distress it. As it was, a strange hush came over the place as Scarlett gently advanced on it and carefully picked it up. As she took it to safety she bumped into me and I noticed her hands were shaking - it must have taken a little courage to take the anxious little bird into her grasp with everyone watching. Great student, great year group, great year leadership team, bird with poor sense of direction (but nobody’s perfect).

On reflection maybe I should have Tweeted that last story. My goodness I’m hilarious.

We are Highfields.

A Marsh Headteacher