Letters
01.07.2022 Letter to Parents
July 1st 2022
Friday 1 July 2022
Dear Parents/Carers,
I am very pleased to be writing to you having welcomed many of you to a meeting at Falmouth School yesterday evening. My desire was to share where we are as a school, to outline the journey ahead and to hear the views of parents and families first hand.
Recruitment
Over the past few months, we have been on a serious recruitment drive and I am delighted that a significant number of new appointments have been made. The new colleagues who will be joining us in September, have already been into school to meet with students and staff and to prepare for the new term. Some of these appointments have come from within the school and I would like to congratulate Mrs Benney, who is our Assistant Headteacher with responsibility for Teaching and Learning and is the strategic lead for the Sixth Form and to Mrs Thirlby, who will be the new Head of Physical Education from September.
Curriculum and Assessment
Senior and Middle Leaders have been working on a full review of the curriculum where we have reflected on what we are teaching and when. The new Learning Journeys will be shared with you so that you can easily see what your child will be learning, how this is sequenced and where the assessments fit in. Moving forward, we will structure our curriculum around the three school terms, rather than the current four Learning Cycles. In the new Year 10, students have been able to select from four Options instead of three and this has offered greater breadth and balance of subjects to study in the examination years.
The School Day
In reviewing the curriculum, we have decided to move to five one-hour lessons and the new school day will look like this:
8.35am-9.00am Registration & Tutor Time
9.00am-10am Period 1
10am-11am Period 2
11am-11.20am Morning Break
11.20am-12.20pm Period 3
12.20pm-1.20pm Period 4
1.20pm-2.00pm Lunch
2.00pm-3.00pm Lesson 5
The start and end time for the day remains the same.
Student Voice
Our students are confident and articulate young people and it is important that we hear what they have to say about the plans for the future direction of the school. We will be involving them in ways in which they feel their voices are heard such as on-line surveys to ensure they feel they can be honest in how we can improve.
Uniform
The recent survey has revealed that most parents/carers are happy that they will be able to select either branded or non-branded items of uniform from Castle Sports and other high street outlets. We will also allow tailored black shorts to be worn from September.
We are welcoming our students at the front gate each morning and would invite parents/carers to join us from 8.10am-8.35am to see how positively we are greeting students as they arrive each morning.
Communications
In order to ensure that you can easily contact a member of staff when you have a query or would like to share information, please note the names, areas of responsibility and contact details as follows:
Step 1: Questions relating to learning and pastoral concerns
Member of Staff |
Area of Responsibility |
Contact Details |
Mr Sheer |
Learning Lead: Years 7, 8 & 9 |
asheer@falmouthschool.net |
Miss Roberts |
Learning Lead: 10 & 11 |
eroberts@falmouthschool.net |
Mr Fewster |
Sixth Form |
sfewster@falmouthschool.net |
Step 2: Questions relating to welfare and safeguarding
Member of Staff |
Area of Responsibility |
Contact Details |
Mrs Holland |
Years 7, 8 & 9 |
rholland@falmouthschool.net |
Mrs Macrae |
Years 10 & 11 |
mmacrae@falmouthschool.net |
Mrs Hartley |
Year 12 |
ahartley@falmouthschool.net |
Step 3: Questions relating to wider school issues
Member of Staff |
Area of Responsibility |
Contact Details |
Mrs de Sousa |
Headteacher |
bdesousa@falmouthschool.net |
Mr George |
Deputy Headteacher: Quality of Education (curriculum and student groupings) |
ageorge@falmouthschool.net |
Mrs Benney |
Assistant Headteacher: Teaching, Learning & Sixth Form |
cbenney@falmouthschool.net |
Mr Cilia |
Restorative Practice Lead |
rcilia@falmouthschool.net |
Mr Lumbers |
Attendance, Careers and Personal Development Lead |
blumbers@falmouthschool.net |
Mr Hayward |
Behaviour & Attitudes |
Ahayward:falmouthschool.net |
Mrs Brooker |
SENCO |
cbrooker@falmouthschool.net |
We will always endeavour to get back to queries within 24 and no later than 48 hours during term time.
Family Learning Event
We will be holding a Family Learning Event on Thursday 14 July 2022 where we would like to launch a love of reading event which is a summer challenge for our "Falmouth Family" to read one hundred thousand pages over the summer. Further details will follow.
Parent Forum Meetings
Many of you have expressed an interest in joining these meetings which will be on a range of topics and we will let you know when these are scheduled when we publish the new school calendar before the end of this term.
And finally…a heartfelt thank you from my Leadership Team and I to you all for your continued support. We appreciate the honest and frank discussions that we have been able to have in recent days and weeks. As we share more details of how you can communicate with us, we truly hope that our partnership can flourish.
Yours sincerely,
Brenda de Sousa
Headteacher
Filed under: Letters from the Headteacher 2022 Posted at 10:42 on 12th Sep 2022 Back