Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope this newsletter finds you well.
I'm absolutely delighted to welcome our new families joining us in September to the Danebury Community. It was lovely to meet you all at our Transition evening on Tuesday, and I do hope you find my weekly parents and carers newsletter informative and helpful as we move towards the start of the new academic year.
I must take a moment to congratulate all of our pupils on making it through this week. The heat has made learning a real challenge, but our community has shown remarkable resilience and their attitudes to learning have been truly commendable. The forecast is predicting high temperatures for the first part of next week, so pupils are welcome to wear their PE kits if they feel more comfortable in them. I will keep you updated as the week progresses.
Staffing changes 2026-2027
This is that bittersweet time of year when we have to say goodbye to valued members of staff and welcome new recruits to Team Danebury. We are incredibly sad to be saying farewell to Mrs Ellis and Mrs Allsopp, who have both had long and distinguished teaching careers. They have decided to retire from teaching and will leave a big hole behind them. We thank them for the love, care, and kindness they have shown to our community over the years; we will miss them very much. Miss Sandilands will also be leaving us this term; she has been offered a place to study a Doctorate in Educational Psychology – this is an incredible achievement, and we wish her well. We thank her for her hard work, dedication, and support, particularly those pupils who needed that extra bit of help emotionally.
I'm also delighted to congratulate Mrs Collins, who will be leading School Improvement for English across our HISP Trust, for one day a week for September. Mrs Collins remains at Danebury for 4 days a week as our Deputy Head Teacher.
Whilst it's impossible to replace these wonderful members of staff, we look ahead with excitement and optimism as we welcome the following colleagues to Danebury:
Mr Andrew-Power - Teacher of English
Mrs Dolke – Teacher of Maths
Mr Booth – Head of Humanities
Mr Wilding – Teacher of Humanities
Mrs North – Head of Alternative Provisions and Teacher of English
Mrs Kidby – Teacher of Flexible Learning
Mrs Hall – Deputy Head Teacher, HISP Hub Lead (job share basis one day a week alongside Mrs Collins.
Mrs Locke – Complex Behaviour Lead
Mrs Ellard, who moves to become our Deputy Safeguarding Lead
Miss Sutton, who moves to become our Pastoral Support Office Mental Health & Wellbeing
Mrs Elgar – Attendance and Community Officer
Mrs L. Dunn – Medical Welfare and Attendance Officer.
As we continue to grow as a school, we are in the position to recruit a wide range of new members of staff and reshape current roles, which is incredibly exciting and will help us to grow stronger.
Celebrations
There is much to celebrate this week. I'd like to give a big shout out to our amazing Year 10s who have been on work experience. The feedback we've received has been hugely positive, and we are so proud of them all. We look forward to hearing all about their experiences when they return on Monday, and we're looking forward to sharing some very exciting mock results with the year group next week.
Our intrepid explorers have returned safely from their incredible trip to Japan, and we look forward to their assembly next week. We continue to squeeze in more trips despite it being the end of term, and we are so proud of the pupils who went out on the Art trips to the Tate Modern and Globe today and to Roche Park last week. As ever, behaviour and attitudes were excellent, and a good time was had by all.
Well done to our brave Gliders who were lucky enough to fly a glider twice last Saturday – what an incredible experience that we will ensure we repeat next year. I’d like to thank the Army Flying School for providing our pupils with this opportunity.
Finally, I'd like to remind parents about a couple of important notices. The Awards Evening will be held on Wednesday evening in the hall from 6:00pm to 7:00pm. Parents and carers of pupils who have been nominated will receive an invitation to the evening.
Please do ensure your child has a refillable water bottle with them every day. We encourage pupils to fill up at both break times and remain in the shade.
Have a lovely weekend.
Nicky Goodridge
Head Teacher
