Head's Newsletter 11 September 2020

Geography, and Mrs O’Connell who is now Assistant Head on the Senior Leadership Team. Mr Brown has been appointed Principal Head of House, and Dr Selig and Mr Atkinson have also become Heads of House. A number of staff have also been appointed Assistant Heads of Year: Mr Gnanendram & Miss Garrib (Year 7), Mrs McCondach (Year 8), Miss Eckert (Year 9), and Mrs Sarma/ Miss White (Year 11).

Exams As you could not fail to notice in the news, the Government and Ofqual managed to make a right mess of results, particularly A- levels. This added considerably to the stress of what was already a stressful situation. Eventually after the Government reversed what they said, our results were as we originally submitted. These were slightly better than the historical A-level and GCSE results of the last few years. Most students, in fact slightly more than usual, therefore achieved their first choice of university, including about 20 who had places at Oxbridge. We wish all of last year’s leavers the very best wherever they A number of staff left at the end of the summer term, including Deputy Head Mrs Barrett, Head of Year 8 Mr Whittaker and Head of Humanities Mr Horwood who were all retiring, each having done over 30 years’ service at the School! In addition, we said goodbye to Mrs Wicking, Ms Ward, Mrs Attenborough, Mr Hills, and Mr Costello, as well as Mrs Wright who retired from the Main Office. We wish them all the very best for the future. We welcome new staff this term including Miss Mitchell and Miss Dharmawardhane to the Chemistry department, Miss Bradley to Classics, Mr Robins to Geography, Mr Edwards and Ms Ahmad to Maths, Ms Eva to Languages, Mr Wightwick to Physics and Mr McKitrick to Technology. In addition, we welcome Mr Talman, Mr Chandler and Mr Thomas to the Sports Department. We also congratulate Miss Grant in her appointment to SENCo, Miss Rawlinson as Head of Year 8, Ms Caudwell as Head of are going next. Staff changes

Sports Centre extension Despite the interruptions of lockdown, the Sports Centre extension has continued to make progress and we are hoping it will be operational in about another two weeks’ time. It’s certainly looking very impressive inside with a fantastic new gym, two new fitness studios and brand-new changing rooms for students. The gym equipment has now arrived and is being assembled.