Many of our staff live in Sheffield and have worked there in the past. It is therefore the case that we have links with many schools and All Saints is no different: the headteacher there is a long-standing friend of a senior team member here. We all went home on Monday with very heavy hearts feeling that an incident like this could happen in any school. As you will know we have improved security with a perimeter fence and we now regularly prac se lockdown drills (we call it ‘get in stay in’). We issue very harsh consequences on the rare occasions that students physically hurt each other and we train all staff in restora ve conflict resolu on to reduce the risk of disputes leading to harm. Our star ng point if a student brings a knife or similar implement to school is permanent exclusion. None of this, however, can necessarily avert all ills. My daughter, who has a close friend at All Saints, was very upset and unable to sleep on Monday evening. All I could really say by way of consola on was that these incidents remain extremely rare and that we live in one of the safest places on earth. The morning a er she headed off to school and I was le with that irra onal but nagging background fear that we all have about our kids when something like this happens…
Despite the tragic events in Sheffield we managed to get on with our school week and leaders chose this week to focus their learning walks into classrooms on Y11 students preparing for their exams. GCSEs can improve a young person’s op ons in Y12 so we really want to help them get every grade they can. We visited around 30 lessons over the week and found teachers, TAs and students working really impressively together to get across the breadth of learning they’ll need to do well.
Our Highfields Ambassadors were one of the posi ves men oned in our recent Ofsted report which has now been published and can be found here (we feel it’s very posi ve, by the way). This week Compe ons and Community Ambassadors finalised arrangements for upcoming inter form compe ons. We’re really keen that students get more and more involved with leading the school and this is what the ambassador programme is all about.
No funny stories this week…just feelings of empathy for our friends and colleagues at All Saints. We hope that over me the community can recover and rebuild the trust and happiness that the school is reputed to have developed over a number of years.
Take care of yourselves. We are Highfields.
A Marsh, Headteacher
Monday 10th February
Mock orals con nue
Yr11and13Drama practicals-Allweek
DukeofEdinburgh meeting
Tuesday 11th February
Year 12 Parents evening
Friday 14th February
Spain Trip.
SchoolClosedforhalfterm.
Sports Leaders
Friday January 31st
Year 11 Level 2 Sports leaders Iv session 1.
St Joseph’s year 3’s and 4’s came to help our leaders.
The leaders; Alex C, Francesca C, Sophie W, Pasha S, Joel W, Oliver T and Charlotte B were fantastic. The year 12 level 3 Leaders, Tom and Matteo, also joined in today for their qualifications and were equally amazing.
The staff from St Josephs commented upon how well our students did in their leading, as several of their pupils struggle with PE.
Tuesday 4th February
Sports leaders today were trained by staff from the SSP, Chris Bethell, Emma and Aiden. Well done to our year 8’s Finlay, Archie, Jessica, Lola, Lydia, the year 9’s Maddie, Harriett, Thea, Kyra, Ellie, Bobbie and year 10’s Ellie and Bella. The SSP staff said the students were excellent and they will be looking forward to returning to Highfields on 5th March when the students will be running the SSP Primary schools’ competition.
Tuesday 4th February
The Leadership Skills Foundation representatives Rebecca Wilks and Helen Rawlings came into school to present Mrs Allen with a retirement gift and to meet Mr Shirtcliffe regarding succession planning of the Sports Leadership courses for 2025/26.
Wednesday 5th February
The third session of the FA Girls Activator training took place today. The activators went through the sessions they had planned ready for the National day of football for Girls on Friday 7th March.
Key dates & Calendar
2024-25AcademicYear
Term 3: 6 January 2025 – 14 February 2025 (Holiday 17 February – 21 February)
Term 4: 24 February 2025 to 4 April 2025 (Holiday 7 April – 21 April)
Term 5: 22 April 2025 to 23 May 2025 (Holiday 26 May – 30 May)
