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Hessle High School

Headteacher Blog

MR V GROAK

Welcome

On this page you will find weekly informative blogs. 

December 2024

Archive

  • WEEK 15 - Friday 20 December 2024

    Published 20/12/24

    A fifteen week school term is tough and I am always impressed by the resilience shown by our students, and staff, to navigate this period of time. This morning, Mrs Todd and Mr Riches led celebration events for the students in Years 8 and 7 respectively that had completed the term with 100% attendance and no behaviour points. They were given a hot chocolate drink and a breakfast waffle. But mostly, they were pleased to be recognised for their achievement which was well deserved.

    Attendance to school inevitably dips as we reach December but I am delighted that we are still tracking at 2.5% higher than the same period last year. Thank you for your support with this. Our attendance team are increasingly proactive in reaching out to families where attendance is lower than we need it to be and again I thank those of you that have collaborated with Mr Chapman and Mrs Kibart to improve your child's attendance. It really does matter, every day.

    ***

    There are a number of different opinions regarding the core purpose of a school - a place for social development, a place to acquire qualifications or a place to acquire specialist skills. Undoubtedly, schools are a place for preparing students for the next stage of their education. This is even a separate and important element of the Ofsted school inspection framework.

    At Hessle, we take this part of our work very seriously and recognise that each and every one of our students has their own unique set of ambitions and potentials and that it is our job to help them on their way, whilst also seeking to challenge their ambitions and make sure they are aspirational.

    The Gatsby Benchmarks is a framework by which schools and colleges evaluate the work they do in relation to careers education and features eight individual benchmarks which include careers advice appointments, opportunities to visit workplaces, the sharing of labour market information and more besides.

    The goal is that schools will secure a 100% score on each of these, which demonstrates an exemplary careers programme. Some of these benchmarks have been fully secured at Hessle for some time. Benchmark 6 (workplace visits) has always been the weak point as it is for most schools, due to the difficulty of taking large groups of students out of school to visit businesses,

    Last summer, we introduced a work experience placement for our Year 10 students, which managed to secure a workplace visit for 74% of our students and significantly improved our Benchmark 6 score. All eight of our benchmarks are now well above the national average which should come as great news to parents/carers who want their children to benefit from expert careers guidance.

    The next steps in our careers work comes in the form of our Aiming Higher programme which is designed to challenge students to raise their aspirations and, for most students, to ensure that by the age of 18 they are 'university ready'. Having the choice to go to university is one that I want for all of our students. Not everyone will want to do this and there are some high quality degree apprenticeships that are now fantastic alternatives. But we want everyone to have the choice.

    But our careers programme actually begins in Year 7 with 'All About Me' day, follows on in Year 8 with 'Ambition Day' and really accelerates through Year 9 and into Key Stage 4 with careers weeks in each of Years 10 and 11. Our careers programme helps us to deliver on our school mission - "Everyone can achieve the extraordinary", which we firmly believe in.

    ***

    With increasing numbers of students on roll and with attendance increasing steadily post-Covid, this year has seen the highest number of students ever on our Heads Lane site. This is great for the school community but brings its own challenges, not least of which the arrangements for the safe arrival and departure of our students.

    For those of you that do not visit the school each day, the front of school is an incredibly busy place and features a main entrance that welcomes pedestrians, cyclists, motorists and six school buses. We rely on the safety conscious behaviour of all road and footpath users to ensure that everyone stays safe and I thank everyone who uses this space for their cooperation. This takes a large staff presence to mitigate the risk of accident and this works for us.

    If you do use the school site, please always adhere to the 5 MPH speed limit which is a key element of our risk assessment. Please also be considerate and use only the spaces in the Visitors Car Park and not the priority spaces in front of reception. These are reserved for blue badge holders only, of which we have a large number who need these spaces.

    New markings are in place this week and we will also be installing a speed limiter on the road as vehicles enter the school site. More than anything, your cooperation and understanding keeps the site safe. Thank You.

    ***

    We continue to insist that students are prepared for their learning. In order to do this, we need all students to ensure that they bring a school bag to school. This should ideally be a two handle backpack which can be carried comfortably over both shoulders. Other bags are currently permitted but a backpack is always preferable. The bag allows students to carry the following equipment:

    • School planner - this is a compulsory element of school equipment and allows us to communicate with home, as well as record positive stamps for student conduct
    • Pencil case - this should include pens, pencils, ruler and other equipment
    • Water bottle - which can be filled at any of our water stations around school
    • Outdoor wear- the bag should also be big enough to store an outdoor coat, scarf or hat as we do not have lockers in school

    Having a bag to school improves student organisation and independence. Through 2025, we will be working with all students to ensure that these minimum expectations are met. Thank you for your support

    ***

    The Groak family will be on the road on Monday, along with the 2 million other vehicles that are estimated to be travelling for Christmas. Eventually, we will be in Surrey to spend Christmas with my in-laws, including the first Christmas for my children with their new baby cousin. I am heading back on Boxing Day (after the traditional non-league football match, Walton & Hersham v Bracknell). This will allow me to spend some time with my parents before my wife and kids head north next Saturday. On Sunday, we're braving the North Sea for a quick dash to Rotterdam to break up the holiday and then it will be feet up with nice food for New Year. Busy, but full of quality time with family with time to relax in between.

    However you are planning to spend the holiday, on behalf of all the staff at Hessle High School, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Healthy and Prosperous New Year.

    And thank you for your support in 2024.

    Mr Groak

    Headteacher

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  • WEEK 14 - Friday 13 December 2024

    Published 13/12/24

    At the start of this half-term, I deleted Twitter/X from my iPhone.  As much as I enjoyed scrolling through news clips and opinions, I had found myself trapped in a time vortex that usually ended an hour after I had sat down with a me feeling stressed or frowning for no apparent reason.  The ability of smart phones to make us addicted to angst is a modern phenomenon which afflicts us all.  Since deleting it, my screen time is down 30% and I have managed to find much more time for reading.  A book. 

    Hypocritically, I also get frustrated when I find my son lounging on the sofa, Sky Sports on the TV, mobile phone in hand, an iPad on his lap.  “What you doing?” I’ll ask him.  “Nowt,” he’ll reply.  “Then get up and do you homework/empty the bins/dishwasher etc,” I’ll snap in frustration. 

    Smart phones are insidious objects.   In a generation, they have crawled into every corner of our lives so that now we now can’t live without them.  Just last night alone, I used my phone to time my run, listen to a Podcast, check my work emails, pay a bill, check the football scores, read the news, engage in some banter with my mates on WhatsApp, do some Christmas shopping and text my mum.  The productivity achieved from my phone is incredible.  And yet, I could spend as long as it took me to do those things, doom scrawling through X in search of a momentary dopamine hit.  And I’m a middle-aged man who learned how to live and function as an adult before smart phones existed.  Pity the child who knows nothing else.  

    Which is why, this year, we further tightened our policies on mobile phones in schools.  We have now joined the 56% of schools in England that do not allow mobile phones to be used at all during the school day, even at breaks and lunchtimes.  This is up from 39% in 2018 and the trend is only going in one direction.  Some schools have gone as far as physically removing phones from students when they arrive on site on the basis that the presence of a phone in a student’s pocket or bag is a stress creator (there is lots of research to support this). 

    I have to say that, since we tweaked this policy, the response from the students has been superb.  They quickly adapted to it and universally comply with it; there are now only a handful of occasions each week where a student uses their phone and has it removed from them.  More importantly, incidents of peer disputes arising from mobile phone use in school have disappeared.  There were never many to begin with, and we still have to content with the regular out-of-school social media disputes which then spill into school, usually on a Monday morning.  If you were to walk into our school canteen at lunchtime, you would find hundreds of young people and teenagers sitting and chatting, sometimes playing Uno or another card game, and just enjoying each other’s company.  In person.  It is great to see. 

    ***  

    This week, we sent out the first issues of The Eagle – our new year-group school newsletter.  If you missed it, they can be found here.  This will be sent to you each half term with the next one due before February half term to provide you with an update of the curriculum that your child is studying as well as the wide range of extra curricular events taking place. 

    ***  

    It has been a tough few weeks in school with lots of students and some staff absent through illness.  I have managed to dodge the germs for now but I can feel the tiredness.  The only people that can understand how tired a teacher is in the week before Xmas is another teacher.  And so, this being the final weekend before the Xmas break begins, we are opting for a relatively quiet weekend in the Groak household, starting with a Christmas movie tonight, some gentle shopping tomorrow and an early morning trip to Bridlington on Sunday to see my son play football.  If the weather holds, we may even go for a bracing beach walk before heading home for another lazy Sunday afternoon.  In between times, I will catch up with my parents and plan the time we will spend together over Christmas.  It still sounds busy when I write these words but it will feel relaxing. 

    Enjoy your weekend and thank you for your support.  

    Mr Groak

    Headteacher

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  • WEEK 13 - Friday 6 December 2024

    Published 09/12/24

    In September, we were proud to open the first Enhanced Resource Provision (ERP) for Cognition and Learning in the East Riding.  This came about following lengthy discussions between the local authority and school and Trust leaders to determine whether this was a feasible option for a mainstream school.   

    Five years ago, this would not have been an option for the school.  Since then, we have seen a number of students with very specific Special Educational Needs join us in the school and seen them thrive.  I have mentioned Anya Findlay in this blog before and Anya, who left the school last summer and who has Down’s Syndrome, left a genuine legacy in our school.  Through her five years with us, we learned as much from her as she did from us and, in her slipstream, came similar students, Lara and Mia.  The skills and ability of our staff to educate and support these students grew and, a couple of years ago, we began to see a rise in the number of families applying for places at our school on the back of the reputation we had gained for supporting students like those girls. 

    This led Jo Anderson (our SEND Coordinator, Assistant Head and member of staff at Hessle for over twenty years) to begin the process of bidding for an ERP for similar students.  This makes us a local centre of expertise and provision, comes with appropriate funding to recruit more staff and enables us to build the staff skillset to further our work. 

    We are now almost a term into this provision and delighted that it has been as successful as we had hoped.  It will take time to fully develop our provision but the outcome of this is that a number of students, who might otherwise have struggled to cope in a mainstream school, can enjoy their educational journey in a large school with a bustling and vibrant student population and ‘fit in’ and belong.  That is priceless for the students but also an enriching experience for all of our other students who learn about diversity and respect through their daily interactions with each other. 

    No performance tables or Ofsted inspection framework can measure the impact of this on young people.  We do it because it is the right thing to do and changes lives. 

    ***  

    This week, we held our now-annual Christmas Fayre.  Over recent weeks, students have spent some time in their tutor groups planning the products and activities they would bring to the Fayre and it culminated on Wednesday during lunchtimes and after school.  There was a lovely atmosphere with students, staff and parents browsing the stalls, buying cakes and gifts, playing games and contributing to the four House Charities.  The amount raised was phenomenal and will be revealed to the students in their end of term celebrations.  The House system in school helps students across different year groups to mingle and socialise in a way that doesn’t happen in normal classes and I am very grateful to the four members of staff who, this year, are leading their Houses – Mr Adams, Miss Foster, Miss Deveney and Mr Griffiths and to Mrs Bourne who coordinates them.  And finally thank you to those who supported by buying their wares. 

    ***  

    As we reach the end of Week 13, we are now a third of the way through the school year and there are some key events coming up.  Aside from Christmas, we have multiple visits for students and those in Year 9 will, after the holidays, begin their pathways process with a series of assemblies informing them about Key Stage 4 and the options process. 

    Students in Year 7 and Year 8 will begin new topics after Christmas as they progress through their Key Stage 3 curriculum and students in Year 10 will begin new GCSE units and coursework continues in earnest.  Students in Year 11, of course, are counting down the days to their real GCSE exams but before that will face another round of Mock Exams in February.  Lots going on and the cycle of another academic year moves around again. 

    However you are spending this weekend, stay warm and safe and thank you for your support.   

    Mr Groak

    Headteacher

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