Dear colleagues,
Monday was UNESCO's World Teachers' Day. It goes back to an agreement on the status of teachers signed in 1966, when teaching was a very different job. Some things have held: teachers look out for the young people in their care, and they see education as the best way to level the playing field between those who have and those who haven't. We are fortunate in WeST to have so many teachers who share that purpose. It sits closest to our value of aspiration, having hopes and long-term goals for every young person, and I'd add for every teacher too. Thank you, all of you. Sometimes colleagues go way over-and-above on behalf of the children and their teams. I have been made aware of a number of these this week who have really shone in the face of adversity. I won't embarrass them with full names but sincere thanks go to HO (Stowford), JF (Sherford Vale), RJ (Chaddlewood), SH (Ermington) x2, CD (Otterham), SW (Wembury), LA (Stowford), LF (Ugborough).
A good number of our schools have received certificates, some several, from FFT, who track pupil attendance very closely. Well done to Boringdon, Chaddlewood, Eggbuckland, Ermington, Oreston, Sir James Smith's, St Breward, Stowford, Ugborough, Woodford and Woodlands Park. Children come to school when they want to be there and feel they belong once they arrive, so the credit goes to leaders, teachers, pupils and parents alike. I'm very proud of it. Coombe Dean has awarded its latest Silver Attendance Streak Badges to students who had already earned Bronze, and at Plymstock 973 students managed a full five-day streak last week: in school, on time, in every lesson. Five of them won a takeaway for their family in the prize draw.
Earlier this week the leadership team spent a couple of days off site. We rarely do it and we keep the cost down, but a short time away from the day-to-day lets us check we are still heading in the right direction. I was particularly glad to hear from Ed Vainker, managing director of the Reach Foundation and a former headteacher, who works with local authorities and schools in Devon and beyond on what he calls cradle to career: a child's development from birth to adulthood, with the wider family supported along the way. He reminded us how much of a young person's outcomes is shaped outside lessons. Taking a real professional interest in the lives our students and families lead can do as much for results as the teaching, without treading on the health service's ground or anyone else's. That is the thinking behind Pillar 4 of WeST 2030.
Next week the provisional results and league tables for Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 come out. Parents use them to choose a secondary school. We expect to be towards the top, particularly in the South West, and that says more about what students and families put in than about us. Some studies put a school's share of a child's results at about 17%, which gives us 17% of the glory and, in a bad year, 17% of the blame. We know this year's results are good. The other 83% belongs to families, so thank you.
Eggbuckland's Year 9 went to Launchpad Live at the Life Centre on Wednesday to meet employers, colleges and universities, just as GCSE options come into view. Coombe Dean's Years 10 and 11 were at the Careers Fair in the same building, and the school's Year 7 had a careers tour of Paignton Zoo that looked past the animals to the jobs that keep the place running.
At St Breward, Reception and some of Year 1 read The Little Red Hen and then made their own bread, following the instructions together. The school says it smelt delicious. Holbeton's Reception class have had their first phonics and maths sessions, and grandparents joined Manor Primary's Year 1 Hedgehogs for National Grandparents Day. Plympton St Maurice had Alice in Wonderland performed in the school hall, free to every child because the PTFA pays half the cost, with a backstage workshop for Year 6 afterwards, and Rock Steady will now be at the school every Wednesday running rock band lessons. Woodford has set out the experiences every child will have between Foundation and Year 6, and its pupils have been writing poetry on subjects they care about. Daisy and Aria in Year 6 Beech wrote one about respect for girls and women, with the line "Everyone has the right to be heard."
Boringdon's girls took part in an inclusive football event, and the school singled out the sportsmanship of the girls who were new to the game. Plymstock's Year 7 and 8 girls beat Tavistock 5-0 in the first round of the ESFA National Cup with more than half the squad playing a year up. At Ivybridge, the Year 11 girls won 4-0 against Torpoint, and seven girls, Ellie, Carys, Megan, Evie and Ruby in Year 11 and Ayla and Emily in Year 10, have been selected for the Devon Under 16s England Rugby Player Development Group, three of them for the second year. In Cornwall, Ariani at Sir James Smith's will row for the county Under 14 girls' gig team.
Ivybridge's STEM Greenpower girls have qualified for the International Final at Goodwood for the fifth year in a row. After a hard season their kit car, Spare Parts, finished in the top 35 of several hundred, and they race on Sunday 18 October. Nineteen Plymstock students finished their Gold Duke of Edinburgh qualifying expedition, four days across Dartmoor from Bickleigh Barracks to Ivybridge. Plymstock's Year 11 caterers have been poaching apples and pears and finishing them with tuiles, which is more than I could manage. Hele's CCF RAF Section cadets ran a space evening for 65 Cubs and Brownies using the STFC's Borrow the Moon scheme. Coombe Dean has welcomed its new Student Senate, and Callington's Year 11 have been given their hoodies for their effort so far.
Next week I'm back at Sherford Vale, where the welcome is always a warm one, and at the WeST Community Council Chairs Group. There I mostly listen, and answer operational questions if anyone asks. The direction comes from the chairs and the trustees, so local communities have a real say in how the trust is run. We rebuilt local governance in the last 18 months or so and I care about it a great deal. It also helps that I don't have to prepare anything to say.
Warm regards,
Nat Parnell
CEO
