What a fantastic term this has been. This term is possibly the longest and most tiring for students. Dark mornings and nights, change in time zones and a change in weather impacts on us all during the winter months. I have to say, I couldn’t be more pleased and prouder of the students and how well they have worked, have conducted themselves, have presented themselves and demonstrated resilience and self-motivation.
I thought I would take the opportunity to share some of the things we have changed or introduced as a result of the feedback you gave via the Edurio parents' survey undertaken earlier this year. Hopefully this shows how we use your feedback to make improvements to the school, for your children and the community. What is really pleasing is that your feedback was overwhelmingly positive with 87% of parents saying they would recommend the school to others. This is in comparison to a national average of 71%.
74% of parents report that you were generally happy with the communication received and efforts to engage parents more. In order to improve this further, we sent a pack to parents at the beginning of the term with key contact information in it, a booklet with school processes and useful information and launched the My Child At School App (MCAS) to give live, real time information on your children. This has been supported by a “Meet the Mentor Evening” for all year groups. This was new this year, previously this was only done for Year 7. We will run this again at the end of the year as it proved popular via surveys undertaken at the event itself.
Furthermore, we have run a series of parent development sessions to support you to support your children. These focused on Reading, Using ICT and supporting independent learning. The sessions were developed by staff and held for parents as 31% of parents didn’t feel comfortable in supporting their child with learning at home. We will continue to run these sessions throughout the year.
I am really pleased with the positive feedback about our support and challenge system and ensuring high standards and expectations at all times. My promise to you is that we will ensure a disruption free learning environment. Your feedback on this has been really positive too and students have reported the positive impact this whole new, different approach has had.
78% of parents reported that they felt welcomed by the school. For me, this isn’t high enough (although better than the national average of 63% ). It is your school and your community and I want this figure to be higher. When I delved into the free text responses, this seems to have come from how closed down the school had to be during COVID. Hopefully, parents can see how we’ve really opened back up and that you are always warmly welcomed to be involved in the life of the school. The sheer number of evenings held for various events, contact with mentors and availability of staff shows our commitment to working in partnership with you.
One of the lowest responses was about parents seeing the impact of the feedback. 46% of parents said they saw the impact of the feedback with the rest of you saying you didn’t. (National average for this was 29% ). Hopefully, this newsletter gives some assurances as to how we have responded to your feedback. You can also see we collect feedback at each event now so we can make changes and respond in real time.
85% of parents reported it was easy to get in touch with the school compared to a national average of 70%. Hopefully our published communication methods, direct email addresses and increase in telephone lines and staff means you can contact the school more easily and readily. We are also exploring the next phase of development of My Child at School to see what the communications module looks like within this software.
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I am really proud to report, that hot off the press, at the time of writing this, we have been notified that The Garibaldi School has been awarded the “The Rainbow Flag Award” accreditation in response to our work on inclusivity and diversity.
The Rainbow Flag Award encourages a whole organisation approach to LGBT+ inclusion, as well as developing strategies to effectively challenge and combat LGBT phobic bullying. Staff and students have worked hard on a rigorous set of awarding criteria and evidencing all of the good work we do to promote mutual respect and diversity.
For more information about the award visit: https://www.rainbowflagaward.co.uk/
Students and Parents reported back to us about the toilet facilities in school. I can now report now that after a significant investment over the last six months, all toilet blocks for students have been remodelled and renovated to much nicer and functional areas. These have been positively received by students.
We are always receptive to feedback, we want this to be the best school for you, your child and the community and your views are important to us. We want to get it right. I hope this newsletter gives you confidence that we do listen and adapt where we can.
You have asked for us to look at expanding our enrichment provision to offer students' clubs and trips outside of the classroom. We have a full and expanding provision after school most nights. We have increased the number of sports fixtures, increased the number of visitors and speakers in school and the number of trips. We have 40 students enrolled on the Duke of Edinburgh scheme and are looking at planning Ski Trips and Spanish Trips in the future.
Over the course of this term, students have been out to visit Nottingham Trent University, Magdalen College in Oxford and the University of Nottingham as part of our raising aspirations programme.
We have committed to really enhancing our personal and character development curriculum for students. All students now receive one dedicated lesson per week , as well as additional time in study period and opportunities throughout lessons and drop-down days, to explore some of the wider themes for students to be successful in life. To complement this curriculum, we have had guest speakers from the Police, Experian, West Notts College, Ask Apprenticeships, Sexions, Peterhouse College, Cambridge and The Careers services, to support the curriculum and bring learning in this subject to life.
School will close at the slightly earlier time of 12:55 on Friday 16th December. School resumes on Monday 9th January 2023 for all students.
Friday 16th December will be a Christmas Jumper / Non-uniform day with £1 donations going to our Trust Christmas Appeal where we are hoping to collectively raise £50,000 to support those in need in our local communities, closer to Christmas.
From all the staff and governors at The Garibaldi School, we wish you a happy and prosperous Christmas and New Year.
With best festive wishes
James Aldred
Head Teacher
Finally, congratulations to Emily Gunton in Year 7, who won our Christmas Card design competition (pictured above and below); a great achievement . Emily beat off stiff competition from many other students.
The Garibaldi School
Train to teach with the Nottinghamshire Torch SCITT