Heritage High School Spring Newsletter 2018 Term 2 | Page 2

Dear Parent(s)/Carer(s) / Staff / Students
and Friends of the School
Traditionally, the autumn term has become
one of the busiest for secondary schools
and this year has been no different. I am
proud to share in celebrating the successes
and achievements of many of our students
in all spheres of their work and in this
edition many contributors have joined in
that celebration. I hope that you enjoy
reading what friends and colleagues have
to say.
At Heritage we focus on the whole child,
and an important part of our work is about
student progress and achievement. It is
encouraging to witness the increased levels
of progress evident through our student
tracking system and I believe that this is a
direct response to the school’s efforts to
emphasise that good and better than
expected progress is key to achieving more
in school.
The introduction of the STAR Awards –
which emphasises progress rather than just

achievement, helps us all to recognise how
far individuals have travelled.
This is
significantly important in generating a
culture that recognises and acknowledges
differences between people, and values all
forms of achievement, regardless of
curriculum area.
Our first STAR Awards
ceremony was well received by parents and
students and there will be more of such
events in the future.
The recent
introduction of mentoring meetings for every
Key Stage 4 student has also been well
received by students. It has involved the
vast majority of teaching and
support staff and will help
students focus down on what they
need to do to get better. As is
typical of the vast majority of our
students, they are responding well
to these initiatives.
We are also keen to involve
parents/carers in supporting their
children towards better progress,
achievement and success, even
though we recognise that it is not
always that easy for all parents/
carers regardless of their desire to
help – everyone’s circumstances
are different.
However, we
recognise that the first step is to
provide
concise,
easily
understood
information
that

explains what each child is doing and what
they need to do to improve. We have
listened to the views of parents/carers and
changed how we report each child’s
progress. I hope that you have found the
new school reports issued this year helpful
in explaining what your child is currently
achieving and what they could be expected
to achieve. We have also included an
aspirational target grade which, whilst being
challenging, is possible with sustained hard
work and extra effort, for each subject. In
addition to the changes in the school
reports we have listened to the majority
view of parents/carers that they prefer to
speak to their child’s teachers rather than
personal tutors. This year each parent/
carer will have at least two such formal
opportunities; one during the year and at
the end of the year.
Governors of the school have been
particularly supportive in channelling extra
resources towards helping students close to
the end of their school career to achieve in
Maths and English. I am hopeful that this
will reap benefits over time. This is overand–above the sessions provided for
all students after school. I would like
to take this opportunity to request of
parents/carers that they encourage
their children to attend the many after
school sessions provided by staff for
students that need extra help or to
attend the range of clubs and activities
that are available for them on
Tuesdays,
Wednesdays
and
Thursdays after school. We provide a
late bus on these evenings for
students who are entitled to free
school transport that have attended
these extra sessions.
This heightened focus on learning,
progress and achievement will, we
hope, manifest itself in the best
possible results for your child, which
will be recognised at the end of their time at
Heritage at the GCSE Presentation
Evening. On 16 November this year, we
saw the vast majority of last year’s leavers
turn out to receive their GCSE Certificates
and celebrate their achievements with their
friends and families. The event saw a
packed hall and lots of emotion from
parents/carers, staff and students as the
young men and women were called out to
receive their awards, prizes and certificates.
Our Guest of Honour was Mr Andrew
Knowles, who was a former Deputy

Headteacher at Heritage and now leads
Tupton Hall School, the largest school in
the Chesterfield and North-East Derbyshire
area.
He spoke from the heart in
celebrating the successes of our former
students as well as providing them with
meaningful advice; we were very pleased
that he was able to join us. The evening
was a great success. I am grateful to
everyone that played a part in such a
memorable occasion.
I am fortunate to be able to see the good
work done by our students on a day-to-day
basis, but the nature of my role sometimes
takes me away from what is happening
directly in the classroom. However, this
year I have made a conscious effort to get
in and out of more lessons, than in the past.
So far, I have achieved this and I am more
than ever impressed by the students’
responses
to
the
ever-increasing
challenges that are being made of them in
their learning. I am reassured by the
fantastic range of varied and interesting
acti vities that take place in lessons on a day
-to-day basis and by the way that the vast
majority of students positively engage in
what is asked of them – it’s extremely
positive. In my visits to lessons I will
occasionally ‘throw out’ a learning challenge
to students on a topic that they have been
studying and their enthusiasm to respond
confirms the curiosity that many of them
have about their learning. It has cost me
loads of VIVOs - but every single one
awarded has been worth it!! Whilst people
who visit the school report it to be a very
calm place, when one looks more closely
there is a buzz in many of our classrooms.
There is nothing more satisfying than a
young person gaining confidence because
they have learned something new and
overcome a barrier to learning, or
understood something for the first time and
overcome something to that point that has
been a mystery to them. I am so privileged
to be able to work with young people.
Within two weeks of writing this newsletter,
we will close for the Christmas break, but
before that time there will have been two
foreign visits, the BIG Event will have taken
place for Year 9 students, there will have
been Community Christmas lunches for the
elderly within our Community, our seasonal
Christmas Carol Concert will have taken
place, all amongst a range of other events
and activities. I hope so see you at some of
these events, but if I do not may I wish you
and your family a very Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year.
We close for Christmas on
Friday, 20 December at 1.00 pm
and re-open on Monday, 6
January 2014 as normal.

Don Spencer, Headteacher