Dear HP families,

It has been wonderful to have all our students back at HP and we are thoroughly looking forward to the new academic year. Year 7 have made a very impressive start and are settling in well. We are conscious of what a significant change the move to secondary education is for them and staff will be proactive in supporting them over the coming weeks.

I am also very pleased with the number of Year 12 students who have chosen to join us. This is testament to two successive years of very strong results, which I will come back to later in this bulletin.

Year 11 returned yesterday very focussed and are in an exciting position following such a strong Year 10. We genuinely believe that, collectively, they are capable of achieving our best ever GCSE results next summer. Most importantly, this will help ensure that they have the widest possible range of future destinations open to them.

Year 13 were very positive and smiley in their welcome back assembly today and I am confident they will follow in the footsteps of our previous two cohorts by being excellent role models and achieving the grades they need to secure their first choice destinations next year.

In our Year 10 welcome back assembly, we emphasised the importance of making the most of the year ahead. The most common reflection from our outgoing Year 11 students in their exit surveys was that they wished they had made the first year of their GCSEs really count. We want this Year 10 cohort to learn from that reflection and make every lesson and every opportunity count from the outset.

It has also been fantastic to see Year 8 and Year 9 looking so smart and ready to make positive starts to the new year.

Attendance will remain a major focus for us this year. Last year, we achieved our highest ever whole school attendance at 89.1%. While this is a year-on-year improvement, it is still not high enough. Our ambition is to increase whole school attendance to 92% this year and everyone has a part to play in achieving this. The evidence from both our own data and wider research is clear: regular attendance is closely linked to students feeling that they belong, as well as to their academic attainment and examination outcomes. To continue building our positive attendance culture, we are again using HP Hero Club as our main attendance rewards driver, but this year we are expanding it to Gold at 95%, Silver at 92% and Bronze at 90%, giving more students the opportunity to be recognised each term. We are also starting the year with September Streaks, where students who achieve 10, 15 and 20 consecutive days of attendance during September will become eligible for different prizes. Alongside this, we want to increase the amount of meaningful positive feedback families receive from us. We have introduced Golden Tickets, with one student in every lesson receiving a Golden Ticket for excellent work. This will be recorded on our systems so that families are notified at home. We are also introducing a system whereby your child’s tutor will telephone you twice during the year to share positive feedback about your child and the things they have been doing at HP. Please support your child’s attendance and reinforce the message that 95% really is the minimum expectation.

Our examination results this year were perhaps our strongest ever when the collective achievements of Year 11 and Year 13 are considered. Students achieved the highest proportion of top grades in our history, with 18% of GCSE grades at grades 7 to 9 and 18% of A Level grades at grades A or A*. Students performed strongly across the full range of grades. This demonstrates an important principle that we want every student at HP to understand: working hard pays off. We want every student to develop this attitude, whatever their starting point and whatever grade represents their personal best.

Positive communication is vital if we are to work effectively in partnership with families. Our Contact Details webpage sets out our Home School Communication Protocol and provides the contact information for the most appropriate member of staff to contact depending on your query. We encourage families to use this information so that questions and concerns can be directed to the right person and dealt with as efficiently as possible.

We are looking forward to a very successful year ahead and to working with all of you to ensure that every student makes the most of the opportunities available to them at HP.

I wish you all a lovely weekend,

Mr Hudson
Headteacher