17th December 2021
HEADLINES
By James Saunders
THANK YOU We finally made it to the end of the term. And it has been yet another term like no other. I would like to finish the year by thanking our learners, staff, families and community for their support. I am going to keep things short this week and will end on a few heart warming highlights. As I reflect back on some of the amazingly inspiring things that have happened at Honywood this term I feel an immense sense of pride. Our learners and our community are great. After enduring 18 months of restrictions we began the term with the hope of getting back to normal. We welcomed our newest C7 learners in and kicked the term off with a trip to Danbury and a hopeful relaunch of our Enrichment Programme. This was followed by our C11s going off to a careers fair to ignite discussions around their next steps and college applications. We then held our rescheduled sports day for all cohorts. It was great to see the live updates of house points throughout the day. At the start of October we were able to showcase the school on Open Evening and, despite a few restrictions, the night was a real success. After 4 weeks of daily personalised tours we ended the first half term having welcomed almost 200 individual families through the doors for a tour of our school. The second half of the term was just as busy. Four things really stood out for me as capturing our community working together. The first was our response to the COP26 climate change summit and the work that our Geography team led - including a live lesson for a whole cohort. The second was our Primary Creative Arts’ day. This day brought year 5 children from a range of schools into Honywood for a day of creativity. Last week I spoke about the importance of the arts and my third highlight - our Winter Concert. Finally I would like to end on the wonderful work that everyone did to mark Remembrance Day. From the display at the front of
school to the staff football match to the attendance at the war memorial, at every step our learners, staff and community were working in harmony and were truly inspiring. These are the things that brought me to Honywood in the first place and have certainly made my job so enjoyable. What links these two events is the spirit of collaboration and altruism. Without a collaborative and altruistic approach so many things are almost impossible to achieve. When I have seen the school working at its best this term it has been as a result of partnerships, of groups working together, of mutual support and respect, of people giving up their time, and of collaboration. We have introduced many changes at Honywood and we will be introducing others. Some of these are difficult to achieve and it is only when we collaborate as a community and work in partnership that we will move things forward for the benefit of our learners. Altruism takes effort and I would like to thank you all: learners, staff, parents, and volunteers for continuing to freely give up that most precious commodity, time, in order to support the school in its journey. Whatever your beliefs or view of Christmas, the one thing the period does do for us all is provide time: time for families, time for loved ones, time to reflect and think, time to be altruistic toward others - time. However you choose to mark your time over the next few weeks I would like to encourage you to embrace it. It has been a real pleasure leading the school this term. I wish you a happy holiday. Stay safe. All the Best. James Saunders