Dear Colleagues,
On Monday I was at Ugborough Primary School, and what struck me most was the absolute joy and cheerfulness with which the children skipped into school. That was probably down in no small part to the warm reception on the gate from at least three members of staff, and in particular one long-standing member of staff, Mrs Bolton, who knew every child, and seemingly every parent, by name. Most of the children came running up to her and greeted her in all sorts of ways, with real warmth and affection. Those children plainly felt at home at their school, which is one of the really important prerequisites for learning. The school looks after them carefully and with love, and the parents dropping them off showed real trust that they would be looked after and cared for by the staff.
It always encourages me to see a headteacher on the gate. It is something I firmly believed in when I was a head: I was on the gate morning and evening every single day in both the schools I led. I think that sometimes gets lost in UK secondary schools. We encourage all of our heads to be present and available to parents, if not on the gate then somewhere they can be found, so that praise can come through, and so that little issues can be discussed before they become bigger issues, or even complaints.
I was particularly pleased to hear about Ollie in Year 11 at Sir James Smith's School in Cornwall, who has been shortlisted for a full scholarship place at Eton College through the Orwell Award. The award gives students who could never otherwise afford a life-changing place like that the chance to show they have something to offer, and to win a place at a school most people would never imagine being able to attend. As you know, Eton has given us, like them or not, quite a number of prime ministers over the years, and the education, as well as the connections made there, would be completely life-changing. He has also been shortlisted for a bursary place at Winchester College. It is particularly good to see a young man from the depths of rural Cornwall in the running for a national award like this, and we wish him all the best.
We have also had back-to-back ICFP meetings this week, which are as boring as they sound. But it is our responsibility to spend public money carefully and safely, and we take that very seriously. ICFP is where we work with schools, headteachers and finance teams to make sure their models of operation are as efficient as they can be and line up well against the benchmarks we know nationally, locally and within the trust. Because we can line schools up against each other on certain metrics, we can see which are doing things particularly well and share that practice from one to another, which means we spend money carefully, sensibly and frugally. As I have written before, the result is more money at the chalk face with the children, and that is central to the way we work.
It does encourage me that trusts look likely to have to publish their top slice on their websites. I welcome that, because ours is one of the lowest in the country. We take less money centrally while running an excellent service, and that leaves our headteachers more to spend on the children in each of our 31 very different schools.
I finished the week by opening our annual teaching and learning conference, with a programme of activities from the central team for those who lead teaching in our schools. We are fortunate to have what many trusts do not, which is subject specialists employed at the centre. I often hear, "WeST is so big now. When will it be too big?" Well, we are only just big enough to support central subject specialists, and we make significant savings and tighten our belts elsewhere in order to do it. The advantage is that we can share good practice across the schools and give them a level of subject specialist input and coordination that none of them could afford on its own.
My address was very short. We have had three years of rising outcomes, particularly at secondary, so how do we go for a fourth year, and how do we soar? To get the outcomes we have, we tightened up procedures and processes and made sure everyone could be as good as they possibly can at the chalk face. If you are not very careful, that can stifle innovation. So in our fourth year we will not let up on the fact that all our practice needs to be at least good, but now is the time to hand back some autonomy, and some room for innovation, to our teachers, some of whom are very, very good and have been getting quite frustrated at having to follow set practices and procedures. Things are tight, and that has brought three years of rising outcomes and quality of practice in our schools. Now we have that baseline established, it is time to loosen just a little, and we have an exciting year ahead seeing what that brings, without lowering any of our standards.
At Hele's, Fifty Year 8 and 9 students saw CATS at the Theatre Royal Plymouth, and members of the public emailed the school afterwards about their manners. One wrote that "every single child climbed safely, kindly and using wonderful manners to pass us"; another that "the students were a real credit to your school".
The Hele's School Young Company staged A Midsummer Night's Dream on 12 and 13 October, and the Junior Leadership Team and Post 16 raised £162.37 for Mind Devon with a Big Bingo and a tea and treats break, the start of their fundraising for the year. For Space Week the school borrowed moon samples again through the STFC Borrow the Moon scheme, with events across every year group, and during National Cadets Week the CCF cadets volunteered in the community and held a uniform day open to cadets from any unit. Year 10 and Year 12 artists went to St Ives, and Year 7 geographers assessed the environmental quality of the school site. Year 10 mentors and students from Years 11 to 13 led the tours and welcomed families at last month's Year 6 open evening.
Ivybridge's Year 11 rugby players beat West Buckland 71-19 in the National Cup, Year 10 won 31-28 away at Mounts Bay Academy, with the winning score coming right at the end, and Year 8 beat DHSB 9-0 at their central venue fixture. Coombe Dean's Year 9 sports leaders ran the demonstrations at the PSSP Key Stage 1 multi-skills festival for pupils from Elburton, Goosewell, Widey Court, St Matthews and St Peters, and a group of Coombe Dean staff completed the Tour de Moor to raise money for charity.
Plymstock brought together its PS Heroes, the support group for students from Armed Forces families, for a breakfast on Thursday morning. Its Year 7 science club designed and built their own lighthouse structures, working out how to keep them standing. And in a post sharing Year 7 student voice, one wrote, "I enjoyed English because I absolutely love writing and hope to be an author one day."
Boringdon's Year 3 went to Torquay Museum for Ancient Egypt, making scarab beetles, writing their names in hieroglyphics inside a cartouche and taking part in a mummification and embalming workshop, and the school thanked the parent volunteers who made the trip possible. At Oreston, Andrew Denham, the Plymouth Foodbank co-ordinator, spoke at the Harvest Festival, and John Eames from the Plymstock Church of the Good Shepherd at the Year 5 and 6 Harvest assembly, with families giving generously to the food bank. Mrs Chivers held the first Headteacher's Award assembly of the year and had afternoon tea in the hall with the children who had earned a postcard this half term, and the values trophies went to Whales for independence, Dolphins for respect, Seahorses for resilience, Barracudas for happiness and Octopus for kindness.
Plympton St Maurice's Foundation Stage children came into a full school assembly for the first time, more than 200 people in the hall with parents at the back, and the Reception children sat through the whole thing. As the head put it, we perhaps forget how daunting that can be when you are one of the littlest learners. The same week brought the termly Dojo Award certificates in bronze, silver and gold, and the PTFA's annual Halloween disco, with thanks to the staff and volunteers who managed a hall full of very excited children.
Woodford's Eco Council walked the school grounds with Fiona from Devon Wildlife Trust, plotting habitats on a map that will be uploaded to the Natural History Museum's database, and chose its focus for the year. The PTFA has been selling its annual pumpkin maps at the school gate for £1, with fourteen local businesses sponsoring them this year, from Plymbridge Stores to The Wonky Teapot. Parents in the WCC 6 group of schools, Woodford among them, can vote in the WeST Community Council parent election until 11.45pm on Friday 30 October. At St Breward, Seahorses read Pumpkin Soup and then dissected real pumpkins, and the nursery opened a Pumpkin Café and mixed potions in the water tray.
Our schools have now broken up for half term. Thank you for all of it, and I hope you get a proper rest before we start back on that fourth year in earnest on 2 November.
Warm regards,
Nat Parnell
CEO
