Message from the headteacher

This week represented a personal victory for me because between quite important meetings I managed to squeeze in two experiences featuring food.

Experience one occurred when Matteo in Y9 read in the newsletter that I had missed bake-offs and left me this stunning mille-feuilles as a consolation. It was simply incredible.

The second experience involving food came about when I visited Thursday’s open event at the Hurst Farm Community Hub (formerly the Social Club). The picture below features me amongst a group of people including staff members from the Farmer’s Larder Community Pantry. The quality and array of foodstuffs they had on offer that morning was really, really wonderful. They even bake their own bread.

The renovated Hub is extremely smart (see below) and I am keen to try and book it soon as a venue for school planning days. There is an excellent terrace with views of Riber Castle. Gorgeous venue, wonderful people: thanks to anyone who welcomed Highfields staff to this open event! If I hadn’t had to rush back to work I would have set about the homemade soup which smelled TOTALLY delicious.

In lessons this week I came across a DT teacher who explained to me the ‘revision bags’ she had prepared for the 40 students studying Food Preparation and Nutrition. These bags included pens, treasury tags, ruler etc, various revision resources including a topic RAG sheet for self-assessment and, as a treat for completing recent NEA work, a bar of chocolate.

The teacher told me how she and her three-year-old daughter had spread these goodies across the living room floor before sorting them into personalised and named bags with a little chef sticker, just for effect. I write about this to remind myself and anyone reading of just how hard educational professionals try to look after the children in their care (especially at Highfields…)

Finally, having mentioned Hurst Farm above I wanted to give a quick shout out to one of our many high-flying students with a Hurst Farm address. This young man is in Y11 and has recently come back fighting from a series of challenges to score BRILLIANT marks in his mock exams. To achieve what he has takes courage, resilience and a significant capacity for hard work. Good lad - you know who you are.

Have a great bank holiday weekend…

We are Highfields. A Marsh Headteacher