Message from the headteacher

How are you feeling? How are coping with news bulletins which are regularly desperate in tone? My watch tells me to ‘breathe’. It then shows me a little flower which expands as I’m expected to inhale. Sometimes I take its advice and sometimes I respond to it grumpily by saying, ‘no…YOU breathe, you silly watch’. Either way it reduces my stress levels a little.

Teachers of Y11 and Y13 students are still dealing with a huge challenge. The government has ensured that exam boards release ‘advanced information’ to reduce the amount that some students (in some subjects) need to revise. They’ve done this to try and take into account lost learning due to lockdowns. This blurry image is a document used by a science teacher to advise their students around which topics to prioritise (green), which may come up (amber) and which they no longer need to prioritise (red). These complications are making it extremely difficult to predict which grades students will come out with. We’re doing our best…

This image shows trepidatious Y11 students (and a staff member) studying the seating plan for their mock GCSE exam. Exams are not life and death. They are not final - children can always find a different route into a rewarding career. It is, however, quicker and easier to do well in Y11 as getting such focused teaching later in life can be more difficult. My own son, Oscar, is dealing with Y11 pressure and, as for many children, this his first encounter with pressure and stress. There is no way (as far as I am aware) to avoid things which might stress you in life. All we can do is adopt coping mechanisms. I have suggested to my own son that working steadily will be more difficult in the short term but will reduce any stress which comes from resitting exams or dealing with reduced options in Y12.

The most joyful part of my job remains a) teaching and b) seeing other people teach. This week I saw Charles in Y7 struggling with the slightly dizzying and altered perspectives used by John Brickles (left). Elsewhere in Y7 Hattie L was trying to achieve the opposite in a design lesson - that is she was trying to learn how to represent true perspective using vanishing points.

I do hope that you find ways to manage the stress in your life and that you have a peaceful weekend.

We are Highfields.

A Marsh Headteacher