Hopes for 2020 - A New Decade

The week sees not only the start of a new school term but of a new decade. Naturally this give us the chance to reflect on the achievements of the last 10 years (where did they go!), and more importantly to consider the exciting opportunities that lie before us. My assemblies this week will encourage each and every member of our school community to consider how they can shape their pathway during the next 10 years – our pupils will be the next scientists, writers, equal rights activists, environmentalists, leaders, entrepreneurs, musicians, teachers, the operatives in jobs that don’t yet exist…the list goes on. I find that prospect the most inspiring part of my job – looking forward to how our young people will grow and become the architects of their future. Our job is to ensure they believe they can achieve anything on which they set their mind and give them the necessary experiences, both inside and outside of the classroom that means they reach their chosen destination and thrive. I do hope all our pupils had a restful festive break and their batteries have been recharged leaving them with a determination to give their best in everything they do this term. Last term was action packed so in true reflection style, I would just like the opportunity to take a brief moment to share with you the incredible events that drew 2019 to a close.

Christmas Carol Concert

On the penultimate day of term, two privileged audiences were treated to a Christmas Carol Concert that certainly brought the festive season to light. Our first audience was a group of Weaverham pensioners who were invited by Year 9 pupils to watch the final rehearsal of the concert. Mrs Ayre and Mrs Greenfield worked alongside pupils to ensure that this matinee performance was one to remember. The musical performances were superb and this was followed by our visitors being treated to Afternoon Tea in the library. It was a warming sight to watch our confident pupils chatting to our visitors over mince pies and cups of tea. Such intergenerational events are an important part of our community links and watching our visitors leaving the site with a festive spring in their step certainly said it all.

The evening performance was equally memorable. A two hour Christmas extravaganza moved the audience right into the heart of the festive spirit. All musical tastes were catered for; 100+ strong School Choir, Chamber Choir, Gospel Choir, Boys Choir, Concert Band, String Section, Steel Pans with a pinch of a perfect Rock Band resulted in toe tapping, impromptu singalongs and the odd tear, such was the talent on display. There is something quite magical about these evenings, not least feeling such but admiration for those pupils who openly share their incredible talents with us. At the end of the evening I felt compelled to thank Year 7 pupils as this was their first performance on the Weaverham stage. I equally praised older pupils for being the most remarkable role models and inspiring younger pupils whose journey it will be a pleasure to observe in the coming years.

A special thank you must go to Year 11 pupils who performed Christmas pieces for the final time – the audience on the evening was reminded that these pupils had somehow managed to find time to rehearse individual pieces as well as group ensembles whilst simultaneously preparing and completing their GCSE mock exams. To say we were proud of them would be a slight understatement! My thanks go to Mrs Clark and Mrs Atkinson for their hard work in producing the concert and ensuring such a wonderful evening for all.

WEAVERHAM HIGH SCHOOL NEWSLETTER January 2020

Leading The Way in Teaching and Learning

Our commitment to provide the highest quality Teaching & Learning in addition to growing school leaders has been at the heart of our School Development Plan. Therefore, it gives me great pleasure to confirm that Ms Farquhar, a member of the English department, has been successful in her application to become a Specialist Leader of Education (SLE). Ms Farquhar’s appointment takes Weaverham’s total number of SLEs to five – an impressive number. SLEs retain their key roles within school and this will always be the priority, however, as part of her role, Ms Farquhar will be commissioned to work with other local schools within Cheshire West and Chester who require support and guidance in developing their English curriculum. Supporting Trainee Teachers

It is well known that teacher recruitment is at an all time low – for the seventh year in a row the government has failed to reach its recruitment targets for secondary school teacher trainees, raising fears that schools in England face shortages in key subjects such as Maths, Physics and Foreign Languages. In November 2019 Kevin Courtney, joint General Secretary of the National Education Union commented that: “Trainee and new teachers need dedicated support to help them develop into competent professionals. Once we have invested in their skills, we must not lose their passion and experience.” On Thursday 10th October, Head of Chemistry Mr Rutter, and Head of KS3 English, Ms Farquhar delivered a valuable training day to those just starting out in this wonderful profession. The recipients of this specialist training was the entire cohort of new teachers in the Cheshire Vale Teaching School Alliance. The day consisted of explaining the importance of curriculum planning, both medium and long term. Our expert staff shared with trainees how crucial quality schemes of learning are to pupils’ progress. Delegates had to work hard – they looked at the practical ways of setting long term goals before having to plan backwards to ensure short term day-to-day planning is clear. The training day also included delegates considering current research papers and OFSTED’s “The Wasted Years” document which generated brilliant discussion points around KS3 and the need for it to be high quality and personalised. The feedback from delegates was unanimously positive thanks to the excellent workshop Mr Rutter and Ms Farquhar prepared, resourced and expertly delivered.

Leadership Legacy Project

English teacher and Challenge Coordinator Miss Jones has secured a place on a prestigious leadership project after demonstrating the potential to become an outstanding school leader. The project is delivered by the Schools, Students and Teachers Network and looks to develop the next generation of leaders. Miss Jones will form part of an impressive group from across the country who will learn from some of the best leaders on a national level.

“It is an absolute privilege to embark upon the Leadership Legacy Project,” said Miss Jones. “The project will explore issues of social mobility and allow me to undertake my own research-based project, meeting with leaders across the country who are best placed to offer me advice and guidance. Three years into my teaching career, I'm more than ready to take the next step, hone my educational philosophy and develop the skills needed to be an inspirational leader.” Miss Jones has whole school responsibility for our strategy to support More Able Pupils and is utilising her experiences on the Legacy Project to develop this provision further still. Miss Jones has developed links with Oxbridge graduates and has organised presentations to be delivered to pupils across a range of year groups on Tuesday 28th January. Peer to Peer School improvement

Congratulations to Miss Bones, Head of Geography who has successfully been appointed as a School

Improvement Facilitator as part of the Education Development Trust’s School Partnership Programme.

Miss Bones will work with a Peer Review team and will tasked with collaborating with other secondary

schools and facilitating training to support priority areas for the school’s development.

SEND Team Share Excellent Transition

In December 2019, our SENDCO Mr Helm and Assistant SENDCO Mrs Measures were invited by the local authority SEND team to deliver a presentation to other SENDCOs about the excellent transition support that they have embedded into our annual schedule. Mr Helm and Mrs Measures were able to explain in detail examples of the extended transition activities that have made a real difference to many pupils. The personalised approach that our team adopt has the pupils’ voice at the heart of decision making and this was something that many delegates took away with them. The SEN Advisory Officer at CWAC contacted school following the event to thank our staff:

I just wanted to mail and thank you for allowing Mr Helm and Mrs Measures to come and deliver at our transition event, I realise it is a busy time of year. The event was rolled out to every school in CWAC and the majority of schools attended, so it could have been a very daunting experience for them both. However I have to say they were absolutely brilliant and a real credit to Weaverham! They were able to showcase some of the great things that Weaverham do in terms of extended transition and we had some excellent feedback from colleagues and other professionals at the event, who particularly enjoyed the video clip which highlighted the importance of pupil voice in the process. Once again, thank you, and thank you to them both for supporting the event. Without staff who are happy to share their good practise these events would not be nearly as successful. Wilderness Therapy – qualified instructors

Congratulations to two members of our Learning Support Team, Miss Hardaker and Mr Tong who have passed their Level 2 Wilderness Therapy Instructors Course. This means we can now deliver our own Wild Crew courses as and when is appropriate. Wild Crew is a course designed to offer therapeutic intervention to a group of pre-selected pupils over an 8 session period. The course is about the pupil’s journey through life and where they are going, how they are getting there and why they want to go in that direction. By using low-level therapeutic approaches, it enables the group members to be: more self aware; more emotionally Intelligent and therefore, more aligned in their behaviour. This allows them to develop in the Six Pillars of True Self-Esteem and improves their lives now and their expectations as they progress into adulthood.

Throughout the eight sessions, the aim is to target self-esteem, different elements of emotional intelligence and self-knowledge, as well as skills and competences outdoors. This helps secure improved self-awareness, and ultimately better behaviours and choices in responses to different situations in life. By completing the eight sessions, the students came up with an ‘I AM’ statement which is something that they would like to change about themselves, or who they wanted to be as they continue to develop towards their true self.

The next course will commence on Tuesday 21st January, there will be 4 weeks in Spring 1 and 4 weeks in Spring 2. We look forward to sharing the updates with you in future newsletter. New staff

We welcome a number of new members of staff who join the school this term. Mrs Boyes joins us to work alongside Mrs Marsault as she prepares to start her maternity leave later on this half term. Mrs Cummins, previously at Helsby High School, joins our English team and Mrs Oakes strengthens our Performing Arts Department as our new teacher of Dance. Mrs Howarth-Platt joins our team of Cover Supervisors.

School Council – Eco Focus The School Council held their first ‘Have Your Say Day’ last half term where they gave all members of the school community the opportunity to meet with them and share their thoughts and ideas about how to make our school even better. The School Council based themselves in the Conference Room for the day and had a steady flow of pupils, eager to give their point of view on all topics from homework to school trips. Following the Have Your Say Day, Ms Morgan met with the School Council to hear the pressing issues that were important to pupils. High on pupils’ agenda is the ongoing plan to become more environmentally aware and proactive. To support us in developing a sustainable strategy we have arranged for a speaker from Greenpeace to meet all year groups this half term and share ideas on how we may make changes and play an active role to make a positive difference. We will also be researching the Eco School Award aims and objectives this half term with a view of creating an action plan to work towards achieving this accreditation in the future.

Keeping You Informed

The Autism Hub

The Autism Hub voluntary group is based at Greenbank School and is open every Wednesday to provide support for parents and families with children with ASD. They also provide training opportunities for both professionals and families. Please use the link below to find details of a training opportunity for January, 2020. cheshire@nas.org.uk

THRIVE

We have now updated our website to include links to emotional wellbeing support for children and parents – click on the

ABOUT tab to find THRIVE. There you will see the Signposting section that will direct you to online support including Papyrus,

Visyon, Kooth and Young Minds

My Best Work

Year 8 pupil Evelyn Lambert was so inspired by the work in her RE lessons took it upon herself to complete her own research and learn more. Her account is below:

Over a 4 week period I researched about the Holocaust Memorial. I learned about the Shoah Memorial and the Theresienstadt Memorial. My favourite memorial to research was the Shoah Memorial. My favourite

fact about this memorial is that in 1950, Sehneersohn decided to create a memorial tomb for the Holocaust victims ;the memorial of the unknown Jewish Martyr. I really enjoyed going this RE project and I hope I get

projects like this in the future.

Year 9 and 11 Parental Survey

Thank you to all who took the time to complete the Year 9 and 11 Parental Survey last half term. As always we are determined to listen and act on the views of all members of our school community to ensure that every pupils’ experience of school is the very best it can be.

There were many pleasing comments from the returns and I had great pleasure sharing those comments with staff in our weekly briefings. Here is a very small sample of the some of the areas you feel we are doing well

You said we are doing well ……

Behaviour and B4L system – making a difference to pupils

Focus on pupil wellbeing and resilience

The website – accessible, detailed information

Teaching and Learning the Weaverham Way, including the Teaching & Learning forum for parents.

Communication between home and school – you feel this is bettter

Site security

Challenge in lessons

School leadership

Safeguarding. Pastoral staff are always excellent

Overall standards/Improved on all levels

There were some aspects you feel we need to improve and I would like to share with you our thoughts on how we intend to go about this. You will notice that some of the improvement areas were also noted by some parents as a positives aspect of school. I hope you find the information below informative.

In addition there were four comments from parents relating to their concerns over mixed ability teaching groups and two comments from parents confirming their children are continually begin stretched and challenged in mixed ability classes. I want to take the opportunity to reassure all parents that we are determined to ensure we deliver the highest quality of teaching to all pupils at all times. The Weaverham Way of Learning is centred around stretch and challenge – our staff do this very well and we have had external verification that our expectations and standards remain high. As you will be aware, we invited Peter Cox, a HMI into school in the second part of the Autumn term and he spent a significant amount of time in lessons. He saw first hand the 4Cs approach, the relentless drive our staff and pupils have to ensure most progress is made, our approach to memory recall and applying new knowledge. He also saw excellent behaviour for learning – something we demand each and every lesson. Our B4L strategy supports this and the evidence that it is working is shown in the sheer number of congratulations letters sent out at the end of the Autumn term – 390. These pupils gained the highest behaviour for learning grades possible in every single lesson from September to December .

If you have concerns about your child’s progress in any lesson, please do not hesitate to contact us – in the first instance I would recommend you contact the class teacher directly. All contact details for all staff can be found on our school website.

You said….. We will…..

Improve communication about rewards and the positives

Be committed to improving this. As a direct result of this feedback we initiated a half termly letter which was personalised to pupils who had consistently been awarded Grades 4 or 5 every lesson. 390 pupils received this letter at the end of Autumn term, just in time for Christmas.

Places for pupils to go when raining We have just installed an outdoor covered area next to the library that we intend to de-velop by buying new seating. This will give pupils an area to sit come rain or shine. We have now opened up the astro turf at lunchtime to enable pupils to play football no matter what the weather Mr Harris is developing his wet weather plan to further improve this which will go live in January.

The quality / passion of each individual teacher and the connection they have with each individual child is so important and this needs to be continually nurtured in order to achieve the best from every individual child

(Many parents feel we do this very well) Our staff understand the importance of getting to know individual pupils. We use One Page profiles to help us achieve this and will continue to adapt these as and when neces-sary to ensure consistency and continuity.

Frog and homework Our Home Learning booklets that are begin rolled out across all year groups this year have been received positively by pupils and parents. In the meantime, we have reiterat-ed to staff the none negotiable expectation on homework - It must be put on FROG and it must be of high challenge and high quality. If you have concerns regarding homework, please contact your child’s subject teacher to discuss.

Toilet facilities As mentioned in the newsletter we are planning a complete refurbishment of the girls and boys toilets. I have met with the School Council to gather their thoughts and we are planning a visit to other local schools who have recently improved their toilet facilities to help us decide what is best for us. I anticipate the work begin done over the summer holiday period.

Extra curricular Maths, Science, PE and Computer Science

Our staff teams already offer these after school opportunities for KS4 pupils. We will en-deavour to advertise them better

Celebrating Talent

Year 7 pupil Darcy Lancaster is a sporting superstar. Darcy plays for Manchester City Girls Academy

and was recently called up to play for Wales. Well done Darcy – we are excited about watching your

sporting journey this year.

Well done to

Mollie Stamper Clark who passed grade 2 clarinet with merit and grade 4 piano

Naomi Rushton who passed grade 4 piano with merit

Rea Gaskill who passed grade 3 alto saxophone

84 KS3 pupils who entered the Young Writers Hunted competition in English. Fingers crossed for

some publishing success in March!

7GE and 7KT who did a reverse advent throughout December, they have donated a fantastic amount of food, including

goodies and treats) for the local food bank.

Under 16 boys, girls and under 14 boys badminton district champions

Under13 girls futsal county champions

Year 11 boys basketball undefeated so far this season!

WHSA raised an amazing £855 from the Christmas Craft Fair which took place in December. As a direct result of the involvement of one of our parents, we have also been able to secure match funding for an additional £855 from his employer, Barclays Bank - massive thanks to Andy Pymer and his wife Fran for their help with this event.

Year 10 pupil Edward Raynor is a committed runner and attends weekly Park Runs at Delamere Forest. On the first Park Run of 2020 507 people took part in the run and Edward finished in an astonishing 9th place with a Personal Best of 21:09 - Congratulations Edward.

School Production –

We Will Rock You

11th—13th February 2020 7pm

Name of Pupil:

………………………………………………Form: ……………………

Please could I request the following

tickets:

Tue 11th Feb ………. Adults @ £6

Tue 11th Feb ………. Child @ £3

Wed 12th Feb..…….. Adults @ £6

Wed 12th Feb………. Child @ £3

Thur 13th Feb..…..…. Adults @ £6

Thur 13th Feb …..……. Child @ £3

Tickets can be paid for online, by cash or by cheque

Please return with payment to the trip payment box.

Signed

………………………………………………Parent/Guardian

Tickets will be allocated on a first come first served

basis.

Year 10 Parents’ Evening

Tuesday 28th January 2020

4.00 pm – 8.00 pm

Year 9 Options Evening for

parents

Wednesday 5th February 2020

6.00pm

Careers Fair

Thursday 23rd January

8.30 am – 10.50 am

We are holding a careers event for Year

9 pupils and are welcoming a range of

people from many different industries

who will share information about their

personal career paths. The aim of the

morning is to broaden career horizons,

introduce industry sectors and support.

decision making and career planning.