Welcome to this week's newsletter
Dear families,
We have had an excellent first week back at school and the atmosphere has been positive as students enter the final term of the academic year. At this stage of the year, I want to remind parents/carers and students of the following that we continue to maximise every moment for learning - we still have 6 remaining weeks of lesson time to take advantage of every moment. Therefore, it remains important that students are on time and present for all lessons. Attendance and punctuality remain crucial for success in school so please do not let this slip as we approach the end of the academic year. We must be ready for our learning. In order to maximise the time, we must continue to ensure that we remove barriers and that we are ready to learn. This includes having the right equipment and being dressed appropriately.
As the weather hopefully continues to shine, I wanted to also take the moment to remind you of our summer uniform arrangements. Students can (if they wish to) wear tailored shorts:
Blazers remain a compulsory part of our school uniform in the summer term. If students become warm and they are wearing a navy v-neck jumper (with or without the school logo), this must be in addition to the blazer and not instead of it. On days where the temperature is forecast to be warmer we will make the decision in the morning to inform students during form time that we will have a 'non-blazer day'. On these days students will be able to remove their blazers across the site but should still bring it to school every day. Students who remove their blazer must also remove any v-neck jumpers.
Dr Newman shared before the May half-term break that we are receiving some school-to-school support from colleagues at the Brooke Weston Trust. To that end, I am pleased to formally introduce Mr Adam Crawte to Manor School as a seconded senior leader. He has been present in school this week and is supporting the school and the leadership team by adding additional capacity this term.
Dr Newman is currently not in work meaning in her absence I am Acting Principal.
Our focus upon improving Manor School will remain as the priority of all of we do for the rest of this academic year. Many colleagues in the team at Manor are currently benefitting from working closely with a range of experts and colleagues from within the Nene Education Trust school improvement team, including Alison Gormally, our School Improvement Partner who has been spearheading the improvement journey over the last 11 weeks at the school.
Thank you for your continued support as we move through the academic year. Have a lovely weekend.
Mr Bateman, Vice Principal
Working together to improve lesson attendance
We wrote to all parents and carers at the start of May to inform you of our strategy to eradicate internal truancy from lessons. I am pleased to say that the majority of students have listened to this and responded positively. As a result, we have managed to half the number of truancy incidents in the first two weeks of the strategy. This is despite increasing expectations and the thresholds for what we class as truancy.
An unintended consequence of this, however, has been that a small group of students have chosen to exploit the cut-off point and have been arriving 9 minutes late to lesson. In the final week of term, 4321 minutes of learning were lost as students were late to school and lessons. To replace this missed learning, from next week we will be running a catch-up session every Friday after school to ensure students who have been excessively late to lessons are able to catch up on the work missed. Parents/carers will be notified of the late detention on Thursday afternoon so they can make arrangements for students to get home safely. The detention will run for the amount time the students have been late in the previous week (with a cut-off point of 2 hours).
Thank you to all parents, carers and students for supporting our drive to maximise the time spent in lessons.
Mr Carter, Assistant Principal
Attendance matters
Please help us to improve your child's success at school by sharing the following with them:
- It’s a new school term. Some wise words for you to end the week: ‘Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself’ (John Dewey).
- There is a clear link between poor attendance at school and lower grades. The links between attendance and achievement are strong. Higher attendance = higher achievement.
Rounders results
Congratulations to Year 9/10 students who participated in a rounders tournament on Thursday 6 June. The results are as follows:
- Manor 1 - Wollaston 3½
- Manor 4 - Weavers 7½
- Manor 3 - Rushden 3
- Manor 1½ - Huxlow 1½
There were some excellent rounders skills on show, with a superb one-handed catch from Abby. Well done to all involved.
Sixth form leavers assembly
Our leavers assembly for Year 13 students will take place on Friday 21 June, which will be their official leaving date. Prom tickets can be collected and leavers forms can be signed during this event.
Students will meet in the restaurant at 2pm for the assembly, followed by a social event for students and teachers in the Sixth Form Centre until approximately 4:45pm.
Sixth form induction
Our Year 11 into 12 sixth form induction is taking place on Thursday 27 and Friday 28 June. Prospective students will have the opportunity to attend taster sessions for the subjects they have chosen to study as well as find out what life in the sixth form is like.
Details of the event will be shared in the coming weeks.
Careers newsletter
The South East Midlands Careers Hub have produced a career newsletter for families with information and advice to help support your child in seeking opportunities.
Year 11 exams
We will be sharing an overview of the following week's exam timetable both in the newsletter and on social media throughout the exam season. Students are to attend their normal lessons unless there is an exam (colour coded as orange) or booster session (colour coded as blue) for their subjects.
We are also producing a weekly newsletter for Year 11 students containing information and advice about their exams. This week's edition can be downloaded via the following link:
Dance Show
Tickets are now on sale for our Dance Show taking place on Friday 21 June. Book your tickets via the link below.