14th January 2022
HEADLINES
By James Saunders
BACK TO FULL ATTENDANCE Thank you everyone for your support this week. Learners have embraced the start to term well and attendance has been well above the national average of 88.6% and back to pre-pandemic levels. The caution and testing at the start of term has also contributed to little disruption both from a learner and staff perspective. The focus is now firmly on supporting our learners to achieve their very best this year. For C11’s, this term is the final furlong that will take them to their GCSE exams, whilst for C7’s they reach the end of their first year at Honywood. Each cohort will have its own milestone to reach: C8 will be choosing their GCSE programme; C9 will be completing the first year of theirs; C10 will begin their first round of mocks.
measures that seem to have one foot in the past. Our learning reviews are different to a parents evening and should not be confused as such. Parents evening’s have their limitations and not always an equitable thing. No matter what the model is used, it is difficult to fit every child for a 5 minute consultation with every teacher during one evening and there is only so much that can be covered in 5 minutes.
Our teachers are available all year to discuss, on a one to one level, the progress your children are making and do not need to keep to the traditional 5 minute limit. Should you have concerns at any time or would like to know more about how your child is getting on then I would encourage you to contact their subject teacher directly. If you have flagged up any concerns with learning groups leaders these would have been passed onto teachers, Subject Leaders or Cohort Leaders who Having completed the learning reviews learners will be in touch. should now be focusing on the targets they have agreed. They will be completing further We will be auditing the preparation work that work with their learning groups leaders to help learners completed in the run up to the learning provide additional input which support them in reviews to identify further improvements to this driving their targets through with their teachers. system for next year. When I first arrived at the school I was interested in the learning review model that took place in THE ONLY THING THAT REALLY MATTERS IS lieu of what many would call ‘a traditional parents THE QUALITY OF THE TEACHER evening’. I remember back in 2018 receiving much positive feedback from parents about the I came across an interesting analysis the other meetings as well as some suggestions on how day that highlighted when each cohort last had they could be improved. Staff also had a few ideas a normal school year free from the disruptions too. We often fall back to what we experienced of the pandemic. For C11 their last full year was ourselves when comparing how things run in in C8 - before they even chose their GCSE’s. For schools. It is a criticism often levelled at the current C8 it is clear that the disruption hit both government when they introduce systems or the end of their time at primary school as well as