Every cohort in the school has a year council, and then two representatives sit on our School Council. The year councils consider a wide range of issues from raising funds for others, school processes and meet up with representatives from other Sutton schools. This week, the meeting was hosted in my office (with pizza and cookies supplied) but I left the group, allowing students the space to manage, and contribute to, their own meeting.

The meeting was chaired by Holly, one of our Head Students, and a number of issues were discussed. These include how we keep attendance at school high, as well as considering what incentives students would be most motivated by. More details on this below, but a huge thank you to students for giving their time to meet up and represent the views of others.

The Easter nine-day-challenge

At the end of last term, we launched an attendance challenge for the last two weeks of the term. Students asked me about something similar for this term… except we only have nine days left as the holidays start on Good Friday. There is a range of prizes available (Nando’s and Amazon vouchers, chocolate hampers and ‘beat the queue’ vouchers) for any student that attends all the last nine days of term, starting on Monday 18th May. Let the challenge begin.

Students of the week

Congratulations go to our stars of the week listed below for maintaining their commitment, focus and sense of drive. Well done to all, I look forward to meeting with you at the start of next week.

• Year 7 - Emilia
• Year 8 - TBC
• Year 9 - TBC
• Year 10 - Meda and Janine
• Year 11 - Rinesa
• Year 12 and 13 - Shayanth and Athanky

Sporting superstar Emelia

Congratulations to Emelia in Year 11. Not only has she been selected to play for the England age group teams a number of times already, she captained the England under 16 team in a tournament against Norway, Denmark and Ecuador. England won two of their three games, skippered by Greenshaw’s own Emelia. Amongst her sporting excellence she maintains her studies and excellent attendance – Emelia is definitely one of our many shining lights this term.

Easter free school meal voucher arrangements

We previously wrote to parents to confirm that we would not be issuing food vouchers to families of children eligible for free school meals after the February 2024 half term due to the funding for this scheme coming to an end. The Government has since decided to extend this scheme for a further six months, which would include May half term and the summer holidays.

Sutton Council has now agreed that we can issue vouchers to families for the Easter 2024 period (ten days at £3 a day) but decisions on the May half term and summer holiday period have not yet been made. We will update parents on arrangements for those holiday periods when we have an update from the Council.

Arrangements for the last day of term

School continues until Thursday 28th March, when we have an early closure. The end of the day dismissal time varies for different year groups and is:

• 1:15 pm – Year 12 and 13 (or until the last timetabled lesson before that time)

• 1:25 pm – Year 7, 8

• 1:30 pm – Year 9, 10, 11

There will only be a light offer for students to get lunch at the end of the day.  We would encourage those requiring a meal to do this during the morning break.

Wishing you all the best for a restful weekend.

Nick House, Headteacher