WLD Update Sunday 10th March 2019

We are rightly known for our support of students and their families, for our pastoral care and for our inclusive, child-centred ethos. We put a huge amount of effort into supporting students in making the right choices.  We recognise that young people make mistakes and we use a whole range of strategies (including support, mentoring, monitoring, contracts, sanctions...) to encourage them to make positive choices.  Part of that inclusive ethos is having clear boundaries and sanctions - all of us need to know where we stand and everyone needs clear boundaries.  I have had some conversations with parents this week which have shown me that sometimes our systems and procedures are misunderstood.  Our policies are available on the website, but I thought that a brief informal overview might be useful.

Firstly, attendance at school is a legal matter and, as a Lancashire school, we follow the guidance issued by Lancashire Council, who follow directions issued by the government nationally.  Letters that you receive, the individual meetings that you are invited to and the sanctions that we use are all part of the local authority's approach to ensuring good attendance at school.  Secondly, we use detentions, as does every school, to address relatively minor misdemeanours such as lack of homework or lateness to school.  At the lowest level these start with individual members of staff setting detention at break, escalating through to "Headteacher's detentions" after school (actually organised by Mrs Laverty, Deputy Head).  We always try to notify parents/carers of a detention as a matter of courtesy, although we are not legally obliged to.  Occasional more serious issues are addressed through spending the day with a senior member of staff, coming into school into isolation from 1 to 6pm or fixed-term exclusion from school (this would be for issues such as refusing to comply with a reasonable instruction or aggression).  Permanent exclusion from school is very rare and is for persistent disruptive behaviour or very serious one-off incidents and this is subject to scrutiny, quite rightly, by the governing body and the local authority. 

One of the reasons that many of our visitors comment on the calm, friendly atmosphere of the school is that we have firm and clear rules and procedures so that everyone in school knows where they stand and can get on with the important business of learning!

Some regular updates:  

• Enrichment Day 4:  This went really well on Friday, with "Bookworm" in Year7, STEM and Tomorrow's Engineers in Year 8, a full PSHE day in Year 9, Careers in Year 10, ICT and Romeo and Juliet in Year 11...     
• Year 11 Revision plan:  This week is "Week 3" (of 11) - if you are the parent or carer of a Year 11 please make sure that they are using the plan - it is not too late to get this underway!

Upcoming events - please keep an eye on the calendar: 

Our WLD Career of the Week is "Anaesthetist".  Our Thought for the Week is "British Science Week"

Have a good week ...

James Harris

Headteacher