Headteachers Letter – 20th May 2022
Dear Parents and Carers,
It has been quite inspiring to see our Year 11 and 13 students begin the formal examination season. On a whole school level, it is a very welcome return to normality and a genuine rite of passage from secondary education. Exams were missed during the pandemic and it has been a positive experience to see students demonstrating the skills and knowledge gained over the course of five years in their qualifications. On an individual level, it has been uplifting and empowering to see students overcome their nerves, cast off the difficulties of a pandemic affected two years and enter exam halls with such a sense of purpose and positivity. We are proud of them all!
I would also like to say congratulations to our Year 6 students in Nene Valley Partnership Primary Schools and other local schools, who last week completed their Key Stage 2 SATs papers. These too were the first external assessments since 2019 and I know from my colleague headteachers that they were incredibly proud of their students and how they approached these tests. We will of course look forward to meeting these Year 6 students in July as they complete their induction days and begin their own Wollaston School journey!
PE Competition Success – and the Introduction of Archery
We promised news of successful summer sports, and out Hockey Teams have certainly provided this! We have qualified for the finals of the School Games in early July and will be looking forward to playing as well as we did in qualifying – which we managed without conceding a goal! Congratulations to all who participated and to Mr Crook for organising. We look forward to hearing news of further success in the School Games finals!
We are always keen to increase the range of sporting activity which we offer – as team sports and competition will not appeal to every student. Thanks to staff undertaking additional training in their own holiday time, we have begun to offer Archery as an extra – curricular activity. Initially this has been with a specially invited group, as we pilot the programme, but we will be opening this up to wider participation immediately after the May half term. Thank you to Mr Brookes and Mr Roberts for undertaking the necessary training and running the club for the benefit of our students.
On Tuesday afternoon the year 9 girls rounders team attended a tournament held at Sir Christopher Hatton. The girls represented Wollaston School brilliantly and achieved some fantastic results, narrowly conceding one match against Huxlow, and with wins against: Rushden, Manor and Sir Christopher Hatton school. The following students attended: Lily, Libby, Jasmine, Freyja, Abigail, Isla, Phoebe, Sky, Emmanuella, Grace and Alice. Thanks also goes out Ruby Watts, one of our trainee PE Staff, who umpired throughout.
Student Success
Hayden in Year 7 has been selected to play in the TDA Cup in London for FDS/Aston Villa on weekend of 21st/22nd May. He is one of 12 picked from the 26 strong squad to play and will be up against the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester Utd, as well as European teams like Olympique Marseille and PSV Eindhoven. We wish him the best of luck and hope he enjoys every minute of this fantastic experience.
Promoting Equality and Accessing Support
In the overwhelming majority of cases, students are aware of how to get help and support with any issue they may encounter both within school or outside of school. As a rule of thumb, the first port of call is form tutors for social and personal concerns and the relevant subject teachers for anything concerning school work or academic achievement. We also have subject leads and Heads of Year who can help with more serious issues.
However, we are also aware that occasionally students may be slightly unsure about who to contact or how they may help. For these circumstances, we have the dedicated email address worried@wollaston-school.net All emails are centrally monitored and we ensure that ay enquiry can be forwarded to a person who can help. We do encourage students and parents to be aware of this email address and please do use this if you have any worries or concerns, no matter how small they may seem, we want to help and ensure any issues are resolved.
We are also proud to be a school community which believes in the fundamental British values of mutual respect and understanding of those with different beliefs, faiths and characteristics. This means that we promote equality of opportunity for all students and staff and ensure that our school is truly one in which, as one student put it to me, “you can be yourself”.
In order to maintain this friendly and equitable ethos, we do take seriously any incident of discriminatory or prejudicial behaviour. Although this is fairly rare, if any student witnesses or experiences such behaviour, they can report this to any member of staff. Alternatively, if students do not wish to report directly (or they feel an incident has not been dealt with effectively) we have an email address equality@wollaston-school.net to report such issues. This is monitored by a member of our Senior Leadership Team who will ensure the matter is dealt with appropriately and robustly.
It goes without saying that our students are vitally important in creating a positive culture and ethos and we are also very proud of the growth of our Equality group this year. This is a student led group who explore issues around diversity and equality within the school community. New faces are always welcome and any interested students should see Mrs Goodge to find out more!
Thank you as always for your exceptional support of Wollaston School. if you do have anything which you would like to discuss, please get in touch FitzhughJ@wollaston-school.net and I would be happy to hear from you.
James Birkett
Executive Headteacher