Welcome back to the Secondary Campus! It has been fantastic to see everyone back in school this week and hear all about the students’ exciting and interesting summer holidays. There is such a positive buzz around campus with everyone looking forward to the year ahead and already there is a keen focus on learning both inside and outside the classroom.
A very warm welcome to the new members of our community: students, parents and staff. We hope that your first week has been enjoyable and that you are settling into the new environment. It has been lovely to see the new students making friends and being supported by their buddies around school. If you have any questions at all, please just ask; we are here to help!
It was terrific to return to such a beautiful campus. I would like to thank our maintenance and domestic teams who worked hard throughout the summer to make sure that all the development work and enhancements were completed to such a high standard. Students are already making use of the new Health Services Centre and the new Deli seems to be a hit, with an increasingly healthy menu and wider variety of food. I can personally recommend the Vietnamese Spring Rolls!
You will have already received a number of important emails this week informing you of upcoming events and updates. The ECA information was sent yesterday with the sign up starting on Monday. Please do encourage your children to try something new this year, there are a range of enriching activities available. Also, may I remind you about our Key Stage 3 and 4 Back to School Night next Thursday evening from 6pm. This event is a good opportunity to learn about our curriculum, expectations, pastoral programme and more! We look forward to seeing you there.
On communication, hopefully you have noticed that, following your feedback through the parent questionnaire, and also last term’s Focus Group with parents, letters are coming home embedded in the emails we send you rather than as attachments. Hopefully this will reduce the number of ‘clicks’ to access the information you need. Also, with clearer titles and headings, searching for emails in your inbox will hopefully become easier. Please also remember that all these letters and much more can be found by accessing the Parent Portal. Roger communicated this term’s log-in details earlier in the week. Based on your suggestions, we hope to make further improvements in communication as we progress through the year.
Finally, I know that EP Campus can feel like a long drive and traffic can be challenging, however, I would like to extend a very warm welcome to all parents to come to our campus. The ‘Stables’ coffee shop is open throughout the day and we will be holding a series of workshops in the morning with topics of interest. Our first parent workshop will be held in October on the topic of Growth Mindset - please look out for for further information in the coming weeks.
Have a lovely weekend.
Sarah Howling
Sarah Howling
Principal Secondary Campus
Click here for this week's full issue - 4th September 2015