We have a lot of visitors to school at Hessle. Some of them are specialist educationalists who come into school to support individual students, or for specific tasks such as music tuition and others are obviously parents and carers. We are also pleased whenever our Governors come in (which is increasingly often) and we regularly host teachers, staff and leaders from other schools in our Trust, or from our Central Services Team. Finally, members of the business community also visit us often to share their expertise and experience in order to build the aspirations of our students and to offer careers advice. 

Overwhelmingly, they are impressed by the way in which our students conduct themselves and how they interact with other adults, showing off our school values of respect and kindness. We hear positive feedback all the time and try, where we can, to share this with the students involved and their parents. To promote this, we have recently introduced ‘Bridge Coins’ - these are bespoke tokens that are given to all of our visitors when they arrive and for them to give to students that have particularly impressed them during their time in school. The students then receive a recognition letter for them to keep.  

Our first recipients were Cleo and Phoebe (see below) who received their coins from a visitor recently.  

“The Bridge” is our through-school Personal Development programme which supports our young people throughout their journey at Penshurst and then at Hessle. It encompasses a wide range of activity including assemblies, theme days and tutor activities. The name is inspired by our through-school and the transition we promote between primary and secondary phases; as well, of course, by the Humber Bridge and the notion of ‘a bridge’ being something that brings things, and people together. 

In the weeks and months to come, I will share more of this work with you.  

A reminder that next week sees some changes to our lunch and break arrangements with Year 10 and 11 swapping from early to late, and vice versa. This supports the scheduling of the GCSE exams which formally begin on Thursday 9 May. In between times, of course, there is also the Bank Holiday, when school will be closed on Monday 6 May.  

On the Sunday before that, I will be in Cardiff for the start of Bruce Springsteen’s European Tour. I’ll share more about that next week but be assured that my running playlist has now been honed to what I hope and predict will be the concert set list. Before that, this is a busy sporting weekend with my son’s cricket nets starting tonight, followed by his football match on Sunday lunchtime and then a quick dash to the MKM Stadium on Sunday afternoon to see Hull FC take on Leeds. Apparently, it is going to rain. Great. 

Whatever you are doing this weekend, try to avoid the rain and thank you for your ongoing support.  

Mr Groak

Headteacher