Headteacher's Blog #33

Our young people have done us proud this week, powering through the sub-Saharan heat in their PE kits and rechargeable fans. I talk about stress testing a lot with my senior team, this is the ability of large organisations, like schools, to withstand change and crisis. In schools without really strong routines and systems events like extreme weather become a nightmare. Young people become histrionic and staff frazzled, defeated by the chaos that ensues by the ever-rising temperatures. These last few days however have been calm and the young people polite, helpful and good humoured. We have come a long way, and I have seen the best of the LSA community. Yesterday, after 30 years teaching, I took my tie off for the day, in my own nod to the heatwave emergency. I am very much an old school stoic when it comes to public service; you don't close schools unless instructed to and you power on regardless. Thank you all for your support, with the exception of yesterday, where attendance did drop off a little, you have kept sending them in. They breed them tough round here!

Preparations are now in full swing to tighten up routines and systems for the next academic year. We are particularly keen to improve our transition arrangements, ensuring that the behavioural and learning routines that are so embedded at primary school are not lost once they hit the wide expanses of life at LSA. Balancing growing independence against the need for tight structures and routines is a feat that the most successful schools manage. It is especially important for our most vulnerable young people who struggle the most with transitions. We are also working on a plan to go back to face to face parents' evenings for most year groups next year, bringing you in to meet us again, put names to faces and develop the supportive relationships that typify happy schools. I am looking forward to meeting you all and celebrating my pride in being LSA. Have a cooler weekend.