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HEADLINES

By James Saunders

OPEN EVENING AND TOURS

This week we held our annual Open Evening for current year six learners looking to join us in September 2025. On the back of two weeks of fully booked tours we have felt a real excitement about the prospect of these new learners joining us. The feedback we received was very complimentary and highlighted the impact of our focus on building positive and purposeful relationships and getting to know the learners as an individual with individual needs. I made it clear to families that we are a small school and have no ambitions for expansion. This is because our culture and ethos comes first. We don’t aspire to build a megalopolis where learners get lost in the crowd. We do not want our learners to become a number - they all have a name.

Families embraced our traditional approach to standards and our high expectations which were very visible in the conduct of our thoroughly lovely and kind children who all acted as superb ambassadors for the school. If you attended the evening I hope you were able to gain a feel for the culture and ethos at Honywood.

I would like to thank Jessica Wells (C8) and Freddie Brooks (C11) who spoke to families. Between them they represented the start and the end of the Honywood journey. They did a superb job.

Due to high demand we are continuing to offer tours over the coming weeks. If anyone would like to book onto a tour please contact the school office who will do their best to find a slot to fit you in.

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

What are you reading currently? Fact or fiction? I have just ordered myself a copy of Exam Nation: Why Our Obsession with Grades Fails Everyone – and a Better Way to Think About School. It’s a bit of a departure from the usual fiction I tend to enjoy and a far cry from the dystopian literature I tend to gravitate toward.

It is so easy for reading for pleasure to become a lost art. With so much to distract us we could be forgiven for being seduced into seeking alternatives to reading. Television, internet, youtube and phones; each one offers an easily accessible passive experience where we don’t need to do much thinking or use our brains. However, reading is what feeds the mind and fuels the soul. It keeps us curious; it shapes our values; it deepens our understanding, and helps us to create meaning in our world. Reading creates great conversationalists. I recently read an article that explored what the most successful people in the world have in common. Guess what? They are all voracious readers.

To not read is to deprive oneself of the opportunity to enrich one’s life. Carrying a good book around so that any spare moment can be seized upon to read is great practice. Bringing a book to school for quiet reading in LS5 or whenever the moment presents itself is essential. We are currently focusing on literacy within our LS5 programme and offer learners the opportunity to for DEAR/DEAL (Drop Everything And Read/Listen) time.

NATIONAL POETRY DAY

Mrs Bansropun has been leading on a range of exciting literacy based projects across the school. Most recently she has used DEAR and DEAL time to highlight the importance of poetry through National Poetry Day.

‘Finding a complicity with how you feel, expressed more elegantly than you could ever express yourself, can be the most helpful way of making sense of your emotions and helping you to process them.’

William Seighart, founder of National Poetry Day

This year, the National Poetry Day theme is Counting.

National Poetry Day is the annual mass celebration that encourages everyone to make, experience and share poetry with family and friends. Each year we come

together because voices, words and stories help to bridge understanding in our communities.

Poetry starts conversations, it encourages love of language and, best of all, it’s open to absolutely everyone. Whether quietly or noisily in rewarding and enjoyable ways.

Why do we need National Poetry Day?

• 66.5% of children and young people agreed that writing poetry made them feel better during lockdown. The National Literacy Trust (2020)

• Poetry is an important vehicle to explore individual identity and the identity of others. CLPE The Power of Poetry (2017)

• More than half of children and young people surveyed (54%) said they do not currently engage with poetry. The National Literacy Trust (2018)

• Poetry is the most common way for secondary students to encounter a Black, Asian or other minority ethnic author and single poems are the easiest texts to insert into the curriculum. The Runnymede Trust and Penguin Random House Lit in Colour Report (2020)

In school learners have been looking at one of Mrs Bansropun’s favourite poets, Hollie McNish, and have been reading her poem: a british national breakfast.

they start the day with a small glass of orange juice bought at sainsbury’s, south african produce

mugs emblazoned with our german-bred queen they sip english breakfast tea, forgetting those are indian leaves

one and half teaspoons each of sugar grain bought at asda, brazilian cane

husband fries eggs, wife waters wisteria cooking oil from italy, heating oil nigeria

they swallow two pills each to help their bowels and digestion invented by a research team in u.s and india

newspapers flicked through, headlines are read: reads: ‘more crime, more violence, less hospital beds’

she complains to her husband, he complains to his wife

they complain it must be those foreigners ruining their lives

voting polls open; farage is ticked pen bought from staples, iranian ink

driving on roads laid by irish jamaicans she sprays on her perfume, an arab invention

complaining about foreigners joining their country forgetting the source of our dear british money

desperate for someone to blame for her boredom she waters the pansies, fertilizer from jordan

desperate for someone to blame for his misery they complain that foreigners are ruining their country

afternoon nap to tv, both sigh made in sri lanka, sold from shanghai

mumbling that polish have run to their country they watch ‘a place in the sun’, repeated from sunday

shop down at asda because the food there is cheaper they complain more british jobs for more british people

buy bargain deal clothes from low wages abroad claiming the price of local produce is robbery, fraud

a bouquet of flowers to gift a sick neighbour imagined in egypt, imported from kenya

they pick up a pizza on the short journey home complain british culture is being pushed to death row

home on the couch, watch tv all night complaining that foreigners have ruined their lives they finish their day with a cup of hot cocoa beans grown in ghana, profits to tesco

complaining in bed about closing our borders they don’t learn spanish; retire to ‘majorca’

I would like to end with a quote from Dead Poet’s Society.

‘We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.’

Have a lovely weekend.

James Saunders

FOOTBALL

C7 B team Football at Ramsey - Wednesday 25th September

Ramsey

0 Honywood 7

Team: Josh Gallagher, Zach Burgess, Freddie Bacon, Dillon Rutter, Baxter Miles, Connor Mcleod (Capt), Finley Doughton, Seth Lewis, Ben Middleton, William Norfolk-Simson, Colby Butler, Toby Smith.

Goal scorers: Finley Doughton 3, Zach Burgess 2, Connor Mcleod 1 and Ben Middleton 1.

It was an even first half with both teams having chances to score, but it was Honywood who took the lead through an excellent strike from outside the box from Zach Burgess giving the Ramsey keeper no chance to save. Just before halftime, Finley Doughton scored to make it 0-2 and Freddie Bacon was organising the defence preventing the home team from scoring.

In the second half Honywood dominated the game and further goals came from Ben Middleton, Zach Burgess and Captain Connor Mcleod who had a strong game and Finley Doughton who completed his hatrick.

Well done lads for a good all round performance.

C7 District Football

Tabor 1 Honywood 5

Team: Ben Irwin, Josh Gallagher, Finley Doughton, Dougie Hopkins, Kalen Dodson, Manny MunroJohnson, Ethan Yerby, Heath Saunders, Seth Lewis, Rosie Cagney, Freddie Bacon, Connor Mcleod, Ralf Gooding.

Honywood dominated the game from the start, but some fine saves by the Tabor keeper kept the score at 0-0. As the game progressed, Honywood finally took the lead when Rosie Cagney beat the full back and crossed for Heath Saunders to score with a good finish. Honywood kept up the pressure and goals followed from Connor Mcleod and Ethan Yerby. Ethan scored a second from the penalty spot after he was fouled following a good run. The Honywood defence of Manny Munro, Freddie Butler, Finley Doughton and Dougie Hopkins kept the Tabor attack at bay. Tabor scored after a good break late in the half but it was Honywood who secured the win with a fine volley from Colby Butler.

Well done on a great team performance.

Mr G Walters