Message from the headteacher

A few newsletters back I (think) I mentioned that I’d visited a science lesson where the teacher went out of his way to highlight WHY it was important to learn about the behaviour of electricity. We ask all our teachers to do this: to connect the learning of the day with the relevance of the learning to their lives.

It’s one thing explaining why the understanding of electricity is important but it’s quite another explaining why students in Y7, 8 and 9 at least, must understand the performing arts and, more widely, the arts. Except to me, it isn’t. To understand the arts is to understand how human beings communicate with each other about life. Someone once said, ‘we read to know we’re not alone’. That’s why we look to the arts to understand the experiences of others and to further our understanding of our own experiences and feelings.

Anyway, this all comes from the Evening of Theatre which I went to on Wednesday night. Despite all the safety measures it was so, so rewarding to see parents and carers back in our auditoriums. All of the work was hugely impressive from the mini-musical Cats to the smaller piece of A level work. The one that sticks in my mind most was a monologue by Frantic Assembly performed by Scarlett N. This piece explored what it was like to trust someone and get your heart broken as a result. Getting hurt by someone else is something that few people will ever avoid, and this monologue just captured perfectly how it feels when this happens. Scarlett performed it with such skill that you really felt a sense of her complete vulnerability. Stunning.

In lessons… in history the teacher dedicated significant time to thinking like a historian (think like an expert… is one of our Big 3 projects this year). A case study centred around Alphonse the Camel trained students to think in terms of long term, medium term and triggers in relation to the analysis of historical events.

We are trying hard to recruit staff at the moment and I think we may have hired some real stars onto our support staff team… more about that in good time.

Have a fabulous weekend whatever you are doing!

We are Highfields.

A Marsh Headteacher