After a very testing week in terms of conditions, I would like to thank parents and pupils for maintaining high standards of uniform, probably with some additional washing machine and tumble dryer loads! I know lots of schools struggled with flooding last week and we are currently looking into some drainage work to try to minimise the impact around site.
In particular, we had to reroute pupils to their technology and science lessons and pupils co-operated brilliantly with this. I was particularly impressed with some of our year 11 pupils last week who have not only improved their own determination, but have actually been involved with teaching and helping others. This week, I will deliberately not name names to avoid damaging “street cred”, but KD in Mr Borges class you know who you are!!
There have been a number of parents who have been frustrated by the capacity of the academy to field phone calls and respond to queries. Just like all public services, we have a limited capacity which is why we ask parents to contact tutors via weduc for all non-urgent queries, and to contact year leaders for more urgent issues. The suggested timeline is 5 school days but we will try to respond faster wherever possible. If there is an extremely urgent concern that pertains to a serious risk of harm, then parents should either call and request to speak to a Senior Leadership Team member or ask for an urgent message to be passed to them as soon as possible. In this case, full details should be left with the reception staff.
This week, we look forward to the start of the world cup and will be encouraging as many positive conversations around this – and links with academic and personal development education – as possible. This World Cup has already generated lots of wide-ranging opinions.
We are Holgate!
Mr Pennington
Principal
