New uniforms, new students and the late days of summer sunshine. Well, the first two were true this week – but the awful rain saw us usher in our new Year 7 students into the sports hall, huddled against the weather, rather than meeting up and talking with new friends in the playground.

Despite this, our newest students have started very positively. Articulate, polite and engaged with secondary school life, our Year 7 students look like a brilliant bunch. And as well as new starters in Year 7, we have also welcomed over sixty Year 12 students to our Sixth Form from other local schools. I am super confident about our newest joiners, older and younger, and welcome all of our new families to Greenshaw.

Exam results: overview

A brief summary of the summer results was that we were incredibly proud of our GCSE and A Level achievements. Our Sixth Form students achieved the best ever set of results, and went on to a wide range of successful Russell Group university places, degree level apprenticeships and the world of work. 

Our GCSE results were also superb, likely to have been our second-highest set of grades. This, in turn, has led to our largest Year 12 group in years, as so many students achieved so well that they were able to access our Sixth Form courses. Huge congratulations to the students of last year, and, of course, the parents and teachers who enabled this to happen.

A life changing trip to Zambia

Eleven of our older students undertook a journey to Zambia this summer. While there, they took part in volunteering activities that developed community facilities, such as constructing parts of a local orphanage (bricklaying, plastering and painting). 

We are very proud of their efforts. To go on the trip, they undertook over a year of fund-raising, and have left a lasting legacy for the communities they worked with. Thank you to all the students, and also the staff who travelled with them.

The old school has gone

For those of you who live near the school, you may have seen almost daily changes over the summer holidays. The demolition of the existing buildings is almost complete and groundwork has already started in some areas of the site.

The flattened area at the rear of the site, where maths and English departments were housed just four months ago, is being prepared for a multi-use sports pitch. We hope to have access to this by the start of the new year, and all other work is happening at speed.

Meal price increase

We have spent much of last year holding down prices in our school canteen. However, as we all know from our own household shopping bills, food has continued to rise in cost.

We have reluctantly needed to raise our school meal price (a main meal, dessert and drink) by 10 pence to £3.20. This is just over a 3% increase, while food prices increased by 4.9% in July, according to the National Office for Statistics.

As a member school of the Greenshaw Learning Trust, we do use our buying power to get our food supplies at better rates than some other schools, which is why we have been able to keep the increase to 10 pence. However, I am very aware of the budget pressures for families, and we will do all we can to pass on these increased costs as infrequently as possible.

And finally…

So on a sunny Friday with all the students in, after a rainy week without all of them, today has heralded a great start to this school year. I hope that all students remember that next week is Week 2 on our timetable. If you are helping a young person (or more than one) on Sunday night, make sure you are looking at Monday of the correct week on their timetable. I wish you all a relaxing weekend.

Mr N House, Headteacher