Headteacher's Blog #2

Last week I spoke to students about the importance of good attendance and punctuality to school. I remember well the feeling I had in March 2020 when the government announced national school lockdowns. After the initial drive to organise staff and students I was left with a profound feeling of doom and anxiety. For 25 years I had been part of a period of sharp improvement in British education, attendance had improved across the system and targeted funding, and support had done much to reduce achievement and attainment gaps between the haves and the have nots. Tough though it had been, progress had been made. I knew that once we sent home our young people for a prolonged period of time the tear in the social fabric would affect those young people for whom school provided sanctuary and certainty. When the pubs reopened before the schools, my sense of despair was compounded.

This week a report from the Centre for Social Justice examines the profound effect on attendance that has followed the pandemic. Parental attitudes to schools and a general breach of the social contract have loosened the tight bonds that bound our society together. Schools are miraculous places, and British education has one of the best systems in the world. Imperfect though we always are, the best place for our children is at school. The routine, social norms and knowledge delivered in an effective school are life changing and build a better society. We need your support to change this decline in attendance and to support us to improve lives and to rebuild the contract between schools and parents. We will not always get it right, but we will learn together how to reestablish the norms that make a better world. Thank you all for your support in my first two weeks at the school.

Have a great weekend!