Message from the headteacher

Another very busy week: a lot of happiness but with some real sadness mixed in. The sadness came when on Thursday we provided a guard of honour as the funeral procession of much valued staff member, Neil Wilson, passed through Lumsdale site accompanied by a range of classic cars. As always, our students were totally reliable and respectful waiting in the cold for the procession to arrive. Neil will be greatly missed.

You will no doubt be aware that our school is extremely popular as a Y7 choice and this means that we have very large numbers on site at Starkholmes. This gives us a bit of a challenge in wet weather. Firstly, as you may have seen in the media, schools are losing support staff to supermarkets and other businesses because our limited resources do not enable us to compete on wages with some of those organisations. We are therefore struggling to recruit and retain midday supervisors. This means that we have to keep students in areas where we can supervise them with relatively few people (teachers cannot be required to supervise students at lunchtime). Large indoor spaces are limited at Starkholmes, so this is a challenge. Add to this the fact that the school has no control over bus routes or timings resulting in students waiting for buses in the rain and you end up with students sometimes getting wet. We are trying to resolve this from a school point of view including through working with a local charity to try and secure a canopy to offer more shelter. For your part as parents/ carers, please do check if possible how your children are dressed on rainy days as many attend school without coats or umbrellas.

In lessons this week I was particularly excited by a form time where the students were having a look at article of the week. The teacher was practising ‘Plan for Reading’, one our projects this year designed to promote students reading and comprehension skills. This particular article was on Artificial Intelligence but the Y7s pictured were reading it out loud moving seamlessly between student readers.

And finally this week, I LOVED watching the interform football tournament on Lumsdale site. There was something totally infectious about the friendly rivalry AND every team had girls and boys on it. Amongst all the sadness and challenge this week, these moments provide just the fuel you need to smile again and just crack on with it all.

Have a wonderful weekend.

A Marsh, Headteacher