Prinicipal's Blog:

' 'Tis the Season'

This week is Maths Week when a fascinating range of numerologically based activities are taking place across the school, including a ‘Maths in Fashion´ Day and a tower building exercise. Today we´re all wearing numbers round our necks so that students can undertake some competitive calculations — there´ll be no escaping the influence of maths all around us, as students attempt to subtract Mr. Logue from Ms. Taylor or find the square root of Dr. Demont. Many thanks to our dedicated maths teachers who have worked hard to set this up on top of all their regular duties.

Another recent and important activity was the setting of our exam targets for 2013 —
i.e. the current Year 10. We are looking to sustain our improvement trajectory with an ambitious target of 62% 5 A*-C passes including English and maths. Not easy, but this is an excellent cohort of young people whose attitude and dedication to their studies is by and large very good. Parental support of this year group is also particularly strong and this makes a significant difference to young people´s performance. Students and their teachers have embraced the new Steps Curriculum and responded well to the bronze/ silver/ gold challenge when completing tasks. It is good to see lots of students in the upper college now using the Learning Portal.

On a related note I am pleased to announce formally the appointment of our new Associate Principal Mair Hughes, currently Deputy Headteacher at Brentford School for Girls, who has extensive experience of working in an 11-18 school and of sixth form curriculum development. Ms. Hughes will be leading on the introduction of the Sixth Form when she joins us in January.
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It´s been a good two weeks for our partnership with Hampton School. Mr. Collins and I were invited to the Senior Prize-giving on 17th November where two alumni of HCC were named amongst the top achievers at A-level. Then last week several of our most avid readers joined other local pupils in the 450 Hall at Hampton School for a reading and presentation by the charismatic author Robert Muchamore. Students I have spoken to following this event had greatly enjoyed the occasion — and feature prominently in the photo in this week´s ‘Richmond & Twickenham Times!´

And as we count down to the festive season it is good to report that this year´s Children in Need Day raised a record £1195. Well done Ms. Martin and all those students who helped by collecting money, baking cakes and running sponsored activities. After a couple of disappointing acts of poor behaviour by a handful of students last week, my faith as always has been quickly restored by the overwhelmingly decent majority who work hard, play fair, represent their school  brilliantly and are always ready to think of those less fortunate than themselves. I dedicate this week´s blog to all of you.

Sue Demont

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