Heritage High School Spring Newsletter 2018 Term1 | Page 2

Dear Parent(s)/Carer(s)/Staff/Students and Friends of the School This academic year has got off to a pleasing start. Whilst students in Years 8-11 began their studies for the new academic year in July it’s been very encouraging to see how well our new students in Year 7 have settled. Being part of a tutor group system that places them with students from every year group has undoubtedly helped our newcomers – together with the transition arrangements that were put into place last year and the attendance of the vast majority of new students at the Summer School held specifically for new students early in August. The summer school was a tremendous success with over two-thirds of the new Year 7 students in attendance. Thanks to Mrs Lindley (Business Manager) for her organisation and leadership of the event and to the many staff that gave up time from the school break to support the event. GCSE Results released this summer show a return to the trend of improvement following last year’s disappointing English results caused by the national marking fiasco. The English faculty responded admirably to the issues they faced last year supporting our students in achieving significantly improved results. The percentage of students achieving expected progress or better than expected progress increased by almost 20% to 68% and almost two-thirds of last year’s learners achieved higher grade passes in English. This is a strong repost to the challenge given to the school by Ofsted when the school was inspected in March 2013. The percentage of students achieving 5 Higher Grade GCSEs (A*-C) remained similar to last year at 75% whereas the percentage that achieve 5 or more A*-C grades including English and Maths increased to 51%. Unique to Heritage, of note, was the achievement of a number of students that were extended in their studies last year and sat GCSE ‘AS’ Level English Literature and the AS Equivalent Extended Project. These students achieved particularly well. The issue of ‘Early Entry’ has received notable attention in the press of late. The comments about this strategy have been mixed. At Heritage, we have tried to use this strategy to support students achieving success on the right course for them. We believe we have been successful in this strategy because it has prepared students well for extended study programmes – allowing them wider choice at KS4 including providing the opportunity to study English Baccalaureate subjects alongside other subjects of choice, spread their Key Stage 4 workload and examination pressure as well as providing them with a smoother transition to Key Stage 4 studies. Used strategically, early entries can be very successful. This year a multitude of A* and A grades were achieved by Year 9 students. Furthermore, 104 A*-C higher grade passes were achieved by Year 9 students – two years earlier than they would be in many schools. In Year 10 students entered early for GCSEs were also very successful. Three hundred and ninety three Higher Grade passes were achieved of which 83 were at grade A/A* or the equivalent. On 12 September the school was the subject of an Ofsted Monitoring Inspection. This focused on the areas that Ofsted deemed we needed to improve to be judged as Good or Outstanding. We are pleased to report that the Inspector described the school as making urgent and incisive action towards becoming a Good to Outstanding school. Heritage has a very good relationship with its partner primary schools and I work closely with the Headteachers of those schools. This ensures that we are able to plan for effective transition from Primary to Secondary school and to support the learners in each of our primaries. We are able to provide access to primary-aged learners to our facilities and we provide extension work for able students that the primary schools believe can cope with Key Stage 3 work. One such project is the Maths Project currently being run for able mathematicians in Years 5 and 6 at Heritage by Mrs Burrell. Previous initiatives like this have provided for students who have gone on to progress to Cambridge. These links do much to foster the learning community that exists in schools in and around Clowne. Over the past 2 weeks I have also been privileged to be able to meet some of our Year 5 and Year 6 parents at their schools to talk about Heritage. I was very well-received and able to provide information about our school and what we have to offer. Our Open Evening was very well attended and I hope that prospective parents also take advantage of the Open Mornings and Open afternoon that we have also advertised for parents and their children. Overall, at this early stage, it’s pleasing to see that the year has got off to a good start. This first newsletter elaborates further some of the good work that students and staff are involved in at the school. I wish everyone a very successful and prosperous year. Kind regards Don Spencer, Headteacher Please note we now have a dedicated email address for parental contact with the school: [email protected]