Headteacher Update

January 2024

A very Happy New Year to you all and I hope that you managed to enjoy the festive period with family and friends. It has been an incredibly busy start to 2024 with the launch of Futures Month where students in all year groups will experience opportunities to consider their future careers. We have hosted our first Careers Café where we were joined by a number of employers including NUFC Foundation, EE, the NHS and Northumberland Council; it was a tremendous success with over 60 Year 10 students dropping in for a chat. Other activities will include employer assemblies, careers speed dating and careers through the curriculum. Thanks to Mrs Winder for organising Futures Month once again.

This week we have also welcomed parents of Year 9 students into school for a presentation on options and effective exam preparation. The event was extremely well attended and served as an ideal opportunity to share with parents how they can support their child with revision for the impending exams as well as setting the scene of the options process. There will be much more to come on this, but please do look at the Year 9 Options section on our newly refreshed website where you will be able to find lots of information.

There have been a small number of uniform issues this week, please do remind yourself of the our Uniform Standards, in particular, please note that acrylic nails are not permitted for health and safety reasons (particularly in PE).  We have reminded students this week and have given them a week’s grace, but from next week if a student does arrive with acrylic nails we will ask for them to be removed by the following day. Failure to do so may lead to a sanction, thank you for your support with this. The final reminder around uniform is that we do have a stock of pre-loved uniform and can support with the purchase of new items in some circumstances. Please do let us know if you are struggling or indeed please do drop off any pre-loved uniform that your child may have grown out of so we can distribute to families.

Finally, we had some very sad news during the holidays about the death of our recent colleague, David Pearson. David taught English at John Spence for many years and was well respected and loved by staff and students. His sense of humour and his ability to encourage even the most unlikely of children to share his passion for literature are much missed and our thoughts are very much with his family and friends.

I hope that you all find time for some relaxation this weekend after the hectic Christmas and New Year rush.

Best wishes
Jonathan