THIS WEEK AT FRENSHAM

A MESSAGE FROM RICK

Dear Parents 

Despite a high number of illnesses, both staff and students, we have reached the end of term on a real high with lots of Christmas cheer. The caterers did their usual amazing job of producing a fantastic Christmas lunch for the whole school today, and there was much delight as I walked around dressed as Santa to deliver candy canes to all – don't be fooled into thinking it is only the Junior School children who enjoyed this. There was just as much enthusiasm from the older students too! 

I want to pay tribute to the Junior School children who have all performed this week, with the Year 4-6 play on Tuesday evening and the N-Y3 play on Wednesday afternoon. Both were joyous events, with every child having an opportunity to be on stage. The staff worked incredibly hard to pull the two shows together and I want to thank them for their amazing efforts. This came on the back of the fantastic music and dance extravaganza last week involving the whole school, so it has been a busy week in the theatre for our new Theatre Manager Justin... 

​

Parent survey 

I want to thank all parents who managed to provide some feedback for the parent survey earlier this term. The leadership team has been hard at work looking at the results to identify the key areas that are going well and the areas that most need our attention. I want to comment on two particular areas that we are focusing on: 

​

Communication 

We know that our communication with you needs to be better, and we are working on this. A number of parents commented that this is their number one grumble, so we know how important it is to get this right. We are in discussions with a software provider that works in a number of schools to harmonise school communication with home, bringing together the various platforms we currently use (Schoolbase, MS Teams, SOCS etc), and we have discussed as staff the importance of timely responses to parental emails. Our next step on this is to develop a communications charter, working with the Parent Voice on a document that can help to guide the school-to-parent and parent-to-school communication channels. I will provide more information on this next term. 

​

Behaviour 

A number of parents commented on what they believe to be disruptive and negative behaviour from some students detracting from their own child’s experience of school. I share this concern and I want to ensure parents that we are working hard on the minority of students who do this. We have tightened up a number of our expectations of students across the whole school, from Junior to Senior School, and we are actively tracking and monitoring trends. Our approach with all behavioural challenges, summarised in our Approaches to Learning (ATL) process, is to look to understand and then change behaviour. This takes time and commitment from staff and is not a quick fix, but changing behaviour is much more lasting than simply punishing for transgressions. Importantly, we can only act on what we know, and the closer to the event the better, so I would strongly encourage parents to share information you may glean from your children as soon as possible so that we can act on it. We know this is an ongoing process, and we want to thank you for your support. 

​

Aldridge Theatre café  

I want to thank parents Jamie and Claire for stepping in to help us with the provision of coffee and tea in the Aldridge Theatre café this term. I know how many parents have enjoyed their daily caffeine fix from Stable and Ground! As you are aware, this was never going to be a permanent solution as Jamie and Claire have a busy business to run, so we are looking to reinstall the normal café operation next term, but with some important changes. We have purchased a better coffee machine, and we would like to run a coffee tasting for parents on the morning of Monday the 9th and Tuesday the 10th of January next term from 8.30am. Any coffee lovers do please come along to help us select the best option. 

And finally, thank you so much for your support over a busy term. It has been wonderful to see so many parents at the various events we have held, and we look forward to seeing you next term.  

​

Have a wonderful festive break. 

Best wishes 

Rick