Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you're having a nice weekend. 

The weeks are flying by; I can't quite believe we've only got 10 school days left before we break for half term! Although, we've still got lots to squeeze in during this time.

Firstly, I'd like to welcome our new families who joined us last week and those who are joining us this week. We look forward to working in partnership with you all. It's so great to see the school continue to grow.

Curriculum and Teaching

Although we're only 1.5 terms into this academic year, we have started curriculum planning for next year. Despite being a small school, we offer a broad and balanced curriculum at KS4. Over the last two years we've introduced new courses which have been popular.  Our Year 9s have started to learn more about each course we offer as GCSE and Vocational options, ahead of their options in March. We have researched popular A level and Vocational options (Level 3) post 16 and intend on offering the most popular courses at GCSE (Level 2) in the future. We're excited to be offering GCSE Sociology to our Year 9 pupils who start their GCSEs in September. 

Personal Development

We are hugely proud of the excellent Personal Development our pupils receive, from Year 7 through to Year 11, especially the Careers and Guidance element. The impact of this can be seen in the data which has been shared by the local authority. We continue to rank as one of the top schools in Hampshire in the 'final destination' survey carried out on school leavers the term after they leave school. 

All pupils at Danebury receive high quality Personal Development lessons during curriculum time and tutor time each week. In addition, we have an excellent assembly programme. Most weeks we have guest speakers booked from all the Colleges in the area and the main organisations who run Apprenticeships. Danebury pupils are offered a wide range of experiences which aim to educate, inspire and open their minds to all the possible routes they could take post 16. This week Year 8 are lucky enough to be visiting the Army Flying Museum for a STEM Aviation Day. Next week, 30 pupils from across Year 7-10 have been invited to a Gliding Experience Day. I'm sure they'll have a wonderful experience. Many thanks to the Army Flying Museum for inviting us along. 

Our Year 11 Mock Interviews continue this Wednesday, helping pupils to improve their interview techniques, before they attend their interviews at College over the coming weeks. I would like to thank Mrs Ablett for working incredibly hard to deliver an excellent programme and to ensure we strengthen our partnership work with local providers. 

Celebrating Success

• Well done to Year 9, who conducted themselves brilliantly when they received their vaccinations this week. This can often be an experience that heights pupils, but we didn't see that this year!

• Congratulations to those pupils who have been nominated for 'Kindness' Awards. They will be treated to a cinema trip at the end of the half term. Stockbridge Cinema have kindly offered free tickets once again.

• The positive to negative point ratio has hit 97% once again. This is 3% up on this time last year, which is good to see.

• Well done to Reid and Oliver for an excellent boxing assessment which goes towards their GCSE practical marks.

• Well done to Georgia C for achieving her Bronze Awards for boxing.

• Well done to the pupils across the year groups who have competed in their Judo competitions this week. Special mention to Mrs Sturman, who coaches at 'The Judo Company', gaining her black belt and winning 5/5 of her fights in High Wycombe!

Attendance

Our whole school attendance has dipped over the last two weeks. We recognise there has been a virus circulating, but we're hopeful we're at the tail end of it now. As ever, please do send your child into school if they have a cold/cough or are not feeling 100%. This is normal for this time of year. We are putting measures in place to reduce transmission levels, we have a new Site Assistant who will clean the toilets and main areas more frequently, we have ordered hand sanitisers for each classroom, pupils will be encouraged to use it as they enter and windows will be open on minibuses/buses to help circulate fresh air.

Have a good week.

Nicky Goodridge 
Head Teacher