Dear Parents / Carers

I hope all is well.

Welcome to the last newsletter of the academic year- what a year it's been! We've had so many highlights, hopefully we've captured those along the way on our communications, social platforms and during events.

Many thanks to those who came along to the Awards Evening last Monday. It was a lovely opportunity to recognise those pupils who had been nominated for specific awards this year. In addition, we held our end-of-term Celebration Assembly yesterday. Many thanks to the families who joined us for that. There were so many awards given, hopefully the certificates have made their way home. 

The school is very quiet today; the vast majority have gone off for activities day, I'm sure they are having a great time. We do have a number of pupils who have chosen to remain in school. One group are painting a huge mural on the wall in the gym. It's a fabulous piece of art that encapsulates our Danebury Culture. A huge thanks to Miss Efe, Mrs Ablett and our incredible artists who have worked hard on this today. Thanks also to our pupils who have chosen our Forest Schools option, they have been hard at work, clearing the allotment areas and animal enclosures. They are currently cooking their lunch on the campfire!

As an SLT we have completed our School Self-Evaluation for this academic year and have identified our School Improvement Priorities for 2025-2026. They are as follows:

• Priority 1: Use the Danebury Teaching and Learning Principles to strengthen the quality and consistency of planning, improving outcomes for all learners. 
• Priority 2: Develop pupils’ oracy and reading skills, helping them to become better communicators and critical thinkers.  
• Priority 3: Improve whole-school attendance, to meet or exceed national averages.
• Priority 4: Use assessment data more forensically to quickly identify gaps in learning, adapt planning and establish appropriate interventions to ensure pupils catch up and improve outcomes. 
• Priority 5: Further strengthen partnerships with families, primary schools, and the wider community to ensure growth and sustainability at Danebury School.

We are making a number of improvements over the summer holidays. Our site team/IT team will be working closely with the Trust to ensure our entire infrastructure is replaced. We will have better service when we return. The Trust have also invested a significant amount of money into replacing all the PCs in school. We will also have an additional bank of laptops for pupils to use to enhance their learning. We are finally able to change our domain names this summer; Staff and pupils will move from @testvalley.hants.sch.uk to @danebury.hispmat.org . This will take place at some point over the summer. I will communicate the date when I have it. 

As previously communicated, we are moving to a new catering company called Aspens. Aspens will move in next week and refurbish the kitchen area, we will have new signage and, more importantly, better quality food and menu choices (at the same cost). As parents, you don't need to do anything different when loading money onto your child's Arbor account. Please see Aspens' menus below in the blog.

Uniform expectations for September- please can you take a few minutes to read our policy (Danebury School - School Uniform  I thank parents and carers for working with us this year. The vast majority of pupils follow the policy and look incredibly smart. We do have a minority of pupils who continue to push boundaries by not adhering to the policy, if pupils arrive in school in September with trainers, leggings, non-school coat, acrylic nails, false lashes,  excessive makeup, piercings (other than one pair of studded earnings and one clear retainer) they will be isolated for the day. we have worked incredibly hard with our pupils to ensure we maintain high standards. There are times when we make reasonable adjustments to uniform due to sensory needs or injuries (trainers can only be worn if we have a doctors note explaining the reason), we will do this on a case by case basis and work closely with parents and carers on this.

We know that some pupils find the summer holiday difficult. We have shared an email with pupils that signposts them to a range of services over the holidays should they feel they need it. We will share this with you as parents, as I know this can also be a challenging time. Six weeks is a long time to keep children entertained and can be incredibly expensive. We have shared a flyer below which highlights an number of cost savings for eating out over the summer.

We look forward to seeing our Year 11s on their GCSE results day on August 21st 2025. Pupils can collect their certificates between 9:30am and 11:00am. It's always good if a parent, carer or family member can accompany them. It's a hugely anxious time for them.

We look forward to welcoming everyone back on September 4^th 2025. Gates open at 8:20am, the school day starts at 8:40am and finishes at 3:10pm.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank #teamdanebury for all their hard work this year. We are a small but mighty team who work incredibly hard to ensure your children have the best start in life both academically and socially. I would also like to thank you for being so supportive this year and for the cards and gifts that we have received. We have been touched by your very kind words.

Have a lovely summer!

Warm wishes, Nicky Goodridge