Headmaster's message Friday 10th May 2024
Dear Parents and Guardians,
It has been nice to see our students enjoying some slightly cooler temperatures this week which has had a very positive impact on play times as well as PE and Games lessons. We hope the weather will remain like this for some time.
Our current Sixth Form students have enjoyed their first few days in our new Sixth Form centre this week. It is great to see how they are utilising this space to prepare for their external examinations. The formal launch of this facility will be in August but we really didn't want to miss out on our pioneer Year 13 group to miss out on utilising this wonderful new space.
This week in Pre-Prep we were visited by colleagues from DLTS who came to observe our teaching of phonics. They were very impressed with the structure of what they saw and the progress that our students are making. Also in Pre-Prep excitement is building in Year 2 about out first ever Y2 residential which is happening on 7th June. I believe residentials are one of the most important parts of our curriculum. Often parents are nervous about sending children on residentials but to quote the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt from his new book, the Anxious Generation, We have overprotected children in the real world and underprotected them in the virtual world.
The Anxious Generation is a book that I recommend that every parent and every teacher should read and it gives strong evidence about the impact of smartphones on childhood and also what action we can take. You should expect this to be something we should refer to in school frequently next year but 4 key takeaways from the book are:
- schools should be smartphone free zones (currently our policy from 8am to 3.20pm)
- Children should not have smartphones until age 14 (children's phone watches or simple feature phones are a better alternative)
- No social media before age 16
- Children should have more opportunities for free play, independence and responsibility in the real world