Newsletter 10May2024
Our newsletter aims to keep parents and carers up to date with school news, activities and key information throughout the year.
If you have any feedback on or suggestions for the newsletter, please send your comments via email to newsletter@highfields.derbyshire.sch.uk
Don’t forget to visit our website (www.highfields.derbyshire.sch.uk) for more news and information.
Thank you for taking the time to read our news and for your support.
A Marsh Headteacher
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Message from the Headteacher
Charlotte Morgan is a key member of our senior team. She is a physicist by training and she excels at systems and processes. For this reason she is in charge of curriculum timetabling, scheduling and organisation. Currently, in addition to teaching and looking after various parts of the school, she continues to work on her plan to allocate 3,188 lessons in our two-week timetable (next year) to match our 115 classroom staff with our 1,309 students in one of our 88 teaching rooms.
As part of this she has to organise Y9 into 10 GCSE options and with this in mind she has managed to interview 64 students in the last 3 days to ensure that what we offer them is as close as possible to what they were hoping for. Many leaders do not do such meetings but, honestly, Mrs Morgan is not any old leader. She is exceptional, like so many of the people I am lucky to call colleagues at Highfields. The image features her and I looking tattered at the end of another very long day trying to secure the best we can for our kids.
It is not an easy time for school leaders. As I am sure you are aware, financial pressure is extreme, we are struggling to recruit teachers from a shrinking workforce and, thanks to lost learning and development during lockdown, we continue to deal with the educational damage caused by Covid. During these times it’s completely crucial to focus on the positives. Staff are amazing but children are the absolute stars of the school.
Every day we see young lives taking off. This week I watched a student throw a javelin for the first time and she instantly realised it might be her THING. Immediately I was off into a day dream where she won gold at the Olympics. After the national anthem, she calms the crowd and, in pin drop silence says, ‘none of this would ever have happened were it not for Mr Marsh and the team at Highfields School’.
I love the hours I spend on duty (image is from bus duty yesterday morning). This week I was simultaneously keeping a watchful eye on students and eating my lunch from a Tupperware container. A student sidled up and asked, ‘what are you eating?’ I explained it was last night’s leftovers. ‘Oh’, she said, ‘….who cooked it?’ I replied that it was me. She sighed and then looked, first at the food, and then me, pityingly, before adding, ‘oh well…at least you tried’.
And I love the ‘Groundhog Day’ phenomenon where those in education seem to relive the same exciting rites of passage over and again. This week I grabbed Y11 students as they arrived in school to ask them how their revision for GCSEs was going. It seems like yesterday that this was me: a spotty year 11 with a DuranDuranmullet, staring endlessly at post it notes and claiming it was revision (Highfields students are too smart to do this).
It is not an easy profession but I am so glad I chose it. Thank you for the support and trust you give each week to me and my team.
Have a restful weekend- support those Y11s and 13s if you can- this is a busy time!
We are Highfields,
Mr A Marsh
Coming up next week…
Remindersfortheweekahead WeekA
Monday13th May
Tuesday14th May
Wednesday15th May
Thursday16th May
Friday17th May
ALevelArtandPhotographypractical
ALevelArtandPhotographypractical SportsLeadersAwardEvening5.30pm
SportsLeaders-Golf
Summer 2024 GCSE/A Level Timetables
Timetables for the summer external exams starting in May are now available on the school website on the Exams page. Final versions of the timetables, with afternoon start times added, will be published nearer to the start of the exams, and paper copies will be issued to students at this time. Please note when planning holidays after the end of exams for Year 11 and Year 13 students, that they must be available to sit exams up to and including the exam boards' contingency date of Wednesday 26 June
GCSE timetable: https://www.highfields.derbyshire.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Student-GCSETimetable-Summer-2024-v.1.pdf
A Level timetable: https://www.highfields.derbyshire.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/A-LevelStudent-Timetable-Summer-2024-v.1.pdf
Year 12/13 Vocational timetable: https://www.highfields.derbyshire.sch.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2024/01/Student-Vocational-Timetable-Summer-2024-v.1.xlsx.pdf
Did you know you can hire out our school facilities?
3G Pitch
Hardstanding Courts
Large Sports Hall
Small Sports Hall
Pleasevisitwww.schoolhire.co.ukformore information,toviewavailabilityandtobook.
Tickets will be on sale from 3rd June. All sales are cash or cheque (Cheque can be made to East Midlands Education Trust) only please.
