Head’s News 20 Sept 2019
Open Day
Plans for this year’s Open Day on 28th September are well underway and we are requesting as many pupils as possible are involved this year.
I would also ask parents to support the school by publicising details of this year’s Open Day via social media as follows:
Verulam School Open Day
Saturday 28th September 9.00am to 12.00pm
Headmasters speeches: 9.15am, 10.00am, 10.45am and 11.30am.
Please be aware that the school will close early on
Friday 27th September at 12.45pm to allow for staff to prepare the school for Open Day.
Communication protocols
Involving you in your son or daughter’s education is central to our vision and we devote considerable time communicating with parents via Verulam Voice, letters regarding specific issues, parents’ evenings and in responding to parental queries. This term, we initiated meetings with year groups to brief parents about the year ahead. We have already spoken to parents from Years 7, 8 and Lower Sixth and have the following
meetings scheduled:
- Year 10 English Literature information evening on Wednesday 25th September
- Year 9 Information Evening on Thursday 3 October
Mr Emsley, Assistant Headteacher for KS4 and 5 will also be issuing specific calendars for Years 11 and Year 13 shortly.
However, as is of course correct, the vast majority of a teacher, Head of Department or Head of Year’s time is spent in the classroom or preparing teaching and
learning. This means that they cannot respond to all parental queries as quickly as parents may wish.
The school’s communication protocols are that the Senior Leadership Team will respond to all queries within 24 hours – in fact we always try our best to respond the same day. Other teachers are requested to reply within 48 hours of any parental communication.
The school also observes an email curfew from 7.00pm to 6.00am Monday to Thursday and from 6.00pm on a Friday evening for the weekend to ensure staff wellbeing.
Headmaster’s commendations
This week’s commendation goes to Lewis Durkin in Year 8 who competed in the London region national gymnastics qualifier last weekend and made the team of four to represent London at the nationals in November.
An amazing achievement, well done.
P A Ramsey
