Head’s Newsletter – 8th September 2023
Dear parents and carers
It has been a real privilege to welcome all our students back to school this week. They have been exceptional in both attitude and actions and have really hit the ground running! Uniform has been exemplary, and I must thank all families for their support in maintaining our high standards.
As I write we have had almost 10,000 positive points awarded to students in recognition of their demonstration of our values of kindness, community, and ambition- both in and out of lessons. This is a great start- please do congratulate your child for a tremendous start to the year.
Notices:
Toilet Refurbishment
We have refurbished the toilets in maths over the summer. This is a piece of work long overdue as the toilet facilities in that part of the school were in great need of modernisation. Due to the nature of the space and following feedback from student voice as well as the heavy supervision we maintained around the toilet blocks during break and lunchtimes last year, the facilities have been designed to ensure that all students have complete privacy when using the conveniences by having floor to ceiling walls and doors. The handwashing area is open and visible from the corridor, similar to our staff and visitor toilets, and allows for greater passive supervision to occur. These facilities have been designed specifically to fit the space available to us on the maths corridor, and whilst all students can use these facilities, there are five male only toilet facilities and five female only toilet facilities in other areas of the school and students have freedom of choice to which toilets they select to use. As with all our facilities we will continue to ensure that our safeguarding and supervision of these areas is effective. Whilst we have ongoing plans to refurbish all the toilet facilities at Wollaston over the next five years, I can confirm that there are no plans to make all toilet facilities ‘unisex’ and we are committed to ensuring that students at Wollaston continue to have choice.
As we do every year, to allow our Year 7s to settle into Wollaston quickly, we do provide them with sole use of the science playground and the science toilet facilities as break and lunchtime should they wish to use them.
Drop off and Pick up
As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, building work that is going at Wollaston has reduced the capacity of the car park and consequently has also affected the space available for buses and cars to move through the car park and we are experiencing some difficulties with the drop off and pick up of children at either end of the day. This has been exacerbated by the road works on the A509. With this in mind, if you are dropping off and picking up your child in car it may be quicker to do this by dropping them on one of our neighbouring roads and allowing them to walk the last leg to school. Alternatively, it is much easier to drop and pick up outside of the main rush of buses we have arriving at school- so either between 0800 and 0815 and after 1515. Thank you in advance for your help in easing this problem in the week ahead.
Mr Smyth, Head of Year 7 writes “What a week it has been for the new year 7 cohort here at Wollaston. This first week has flown by and the year 7s have hit the ground running. After a morning of tutor time and their first assembly as Wollaston students, they went right into full lessons without hesitation. The group has shown real resilience thus far and have been enjoying their start to secondary school. Staff across the school have been singing their praises as far as their academic work is concerned and their kindness to others and politeness to all staff has been at the forefront of their short time at Wollaston. I could not be prouder of the year group for their effort this week and I’m excited to see how they work together as a team as their journey at Wollaston continues.”
Mr Myers, Careers Leader, writes: “ Year 11 Careers Thinking Meetings will start next week. The first tranche of students in Year 11 will be notified by tutors that they have a meeting, and it will be very important that they attend the meeting. We’re looking forward to working with all students this year to help them progress onto the right courses in our sixth form or alternative options”.
Very important Information If Your Child Accesses School Transport
Mr Beeby writes, “We are working alongside the county council teams to address some issues that we have experienced during week one, to ensure you have the latest information we have updated the transport section of the school website.
Using https://www.wollastonschool.com/parents/school-transport/ you will be able to find transport schedules for 2023-24, code of conduct policies and contact information for the 2 county council teams; these are split as North and West Northants.
Bus Passes
We have started to hand out passes for West Northants services today and we anticipate that passes for North Northants services will arrive next week and aim to have these distributed by Friday 15 September.
Assuming that all passes are distributed by these times bus passes will be checked when boarding from Monday 18 September. From this date, students will have access to 5 temporary passes (per academic year) should they need them, these are only permitted for the allocated route and are only available from the main gate at 3pm daily.
Lost passes will need to be reordered at a cost of £25 via the council teams. In order to reduce the risk of loss/forgetting a pass, we ask that students carry their pass in their school bag/wallet at all times and display on boarding.
Message from Council Transport Teams re Post 16 /Non-Entitled Students Bus Passes
“Post-16 and Non-Entitled Students who made applications up to 31st May 2023 have been emailed journey details and passes will be sent direct to the student’s home address. Any paid applications made after this date will be processed in date order and we aim to process these before the October half term. Until confirmation is received students are not permitted to travel and must find alternative solutions.”
To support school admin, once received please email or forward a copy of the letter to Mr K Beeby.
Conduct on Schools Transport
We seek for every student to have access to safe, disruption free travel. Breaches of the code of conduct will result in an investigation process and can lead to temporary or permanent transport removal. Our aim is to avoid any sanction so please discuss the importance of good conduct with your son/daughter.
If you have any other queries please contact Mr Beeby, Deputy Headteacher using BeebyK@wollaston-school.net
Edulink
For the time being parents will not be able to update contact details via Edulink. Please send amendments to: franciss@wollaston-school.net
Best wishes for the week ahead!
Simon Anderson