Letters

We are now nearing completion of the academic year and I thought this would be a good opportunity to look back over the year and look forward to next year.

Exams

The end of June this year saw the completion of the formal examination season for Year 11, 12 & 13.  Each year the exam period starts earlier and finishes later and throughout the period we have seen an excellent attitude towards studies and exams from almost every one of our students.  We now await the exam results in August to see how the efforts from everybody have paid off.  Post 16 College students will be able to pick up their results on Thursday, 17 August and Year 11 students a week, later on Thursday, 24 August.

As you may well have seen, this year the Year 11 results have changed nationally in the way they are graded for English and Maths.  Students will receive a 1 to 9 grading for GCSE English and Maths, with 9 being the top grade awarded.  All other subjects will continue to have the more traditional A*-E grades awarded.  Next year almost all subjects will be moved across to the 1 to 9 grading.  Post 16 College students will still receive A*-E grades for A Levels.  We have not been informed of any planned changes nationally to A Level grading for next year.

On the link below you can view a summary to explain the new GCSE gradings for English and Maths for this summer from the Department for Education:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/626681/GCSE_Factsheet_parentFormatted1.pdf

Sports Development

Our work on constructing the new school fields to replace the ones at Union Corner is on course to be completed by the end of the summer.  Once this is done work will start on the construction of the 3G pitch and Pavilion at the beginning of the autumn term, with work due to be completed by Easter 2018.  We have been waiting a long time for this and it is really exciting that we have almost completed the first phase (replacement fields) of the project and will be moving on to the construction of phase two (3G and Pavilion).

Multi Academy Trust

Over the last 12 months I have been keeping you up to date with the partnership work between ourselves, King Charles and St Francis primary schools.  During this period we have publically consulted and carried out detailed due diligence work on our partnership formally coming together as a Multi Academy Trust (MAT) known as ‘Falmouth MAT’.  The work to start this partnership is almost complete with the Governing Bodies of the schools now going through the final decision making processes for the MAT to start on 1 September 2017. 

If you have not seen a copy of the consultation document released in the 2016 Autumn Term, please click on the link below.  The document provides the details and principles of the partnership:

http://www.falmouth.cornwall.sch.uk/246/falmouth-mat.

Improving Facilities

We continue to take every opportunity to invest in our facilities to ensure our children get the best resources available to us and the summer holidays are often very busy times for schools to get this work done.  Over this summer, we will be improving our toilets with a £250,000 grant from the national Academies Improvement Fund.  We will also be installing tiered seating and replacing all the lunchtime furniture in the Hall.

We are currently looking at our options to reduce the queues at lunchtime for our students and to give Lower School students dedicated areas for play and activities.  One option from September, is to split the times the Lower School students (Year 7 & 8) have lunch from the Upper School students (Year 9, 10 &11), which is already quite a common model used in a number of schools.  We will confirm final details of the trial to begin at the start of the Autumn Term during the summer break.

Communication

Hopefully you have noticed the significant increase in communication going out to families.  We are now sending out much more information than ever before across a range of communication channels including our website (www.falmouthschool.net), emails, letters, weekly newsletters, text messages, Facebook, Twitter and our Falmouth School App.  I do hope you want to receive information from the school about your own children and about developments in the school.  As we are always looking to see how we can further improve our communication with you, if you have any thoughts or suggestions, please email them to us via enquiries@falmouthschool.net .  We would be delighted to receive your thoughts on this or indeed on any other aspect of the operation of the school.

In Summary

It has been another very successful year at Falmouth School, with us already recognised as being one of the best achieving schools in Cornwall and being placed in the top 20% of non-selective schools nationally for outcomes.  Our children continue to sparkle in the school and our staff are as dedicated and hardworking as they have ever been in supporting your children.  The range of activities and opportunities during the main school day, after school and in the evening is already very impressive and we will always look to see what else we can do to make this even better.  We look forward to welcoming our new Year 7 and 12 and returning students and families on Tuesday 5 September for the start of the 2017/18 school year.

We wish you all a very enjoyable summer break.

Brett Miners

Headteacher