Dear Parents and Carers, 

I hope you're well and have had a positive week.

I can't believe we only have 12 school days left of this academic year. Time has flown by way too quickly.

I would like to extend a very warm welcome to our new parents and carers whose children are joining us in September. It was great to meet you all on Monday at our Year 7 Transition day and evening. We are very much looking forward to working in partnership with you over the next 5 years. Exciting times ahead, I'm sure. We can't wait for them to join us on Thursday 4th September 2025, along with Years 7-10. If you have any questions, please do get in touch. We fully appreciate that managing change is a difficult time for parents and carers too. We are here to support you every step of the way.

Our Student Ambassadors have been incredible over the last few weeks, supporting all of our transition events. We couldn't be prouder of them all. I presented all of our Ambassadors with their badges this week. I couldn't believe how many came to collect them. Congratulations to our new Head Students, Deputies and House Captains, along with our Peer Mentors, Well-Being Ambassadors, Reading Ambassadors, Animal Ambassadors and Sports Ambassadors. Nearly 50% of the school now have one of these roles, it's a privilege to see how empowered they have become this year.  We look forward to growing a wider range of roles next year.

A number of our Year 9s were lucky enough to spend the day at Roche Court Sculpture Park on Wednesday. The sculptures looked captivating. I really enjoyed hearing about pupils' experiences today. Many thanks to Miss Efe for organising the trip.

Our Tile Barn residential trip returned this afternoon, lots of happy faces, it sounded like a wonderful experience. Many thanks to Mrs Cleaver-Bailey for organising the trip. Lots of memories made I'm sure.

Our Year 10s have now completed their first set of GCSE Mocks. They have conducted themselves brilliantly over the last two weeks. Today they went to Andover College for their Taster Day. Next week they head off on Work Experience. Having now attended Peter Symonds, Sparsholt and Andover College Taster days, we hope they are inspired and have a clearer idea of their next step when they leave us next June. Good luck to Year 10 who are on work experience next week.

We’d like to gently remind all our families of the vital importance of strong school attendance.  Attendance figures have dipped slightly over the past few weeks.  It's so important to build strong, consistent attendance patterns for your child’s success. Being in school every day gives your child the best chance to thrive socially, emotionally, and academically. Each day builds on the last, helping them feel confident, connected, and prepared for future success. While we completely understand that some absences—such as illness or medical appointments—are sometimes unavoidable, we’re unable to authorise things like holidays and events during term time or staying home due to tiredness or minor ailments that wouldn’t normally prevent daily activities.  Establishing consistent routines and encouraging a positive attitude towards school can make a big difference. Talking to your child about the value of their education, setting regular sleep schedules, and reaching out to us early if there are any barriers to attendance can really help. We're here to support you - together, we can make sure your child makes the most of every opportunity.  Thank you for working with us to help every pupil be their very best.

If you follow our Facebook or Instagram pages you will see all the exciting events as they happen this week on Facebook and www.instagram.com/daneburyschool/. If you don't follow us, we'd love it if you could. We will do our best to celebrate all the events and activities which take place at Danebury and beyond. We love learning about the amazing achievements of our pupils outside of school too. Please feel free to send in photos and a short description of the event/achievement, and we will celebrate them in school during our morning 'Warm Welcomes', on screens in school and socials if you're happy with this, of course.

As we are coming to the end of term, we are collecting feedback from pupils, parents/carers and staff. We truly value feedback from all stakeholders and will ensure we use it to shape our School Improvement Priorities for next year. Please can I trouble you to complete the short questionnaire in the blog below.

We still have a large number of events to get through before we break up: Year 10 work experience, Drama Production, Sports Day, Awards Evening, Rewards Afternoon, Celebration Assembly and Activities Day on 22nd July. We will finish as normal at 3:10pm on 22nd July.

Have a lovely weekend.

Nicky Goodridge, Head of School