22nd December 2023
HEADLINES
By James Saunders
THANK YOU We finally made it to the end of the term. And what a term it has been. I would like to finish 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 couple of heart warming highlights. We started the term with yet another crisis - RAAC. This was not the start to term any of us expected or had prepared for. However, thanks to everyone in our community we rallied around and made the best of an unfortunate situation. After a manic first week of banging the drum and raising the profile of the crisis we were able to secure some hope. And in 4 weeks we built the space village - a solution that we should all be proud of. Remote learning was a place none of us thought we would be returning to. However, we all managed to navigate it as well as we could with little lost learning and a continuation of the delivery of the planned curriculum. Despite these challenges and setbacks we still were able to focus on things beyond the classroom. 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. There have been so many wonderful things taking place this term: C11 kicked the programme off with a Careers fair trip to support them to plan for their future. Other highlights included: • • • • • • • •
C7 residential taster at Mersea Outdoors NHS Careers trip Thorpe Park visit Open Evening C6 Personalised tours C7 Meet the learning group leader evening Simon Armitage poetry trip Mercury Theatre trip
• • • • • •
KS3 Disco ARu STEM visit Mental Health Champion launch Brilliant Club launch C12 Returners evening Christmas concert
I recently spoke about the importance of the arts’ in my summary of the amazing Christmas Concert. It is so important to provide learners with the opportunity to express themselves creatively. 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, 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 in particular 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 are constantly reviewing our provision at Honywood which often results in change. Change is a key part of life and is often inevitable. Adapting to change is 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. All the Best. James Saunders ADMISSIONS UPDATE In a year where we had to market half a school one could be forgiven for thinking that parents might, justifiably, vote with their feet and choose more certainty and a less crumbly building. However, that is not what transpired. A school is about so much more than the fabric of its building. Without learners it is simply an empty vessel. Families have embraced our ethos and family focus and what we have ended up with is our most successful year of applications. It is clear that there is demand for what we offer. We have just received our provisional numbers for September 2024 - 188 first choice applications and 145 second choice ones. To put that into perspective these are the highest numbers since well before I have been working here as illustrated in the table below.
We often talk about the impact of the work we do in school. This is an excellent example of such an impact. The work we have all done over the past few
years has had an incredible impact on our community who recognise our caring climate in school. In a world of remote meetings and working from home, schools are still very much about relationships and person to person contact. Buildings are nice but they are nothing without all of you.
Dates for the Diary Mon 8 Jan 2024
Non Learner Day
Mon 8 Jan 2024
C7 & C8 Learning Reviews
Tues 9 Jan 2024
All learners return to school
Tues 16 Jan 2024
C7 & C8 Learning Reviews - 3.30 to 6.15
Thurs 18 Jan 2024
C7 & C8 Learning Reviews - 3.30 to 6.15
Tues 23 Jan 2024
Ski Trip Parent Meeting 6pm
Thurs 25 Jan 2024
C11 Parent Evening 3.30 - 6.30