Headteacher's Blog - October 2015

Dear Parents/Carers/Guardians

Welcome to my first blog of this academic year and what an exciting start to the new school year it has been!

I have attached a copy of our 2014-2015 Highlights booklet  and we are already planning for 2015-2016 to be another year to remember. The 2015 Governors’ 100% Attendance Awards and Governor’s Awards Evening, which were held on the 13th & 14th October 2015, respectively, were truly glittering occasions and wonderful showcases for everything we hold dear at Selby High School. As you will have seen from the news feed on the school’s website our students are, once again, doing some great things, so the 2016 Governors’ Awards are set to be amazing and spectacular occasions!

We are all delighted to see how well Selby High School has done in the DfE published unvalidated provisional attainment data, in respect of the grades achieved as a result of the first entry* for a particular subject and not those achieved after sitting the examination more than once. The government believes that early publication of this data will support parental choices before the   31st October 2015 deadline for secondary school selection.  

Our results are commendable in comparison to national and local data, even though we are still awaiting a number of remarks and clerical checks on examination papers taken by our students in the summer.  Everyone at the school is proud of the achievements in the summer and extremely pleased that these results have enabled our students to successfully move to the next stage of their lives:

61% of students achieved 5 A*-C GCSEs including English and mathematics.

We are very conscious that the national figures will be adjusted in the spring, ready for the final performance table publication, however, from our current projections, using this unvalidated data, the school’s results, once again, demonstrates another robust year of students’ performance.

We hope you find the data useful and the following link will take you to the performance table for 2015.  Results from previous years can also be found on the DfE performance tables’ website Department of Education – Performance Tables.

*First entry grades are the ones used by the DfE to highlight the comparative performance of different schools.

I would like to thank you for your support in getting the new school year off to such a fantastic start. The uniform standards have been truly excellent and students have, therefore, avoided unnecessary punishments, which deflect us from our main purpose of everyone securing top class results and achieving their full potential. Thank you for your support in ensuring your child(ren) are properly turned out for school, together with being ‘keen to treat others just like they would wish to be treated themselves’; a simple phrase, but such an important one for Selby High School. Moreover, students’ behaviour for learning needs to be such that it allows both them and their fellow students to make the maximum progress possible.

We send a large number of emails and letters, including numbered ones, out to parents, carers and guardians, but any communication system will only work well if people regularly check their messages. In this regard I should be grateful if you would check your emails at least twice a week, together with following us on Twitter@selbyhigh. The hyperlink to the school’s website is:

www.selbyhigh.co.uk

Top class home/school communications are critical so why not write a note to your child’s Form Tutor or Head of House to let us know what is going well or areas of concern that you may have. In addition, please use the Student Planner to provide a written explanation of any absences, but please also telephone the school on the first day of absence to let us know:

Telephone Number: 01757-703327 and select the option for reporting a student absence

Consultation Day for Parents’/Carers’/Guardians’ will take place on Monday 14th December 2015. Don’t forget to book your appointment between 9.36am and 7.36pm, when the slips are issued. The length of appointments will be twelve minutes. 

As you will be aware we hold parents’, carers’ and guardians’ support evenings each academic year and 2015-2016 will be no different. To date we have hosted very successful literacy and numeracy evenings and the annual CEOP evening, with regard to staying safe on-line, will take place on Tuesday 10th November 2015.

Mr Peter Griffin (English teacher), will be leaving the school’s employment at the end of this term,
because he is relocating to Cheshire. I am sure you would wish to join me in thanking him for his hard work and commitment during the last three years. In addition, Miss Freya Kirk (mathematics teacher) & Miss Naomi Sellars (mathematics teacher) will both be taking maternity leave to have their second children.

Dr Mark Smith (science teacher) is joining the staff on a permanent basis from January 2016 and from December 2015 Miss Jane Holman will be taking up the role of School Social Worker. In January 2016, Mrs Helen Metcalfe and Miss Hannah Gibson will be joining the staff to undertake the respective roles of KS3 English Progress Co-ordinator and the Curriculum Area Leader for RE & PSHEE & C. I am looking forward to witnessing them achieve great things with our young people, at the school.

I am really looking forward to seeing you all at our latest musical extravaganza ‘We Will Rock You”, which will take place at the school, 8^th-10^th December 2015. Tickets go on sale soon, book early to avoid disappointment. If the preview performance is anything to go by, you are in for a great evening’s entertainment!

Important dates for your diary.

Monday 2nd November                                 Training Day – School closed to students
Tuesday 3rd November                                 School re-opens
Monday 9th November 7pm                          Holocaust Survivor evening – Years 9, 10 & 11
Tuesday 10th November 7.30pm                   Year 7 ICT Internet Safety evening
Wednesday 11th November –
Tuesday 17th November                                Book Fair in LRC
Thursday 12th November                              Year 7 Horrible Histories trip
Tuesday 17th November                                Year 7 Enterprise Day
Wednesday 25th November                           Year 7 More Able App Development morning
                                                                        Shakespeare Schools Performance
Friday 4th December                                       Clothes Show trip
Tuesday 8th – Thursday 10th December       School Production ‘We Will Rock You’
Friday 11th December                                   Tracker 1 issued
Monday 14th December                                Consultation Day
Tuesday 15th December                                Speed Dating with Industry
Wednesday 16th December                           Lego League competition
Thursday 17th December                               Year 7 trip to West Yorkshire Playhouse to see ‘Chitty                                                                                           Chitty Bang Bang’
Friday 18th December                                     School closes for holidays