Posted May 3 - 2024Headteacher's Newsletter
what's happening at Chesham Grammar
Posted on: September 3rd 2021
Head's Blog
Dear parent,
It has been wonderful to welcome our new Year 7s to CGS today, to meet those who have joined us from other schools in Year 12 and, of course, to welcome back students in Years 10 and 12 for whom CGS is already home. We are very much looking forward to seeing those in Years 8, 9, 10 and 13 when they return on Monday. Thank you to the Friends of CGS who organised a picnic for Year 7 students and their parents at the end of the school day today, which was very much appreciated and enjoyed by all.
I will try not to make this newsletter too long and will write in greater detail at the end of the first full week next Friday. There are some 'start of year' messages to give, such as introducing new members of staff. Towards the end of last term, we were joined by Sarah Hammond, our new Finance and Operations Director. Sarah has a good deal of prior school experience and she has been a very valuable addition to the Senior Leadership Team. Also joining us in July was Emma Fitzgerald who is our HR and Payroll Assistant and Antonio Villegas who took up the role of Subject Leader for Computer Science. This term, Richard Pontin joins us as Director of Sport from Dr Challoner's Grammar School where he was Head of PE for a number of years. Mr Pontin is very much looking forward to further developing sport and PE provision at CGS. He spoke to all of Year 7 today and I know he is looking forward to seeing many of them at sports trials next week. Subha Janarthanan joins the Computer Science Department, while our LSA team is further strengthened by the arrival of Stephanie Beale. We have two new technicians, one in PE, Phillippa Cowley, and one in science, Sam Eadle. Two of our Year 13s from last year return as member of staff during their gap year. Ariana Marii Metuarii will be supporting the maths and science departments, working with small groups of students in KS3, while Akmal Irfan undertakes the role of Cover Assistant. Finally, we have three Astra trainees with us this year: Jordan McLeod in history, Elizabeth Cooper in science and Ben Davies in maths. We wish them all a happy and fulfilling time at CGS. We also extend our congratulations to Mr Compton who - finally - got married over the summer, having had to delay the happy occasion three times during the pandemic.
There are a couple of existing staff who take on new roles alongside their existing ones. Seb Hayes and Zoe Neagle, both subject leaders, in history and drama respectively, have been appointed as Associate Assistant Headteachers this year. I am looking forward to working alongside them on the SLT.
We have made some changes to our pastoral system so that each year group now has a Year Leader who will follow them through the school from Year 7-11, with a dedicated Sixth Form team working with Years 12 and 13. The Year Leader team for 7-11 this year is:
Year 7 Mr Pierce
Year 8 Mr Spittle
Year 9 Mrs Rasekh
Year 10 Mrs Maishman
Year 11 Mrs Rees
We believe that keeping the same Year Leader as a group moves through the school will ensure continuity of care and enable close relationships to be built between home and school from the time a child joins us. In the Sixth Form, Year 12 this year is led by Miss Houghton and Year 13 by Miss Penberthy. As you will be aware, we have continued with horizontal, year based tutor groups of students for now but plan to return to our vertical tutoring as soon as we can and I very much hope that this will be sooner rather than later.
In August, we issued A level and GCSE results to our Year 13 and Year 11 students. We were delighted for the students that their hard work and commitment during two very difficult years was so well rewarded. There was much in the media about issues such as grade inflation which frankly did the students a disservice. Both sets of students faced unprecedented difficulties and disruption during their A level or GCSE courses. I am very proud of them and of what they achieved despite all this. We celebrate their achievements and warmly congratulate them.
Next Friday, our school photographers will be in and those in Years 7, 10 and 12 will be photographed. Information about this will be shared with students and parents.
Any student who swims for a club and who would like to be a member of the school swimming team should see Mrs Maishman next week. Please encourage your child, if this applies to them.
Finally, thank you to those parents who arranged for their child to attend for their first Covid test this week, ahead of the return to school. Year 7 will have their second test at school on Monday morning with other students asked to undertake theirs at home and record the results as usual. The on site testing has once again been a huge undertaking and I would like to thank Mrs Hammond and Mrs Harvell who have overseen it as well as the staff and parents who have assisted and enabled the process to run so smoothly. We are asked to encourage students and staff to continue with twice weekly testing this month. The guidance tells us that this will be reviewed at the end of this month. Many of the measures which were in place last year have been removed and as you will be aware, school aged children who are close contacts of a positive case no longer need to isolate. At times last year, we had large numbers of students in isolation as a result of contact with someone who went on to test positive and this was hugely disruptive for them. Only positive cases themselves need to isolate as it currently stands. Please encourage your child to do a lateral flow test twice a week (we suggest Sunday and Wednesday) for now. I am really hoping that we are starting to get back to something approaching normality in terms of school life. We are resuming extra-curricular activities and are starting to plan for the reintroduction of many other things which are central to life at CGS which have not been able to happen since March 2020, such as trips and visits. We have our fingers crossed that these will be able to go ahead when the time comes.
With best wishes for a relaxing weekend,
Annmarie McNaney
Headteacher
