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Headteacher’s Blog – Week 1

New beginnings!

Welcome back blog readers - I hope you all had a really lovely summer holiday.

My husband and I had a ‘fly and flop’ fortnight in Jamaica where I had a much welcomed rest, reading lots of books and recharging my battery ready for a new academic year.

My return to work started with the release of the GCSE results in August, where the Class of 2019 celebrated their fantastic success. Results Day is one of the favourite days in my school year. The students’ hard work is rewarded with feelings of pride and success. I am so proud of them. It was especially lovely to share with their families this summer - parents and carers who have been on this journey with us providing much needed encouragement and support.

Like most comprehensive schools, the academic potential of our students varies - with some students’ natural best being much lower than others. But whatever their potential, we make sure they achieve it. Celebrating achieving the highest possible grades this year were Owen Faulkner who got grade 9s in every subject, closely followed by Will Wakefield and Lara Barbara who achieved eight grade 9s.

Whilst we still have our GCSE Certification Evening to come on Thursday 14th November 2019, I am already missing the Class of 2019. They were an incredible bunch of talented, bright, charming young people and I wish them and their families all the best for their futures.

I hope that their futures are as amazing as the Class of 2017. I received a letter from the Principal of Loreto Sixth Form College last week, informing me that out of the 22 students who had been offered places at prestigious Oxford and Cambridge Universities, three were from Kingsway! What an achievement for them. We are so, so proud of ...

  • Niamh O'Shaughnessy achieved A*, A, A and is off to Selwyn College at Cambridge University to read Law
  • Edward Wakefield who achieved A*, A*, A*, A is also off to CambridgeUniversity  - Magdalene College to read Medicine
  • Thomas Charlesworth achieved four A* grades and is going to Corpus Christi College, Oxford to read Chemistry

In his letter, Mr McGhee (Principal) says the students’ success “builds on the excellent teaching that they enjoyed at The Kingsway School”. I couldn’t agree more! We are so proud of all our ex-students’ success at A level and wish them all well for the future.

Our amazing new Year 7's kick started their Kingsway experience with two jam-packed days full of exciting activities. From fire building to app designing, students formed new friendships within their forms as well as learning new skills designed around our school ethos of 'opportunity, achievement and respect'. Students will continue to build on these skills throughout Year 7.

Our new Yellow School Bus is now operational. The Y21 service is provided by TFGM and it leaves from Sale Road at 7:25am then picks up from a number of South Manchester locations including Benchill tram stop (0750), and Outwood Road, Heald Green (0810). Limited places on this service are open to those students who have a yellow bus permit. This is expected to be a high demand route so do register as early as possible. For more information visit https://www.tfgm.com/tickets-and-passes/bus-school-bus-services

We have some superstar students already who have achieved the highest number of merits in the few days we have been back at school. Well done to:

  • Emma Boaler - Year 8
  • Ellis Woods - Year 9
  • Ryan Tibbets - Year 10
  • Madison Allcock - Year 11

Unfortunately, some students are receiving de-merits at this early stage for breaches of our school’s behaviour expectations:

  • To arrive to school and lessons on time
  • In full school uniform*
  • With the correct kit, equipment** and homework
  • Have a positive attitude to learning
  • Behave responsibly and respectfully at all times

*Please note that acrylic or painted nails are not permitted. Students are also not allowed to wear any jewellery including the clear piercings which have been seen last week.

**The minimum equipment expected for every child is pen, pencil, ruler, planner, bag and reading material.

Dates for your diary:

As part of our continual investment in providing your child with the highest quality education school will be closing early for staff professional development on Wednesday 18th September. Lessons will finish at 2pm at which point all students will be allowed to go home. Bus companies have been notified and will pick students up as usual. If you have any difficulties please contact your child’s pastoral head of year so we can accommodate your needs.

May we also take this opportunity to remind parents that, as in previous years, will be closing early on Wednesday 2nd October to prepare for our annual Open Evening. We will be inviting many of our students to return that evening to represent the school in ambassador role throughout the evening. More details will follow shortly.

Each year team will be holding Information evenings this month:

[table id=information_evenings /]

The Kingsway Association warmly invite parents to a Cheese and Wine evening on Monday 23rd September 2019 at 6:30pm.

Have a lovely week,


Mrs J. Lowe
Headteacher

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Parent Pay and Cashless Catering

You may have encountered a problem where your ParentPay “dinner money” balance was not being updated to show your child’s spending in our canteens.

The good news is that the link between ParentPay and our cashless catering system has now been restored. Missing transactions will now be transferred to ParentPay and should appear on your accounts. This process will update the dinner money balance and also update children’s meal choices to date. Due to the backlog this may take a few hours to complete.

Please be assured that any money paid via ParentPay was being transferred to children’s in-school account balance. The issue was with the data transfer from our catering system back to ParentPay. It has also taken longer than we would have liked to restore the link due to back-to-school demands on the cashless system company and their customer support team.

Apologies to those parents that have had difficulties due to this issue, and thank you for your patience.

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School Lockdown 10th September

At approximately 10am the school applied its Lockdown procedure in response to a police incident in our local community. At no time was there a direct threat to any of our students, and the decision to authorise the lockdown was purely a precaution to ensure our students’ safety.

We were in regular contact with the police during the incident which has now been resolved, and lifted the Lockdown as soon as appropriate.

A regular school timetable is now operating.

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Election of Parent Governor

Dear Parent/Carer,

PARENT GOVERNOR ELECTION

I am writing to you to invite you to stand for election as a parent governor, or nominate another parent to do so. In our school we have provision for four parent governors and there are currently two vacancies.

The governing board, with the headteacher, has overall responsibility for the running of the school. Governing boards have three core strategic functions:

  • Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction;
  • Holding the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils; and
  • Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent.

No special qualifications are needed and the most important thing is to have a keen interest in the school and be prepared to play an active part in the work of the governing board. However, we would particularly welcome nominations from parents with the following skills – finance, leadership, teaching and learning. Training is available for all governors and this governing board has an expectation that those new to governance attend free induction training.

The below sheet summarises the circumstances under which someone cannot serve as a governor. In addition, parents/carers who have paid employment in the school for 500 or more hours per academic year or who are elected members of the Local Authority are not eligible to stand in these elections. Nominations must be from parents or carers with children at the school on the day that nominations close.

If you would like to stand for election please complete the below nomination form and return it to the school no later than Wednesday 18th September 2019 at noon. You may also include a short personal statement to support your nomination, which should be no longer than 250 words. Self-nominations will be accepted, but if you are nominating another parent please seek their prior consent.

If there are more nominations than vacancies the election will be by secret ballot. If that is necessary, voting papers will be sent to all parents together with details of the ballot procedure.

Yours faithfully,

Mrs J. Lowe

Headteacher (Returning Officer)

*“Parent” means a person with parental responsibility for, or carer of, a registered pupil at the school at the time of election.

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