Letters

31 March 2023

Dear Parents and Carers,

I would like to thank you for your support this term. I am confident to say that Spring Term 2023 has been a real turning point for Falmouth School. It has been a very busy term, but also enlightening and rewarding. Our focus has been centred around several key priorities and this focus will continue.

I am embarking on something new myself and want to be more creative with our communications. I would like to connect with you and therefore I hope to reach you through videos which will hopefully compliment my letters and prove an effective combination. I would hope that in due course I can include students in this, as well as wider staff. In the first instance,

All the videos linked to this letter can be viewed here:

http://www.falmouth.cornwall.sch.uk/448/video-news

What have we accomplished so far?

We have been focusing on strengthening the quality of education. One essential element is to maintain the same messaging to students everywhere. All our classroom spaces have been displaying the same information so that the students and teachers have clarity about the expectations, there is increased consistency and ambiguity is further reduced.

You can see them here: Students Standards for Success, Books and Folders, Falmouth Family Lesson Fundamentals: 

http://www.falmouth.cornwall.sch.uk/49/school-life

The Falmouth School Cultures and Protected Characteristics: 

http://www.falmouth.cornwall.sch.uk/258/our-school-culture

You now have the full insight into what we are doing and know how we pursue these high standards and I look forward to your support in this.

Equipment

As you are aware I have been frequently mentioning in my communications, the importance of being ready to learn, in particular having the right equipment. Having explored the school website, I discovered that our expectations have not been shared with you as transparently as I would have expected and therefore we need to remedy this promptly. Lack of equipment is an immediate barrier to learning. A student who persistently comes to school without the necessary and basic equipment, commences each day with a negative conversation with their teacher which then carries on throughout the rest of the day. Who would want to start the school day with negativity? Nobody and it certainly is not my vision.

What is your vision for your child coming to school every day?

So, for the positive start of the day and for that vital ‘extraordinariness’ that I want your child to enjoy, they must be learning ready because they are entering the learning environment every day for almost the whole day. It does matter.

You can see our equipment list here;

http://www.falmouth.cornwall.sch.uk/447/school-equipment.

In order to reduce any such barriers for any student of Falmouth School, we are provisioning every student with writing equipment as the first initial step in the right direction. When your son/daughter receives these items, we expect them to look after them and make sure that they are fully equipped and utilizing this in their learning. Should they be missing the equipment, notifications will be made and persistent lack of equipment would lead to a proportionate sanction. We also hope that we can launch a stationary shop and enable you to purchase these stationary items through Parent Pay and your child could then collect them. We will update you when we have all the logistics in place.

Increased communications

I feel I have been communicating with you reasonably regularly and hopefully you agree with this too. If your details are not fully updated or your contact details have changed, can you get in touch with us so that we can update our records. Our reception team can advise you on the procedures. Currently, we have a number of parents/carers without an email address and therefore you are missing out on our communications. We want everyone to be included, as you are all part of our Falmouth Family.

To have accurate contact details for you will be really important once we commence our gradual implementation of ClassCharts, a versatile reporting tool which will update you on praise, attendance, lateness and sanctions associated with your child on a regular basis. We, as adults, have commenced learning how to use this tool as part of our background preparation. All parents and carers will receive a code in due course enabling you to connect to your parent apps. Also, they will receive some guidance on how we will be using ClassCharts at the start of next term.

We have significantly increased our messaging through Facebook and we thank you for all your ‘likes’ and ‘loves’ as we appreciate these very much.  Our school needs to feel connected to you, and your children want to feel connected with you, with their school and the local community and we will continue developing this further.

Site

You may not be aware but currently our students are greeted with slightly sparse walls in the main corridor. This is only temporary. We are currently designing new displays to showcase our school so that the students really feel that the school is theirs, they feel proud of belonging to Falmouth School and their surroundings contribute to this greatly. It also helps us, adults, to feel happy in our workplace.

Recruitment

Our recently appointed Teaching Team Leader of Mathematics joins us after Easter. Our recently appointed Head of Sixth Form, also Maths specialist, commences the post at the same time. We would like to thank Mrs Penrose who continues working with us but also will be working across the Trust.  Our team is growing with two teaching assistants, a school administrator and site supervisor having recently been appointed. We are delighted to have great people joining our school and we shall continue investing into our recruitment process.

 And what is next?

Over the Easter holidays we are running a range of subject specific revision sessions to support the students towards the achievement of their qualifications. We thank all our colleagues for providing these. We urge students to make use of these sessions at this crucial time thus leading their learning.

We have been exceptionally busy this term and this is just the start. Now is the time to enjoy a well-earned rest, hopefully with some sunshine and get ready for our next chapter.  I would like to thank you all, as parents and carers for your support. With your dedicated support, promoting the standards with your son/daughter and the positive mindset, Falmouth School can be great again. We will make our school extraordinary.

We wish you all a great Easter break.

Kind regards

 

Lenka Chanter

Headteacher