It was great to welcome Year 9 students and families to the Key Stage 4 Options Evening on Wednesday. We hope that it was a useful and informative evening and it was a real pleasure to have so many mature and reflective conversations about plans and aspirations for the future while ensuring that options and pathways are kept open. There is a lot of communication around the options process and I won’t add to that here but I would reiterate that the offer of a broad and balanced curriculum for all our students without the requirement to study any particular subjects lies at the heart of our ethos as an inclusive, high-achieving school which is determined to serve its local community. The feedback which we continue to receive from parents and carers indicates that this is appreciated and shared by our families.

Whilst also looking to the future, I was fortunate enough to be able to be able to visit the new teaching block at the front of the school properly for the first time on Tuesday. Wearing my personalized hard hat and steel toe capped boots, I felt a little out of place amongst the professionals, but it was wonderful to see the building from the inside; 19 new classrooms with three state-of-the-art science labs and three new IT suites – it is going to be a splendid addition to our school. Completion date remains late spring/early summer and we will keep the school community updated as we get closer to the handover.

Finally, thank you to all parents and carers who have already completed our annual Parent and Carer Feedback Survey, and a reminder that the closing date to take part is 9am on Wednesday 16^th February. If you can, please do take the time to complete it as it provides us with a really good steer as to what families feel is going well in school and areas which may require further development.