There was a time when secondary schools shut their doors to Year 11 students after Whit Week, sent them all onto study leave and just welcomed them back for exams. 

I sat my ‘O’ Levels in the mid-1980s and can remember what seemed like endless days sitting on a playing field in North Hull half-reading a textbook whilst dozens just like me tried to do the same.  Eventually, we’d give up and have a game of football.  It would have been June because there never used to be any exams in May. 

Nowadays, exams start in Mid-May and there is no such thing as ‘study leave’.  This week alone, there have been seven GCSE exams and they continue all the way up until late June for some students.  And students are legally obliged to stay in school until the exams end.  That’s fine because that is where we want them to be. 

Enormous effort goes into producing a school timetable.  We have 1380 students, around 90 teaching staff and 25 hours per week of teaching.  Putting that together so that all students get the right number of lessons in front of their specialist teachers is a complex operation.  The margin for ‘error’ is tiny - we use around 99.4% of our teaching capacity to make that work.   

And then, as Year 11s work their way through their exams, we reschedule their timetable on a weekly basis so that the subjects in which they have completed exams are replaced with lessons in the subjects that are still to come.  It takes many many hours of work for Mr Willson and his team.  But it means that students get maximum support from school staff right up until their final exam.  Whilst I was abandoned to that playing field and left to my own devices, now our students get an unbelievably good deal. 

The overwhelming majority appreciate it, as do their parents.   It is intensely frustrating when a small number of students (sadly supported by a few parents) decide not to cooperate with this and to demand that their child should be able to ‘pick and choose’ the sessions that they attend and, if there is something they don’t wish to do, that they should be able to go home.  Of course, we are not allowed to just let a student go home and so this has become an unnecessary distraction from our work. 

We simply do not have the time and capacity to deal with these requests and so will not allow it (see my letter sent yesterday).   

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Sorry, frustrated rant over, and I thank the overwhelming majority of students and parents for their ongoing and enduring support of the work that our staff are doing to support the students. And thank you to those that sent messages of support which were shared with the students last week.  That landed really well with the Year 11 students, many of whom were left in tears as they read the ‘good luck’ messages from parents, grandparents and other family.   

And thank you to Mr Willson again, who was in school at 6am setting that up so that the students could benefit from your messages of support. 

Staff at the school are pulling out all the stops to give the students the absolute best chance of success.  Thank you for supporting them. 

Apologies that this blog leans so heavily towards Year 11 students and families but I hope that all parents will be reassured that we have great plans in place for when your child reaches the end of Key Stage 4. 

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In recent weeks, I have also been in regular contact with our newest intake of students who will join us in Year 7 in September.  I am delighted again that we will be full in Year 7 and sorry that we cannot take more students from the waiting list.  It is great credit not only to my staff, but also to you as parents, that our school remains so popular.  We do so, because of the work we all do as a school community to serve our young people, which includes the positive comments you share with each other and future, prospective parents.  Thank you. 

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Next week is a huge one for me.  On Tuesday, for the first time, I am taking one of my children to see a Bruce Springsteen concert.  My daughter, who is ten, is a big music fan but Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter are more her preference.  Nevertheless, she has been brought up with Bruce Springsteen music in our house and has grown to recognise, and enjoy, much of his music.   

At first she was not over-keen on going with me but gradually she has warmed to the idea of a late-night, Post SATs, we-can-get-McDonalds-on-the-way treat.  And when I showed her a clip of Bruce’s opening night of this latest tour on YouTube on Wednesday night, she said, ‘that’s pretty cool, dad’.  

I’m definitely not cool at a Springsteen gig.  I have already apologised to her for singing too loud, dancing too much and possibly even shedding a tear when I (hopefully) see her singing along too.   

That’s on Tuesday; I’ll let you know how it goes next week. 

In the meantime, have a terrific weekend and thank you all for your support. 

Mr Groak

Head  Teacher