10 September 2014 Dear Parents / Carers Welcome back to the new academic year at Wellfield High School. I hope you have had an enjoyable summer break and join us in looking forward to an exciting and successful year for all our pupils. It was a pleasure to see our pupils arriving to school on Monday looking smart and ready for the new school year. GCSE Results: This year the Class of 2014 achieved some incredible results across many subjects. Despite a volatile year across many schools our overall results for 5+ GCSE’s at A*-C including English and Mathematics fell by 2%. The slight fall was due to changes in the nature of the exams and changes in grade boundaries by the exam boards. We did however, increase the number of students achieving higher grades (A*-A) and doubled the number achieving 3 A*-A. Pleasingly the English results increased and there was less variability between boys and girls. These are some of the points that Ofsted asked us to improve on and so the Class of 2014 achievements are further recognition of the school’s continued improvements which we will continue to build on in the future. I will update you further with any changes to these. Official change of school name: As I mentioned last term the schools name has changed to Wellfield High School; you may have noticed our new signs if you have visited the school recently. We also have a new prospectus and redesigned website, the new address is: www.whs.lancs.sch.uk and we have upgraded our Moodle, the new address for this is: vle.whs.lancs.sch.uk. New Staff: We welcome some new staff to our team, these are: Mathematics – Mrs Jackson (Subject Leader), Miss McDade, Mr Garland and Mr Hayhurst. English – Miss Ainscough PE – Mr West Pastoral Manager Years 10 and 11 – Miss Anderson Contacts for parents: For matters that relate to either a personal or pastoral nature, your child’s Pastoral Manager is the central point of contact in the first instance: Year 7, 8 and 9 - Mrs Yates
Year 10 and 11 – Miss Anderson
Miss Capaldi, in her role as Assistant Headteacher, oversees Behaviour and Safeguarding and the whole team of Pastoral Managers and Form Tutors. Mr Adams is now also responsible for attendance, careers advice and guidance and the Duke of Edinburgh Award. In order to continue to support parents in discussing their questions about their child’s academic studies we would like to direct any communication via email to a central point for each Key Stage that a child is in. If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s studies that you would like to bring to our attention please email us in the first instance as follows:
Pupils in Years 7, 8 and 9 to
[email protected] Pupils in Years 10 and 11 to
[email protected]
Mrs Burke Progress Manager KS3 Miss Sumner Progress Manager KS4
These will be forwarded to Mrs Robinson and the Progress Managers for the relevant Key Stage. In turn they will either directly respond or forward on to the relevant subject leader/teacher as appropriate. We would like to think that whilst this may be a convenient method of contact for many parents, please feel free to phone us as well. Open Evening: Our Open Evening for this year takes place on Tuesday 7 October between 6-8.30 p.m. As always we will be asking for pupil volunteers to assist in showing prospective families around the school. In addition, we will also hold an Open Morning on Wednesday 8 October between 9.30-11.30 a.m. for families to visit us during our working day and see our pupils in their lessons. Welcome to Key Stage 4: All parents in Years 10 and 11 are invited to attend a brief meeting to explain some of the expectations, demands and course/examination requirements for pupils in Key Stage 4. We will also be explaining the various ways school and parents can support their child through Key Stage 4. This will take place on Monday 22 September 6-6.30 p.m. in the school theatre. Further information will be sent out with pupils later in the week. Pupil Planner: As ever we ask for a contribution towards the cost of the pupil planner that your son/daughter has received this term. We have again managed to keep the cost to £2.50 this year. Pupils and parents can pay the £2.50 at the school office as soon as is possible. Cycling to School: With the busier roads around Leyland and increased distractions on roads all pupils who cycle to school will be required to wear an appropriate protective cycle helmet. We want your son/daughter to arrive safely to school as you do when they arrive home afterwards and the chances of serious injuries are reduced if wearing a cycle helmet. This comes into effect from Monday 15 September. Pupils without helmets will not be able to park their bicycles on school premises. If there is an issue with purchasing a helmet please contact your son/daughter’s Pastoral Manager in the first instance and we will do all we can to help support you in obtaining a helmet for the regular journey to school. Show My Homework: The website ‘Show My Homework’ that we use to share pupils home-based learning tasks is continuing this year. New parents will be issued with passwords shortly. The company has also developed a new ‘app’ that pupils and parents can use to access this on smart phones and tablets as well as via the internet. Pupils will still be writing their home-based learning tasks in their pupil planner. Library: We are in the process of introducing a new library system “Eclipse” to support pupils’ reading. This will take another week or so and will link with our existing Accelerated Reader programme. More details will follow. In the meantime if your child has a reading book at home please can you ask them to bring it in to be catalogued as part of the school’s new library system. All pupils in Years 7, 8 and 9 will have a reading book and they will be expected to read 20 minutes per day as part of their home-based learning tasks. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact the school office and they will direct you to the best member of staff to answer your question. Yours sincerely
Mr P Tolson Headteacher
