As we opened the gates to welcome in our students today it was another rainy morning in what has been a wild and wet week. If there are mornings when the weather is tough, we will open the gates early, and allow students to come into one of our halls to stay out of the rain. I cannot give a precise time, because it depends on the weather each day, but from about 8:10am we will bring groups of students off the pavement and keep them dry.

However, despite the horrible weather, school has been incredibly focused and strong. On a dark rainy day today, the headteacher of Tweedale Primary School visited us, and we had a walk around lessons. The focus and hard work of all year groups was exemplary, something I am very proud of.

Let’s keep attendance up

This has been another bumper week for school attendance – thank you for all of your support. A reminder from me, that next Friday is an INSET day so students (sadly, not staff) only have a four-day week from Monday. Let’s keep going as well as we have started.

Students of the week

Congratulations goes to our stars of the week listed below for their commitment, focus and sense of drive. Well done to all!

Year 7	Year 8	Year 9	Year 10	Year 11	Sixth Form
Samarvir	Hanya	Betsy	Benjamin	Keziah	Leah/Dominik

Proposal for adaptation to the term dates in 2024-25

We aim to publish our term dates as far in advance as possible, but always reserve the right to amend them where common sense seems to suggest any alteration. This school year is currently proposed to end on Tuesday 22nd July, at 12:30pm. Our experience has been that the day and a half at the end of term causes problems for families, especially now that the government has raised the costs of fines for families taking children out of school for a holiday.

Here is my proposal:

We remove one INSET day from the calendar, which would be Monday 6th January 2025. Students will already have had an extended Christmas holiday at this point.

We remove the half day at the end of the summer term.

We change the end of term to Friday 18th July. This would allow families to consider holidays starting from Saturday 19th July, rather than waiting for the extra day and a half.

If you have a strong view about this please contact me directly at nhouse@greenshaw.co.uk. I think this is a sensible step, but then I wouldn't be proposing it if I didn’t think that. If there is anything I have missed please let me know. To reassure you, we will still have our Curriculum Enhancement Days (off-site trips and visiting speakers/performers) towards the end of the summer term.

Wishing you all a very happy weekend. 

Mr N House, Headteacher