Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you and your families are well.

This week has gone in the blink of an eye, I can't believe we only have 3 weeks left until half term!

Many thanks for your patience with the buses. We've seen an improvement in the services provided at the end of the day, the vast majority of buses are coming on time. If your child's transport is funded by Hampshire County Council, you will receive an update on the planned changes to the Andover service after 10^th October. I hope to be in a position to do the same for the Andover paid service on Monday. I have put a final proposal forward for the Salisbury route. I will communicate the outcome by next Friday.

Following our Safeguarding Review two weeks ago I have now received the report. We are incredibly proud of the progress we've made over the last two years as a community. Hitting milestones has been a real high point for us. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs Collins for her excellent leadership of this area. It's a very challenging role indeed. I would also like to extend my thanks to the Year Leaders, Miss Sandilands, Mrs Ellard and the Pastoral Team who work incredibly hard to ensure our pupils feel supported and safe.

Here are a few comments taken from the report:

Since 2022, leaders have driven a safeguarding transformation that is now firmly embedded and delivering tangible impact. In 2024, the focus was on establishing culture and consistency; by 2025, safeguarding is securely effective, with multiple areas of enhanced practice. Pupils, staff, and parents experience a daily culture of vigilance, belonging, and safety.

Governance oversight is strong, with safeguarding embedded as a core feature of school culture and decision-making. Governors actively monitor practice, policy, and impact through visits, scrutiny of data, and engagement with staff and pupils.

Attendance, behaviour, and safety are tracked strategically, with interventions targeted at vulnerable groups.

Leaders’ openness to challenge and reflective practice continues to drive improvement, sustaining an open safeguarding culture that is consistently lived across the school.

Students were able to describe how the school keeps them safe. They described the presence of staff around the school, PD lessons, relationship with staff was positive ‘people are really nice’. 

Where there is bullying/ behaviour (this is rare) this is dealt with and all students felt that they could report concerns to staff.

Students enjoy school, feel safe, and value the small, supportive community. Staff know students well, are approachable, and concerns are taken seriously.

Mobile Phone system – positive response. Students could expand on why it was a benefit (less distractions).

Students note a marked improvement compared to when they started — better behaviour management, accessible staff, and a culture where issues are addressed promptly.

As ever we have areas for improvement, they include:

Ensure the safeguarding webpage fully reflects current practice and achievements, maintaining up-to-date information each half term.

Reduce the number of pupils who are persistently absent ( below 90% attendance).

Reduce the number of pupils who are severely absent (below 50% attendance).

Increase attendance of pupils with SEND.

Increase attendance of Year 11 pupils.

Continuing on the theme of attendance, our data is showing a small group of pupils across Years 8, 9,10,11 who are regularly asking to leave lessons. Reasons include visiting the toilet, the medical room, finding a member of the Pastoral Team, asking to go and speak to another member of staff or find a belonging that they've forgotten in a previous class.  Our tracking shows that some pupils are avoiding learning and leaving every lesson for a range of reasons stated above. Unfortunately, this is accumulating into hours of lost learning. The importance of attendance to school and to lessons has been highlighted in each whole school assembly we've had as well as our morning 'Warm Welcomes'. Please can you help us by reiterating the importance of attendance and 'locking into learning'.

Pupils are reminded daily to visit the toilet before school and during break times. We have a small number who have medical needs and reasonable adjustments are made. In addition, I absolutely accept that some pupils may need to visit the toilet in emergencies. Our Pastoral Team visit their key pupils during the day as opposed to pupils coming out of lessons to find Pastoral Support staff. Over the next 2 weeks, Year Leaders will be contacting the parents and carers of the pupils who are avoiding their learning and out of lessons too frequently. We would like to work together to put a plan in place to break these habits which have formed and is impacting on lost learning.  

It was great to see so many Year 11 Parents and Carers at our Consultation Evening on Thursday, a great turn out. I hope you found the appointments informative and were able to look at your child's assessment books to see their progress over time. As you are aware, we ask you to complete an exit survey at the end of your appointments on consultation evenings. Many thanks for your feedback, we always see it as developmental; two areas we are working to improve are: the quality and regularity of homework and ensuring parents and carers are kept informed about their child's progress.

Our Assessment Policy shares the regularity of assessments. Each subject holds their main summative assessments at the end of each term. All pupils have an Assessment Book/Folder. These are kept at school, teachers provide written feedback in these books. Staff will share these with you during our consultation evenings to show the progress pupils make over time in that subject.  Formative Assessments are carried out each lesson through whole class learning checks, questioning, practice and application tasks. Year 11 will have more frequent GCSE practice exam questions; teachers will mark these and provide feedback to pupils through question level analysis. You will receive a graded report at the end of each term. If you feel you need further information about your child's progress, please do contact your child's teacher, they will be happy to provide you with more detail.

With regards to homework, a large number of subjects use the Educake platform to set knowledge retrieval tasks to ensure core knowledge is revisited frequently and to help avoid the 'forgetting curve'.

Some subjects don't use this platform and will set different types of homework.  Some of the homework will have a reading focus, self checking on knowledge organisers or pre-learning keywords/ terminology. Year 10 and Year 11 will have exam style questions to practice and apply their key knowledge. We are creating a homework calendar to help pupils plan their time. This will be shared with you next week.

It's been fantastic to see so many Year 11s attend after school revision sessions already this year. Their attitude to learning is excellent. The hard work will pay off in their up-and-coming mocks next month, I'm sure. The college application window is now open for September 2026. We are supporting pupils with applications and personal statements during PD lessons.

Congratulations to all of our KS3 pupils for their excellent attitude to learning during the CATs and GL Assessments over the past few weeks. These assessments are carried out online and results are benchmarked nationally. They provide us with a rich source of data to ensure we have a better understanding of individuals' needs, where to pitch lessons and interventions.

Warm wishes
Nicky Goodridge