::::::Merry Christmas::::::

Wishing all of our pupils, families, friends, colleagues, and governors a very Merry Christmas 2016. I hope that you get the time to enjoy yourselves, and spend some precious time with loved ones. As always at this time of year, it seems appropriate to pause and reflect in many ways.

As usual, we have witnessed some very special events during the last few weeks. We have converted to become an Academy School and we are starting to get to grips with the extra responsibilities that this entails. We also had a 20^th anniversary as a school and I do hope that all pupils made it home with their celebratory mug! The Big Idea has really made a positive impact with the quantity and quality of written work that we have seen this term, and a Maths Challenge day proved to be great fun. A visiting poet, survival skills, better links with other schools, a bake sale for Children in Need, a brand new website, an incredible school play, new after school clubs and our residential pupils visiting Jubilee Court to read with some of their elderly residents have all been highlights!  Of course there have been many more, and the best moments are always connected to seeing your sons/daughters complete work, lessons or make changes that they are really proud about. It was fantastic to see some of you at parents evening and pass on this information in a face to face manner.

During the month of December, we will be aiming to expand our staffing and I hope to be able to relay information about this to you in the New Year. We do however say goodbye to Mr Simler and wish him all the best for the future.

One of the improvement tasks that we set ourselves for 2016 has been connected to improving our communication with you. Having invested in a new system that tracks points and behaviour (Behaviour Watch), this system also allows us to record contact with parents. It excludes parent’s evenings, The Larwood Lowdown, any letters sent home and use of the home school diary but it does produce really helpful data to prove/disprove your ideas and theories. Therefore so far this academic year, contact has been made and recorded in the following proportions:

August: 25 contacts made and recorded

September: 148 contacts made and recorded

October: 71 contacts made and recorded                                                                                                    Happy New Year!

November: 159 contacts made and recorded                                                                                          Year of the Rooster

December: 100* contacts made and recorded

*Estimate based on previous data and those recorded at the time of writing.

Of course, no contact or very little contact may be a blessing when compared to your previous experiences before Larwood! It also should be noted that we were only back at school for 1 day in August and that during October we had a 2 week half term break. I believe the numbers show a high proportion of parents receiving regular contact. It does equate to approx. 8 contacts per pupil (This is an average so some will have higher whilst others have lower) in addition to all of the other ways that we use to keep in touch. I will be keeping a close eye on this as we start 2017 and would welcome any feedback on this matter. It is essential that we get this right for you and your child!

I wish you all a very  happy Christmas and a wonderful 2017

Sean Trimble
Headteacher