Newsletter

Hello, and welcome to the February edition of our school newsletter. Even since my letter of 20th December, so much has happened that I don’t really know what to tell you about first!

Let’s start with a recent letter from the DfES, informing us that we have been awarded status as the lead school in the new School Sports Coordinator Partnership for the south of Salford. This is a very prestigious award, giving us the responsibility for coordinating sports provision across nine secondary schools and all of their feeder primary schools, in order to encourage more young people to take part in regular sport or exercise. Our partnership is one of the largest in the country and we are very proud to be chosen to lead it. I’ll keep you up to date as we develop what promises to be a really exciting range of activities.

On the subject of healthy lifestyles, we have recently made big changes to our lunchtime menu here at Wentworth. Gone are the endless plates of chips, and, in their place is a wide range of more nutritious alternatives. These include pasta, salads, jacket potatoes, fish and casseroles, as well as vegetarian options and sandwiches. We’ve also done away with the chocolate in the ‘grab bags’ and replaced it with fruit and muesli bars. I have to say, I was a bit apprehensive at first, wondering how our pupils would take to the change, but things have gone really well. All the evidence shows that quality of diet affects pupils’ growth, behaviour and overall development, so I hope you can support us in talking with your children about making healthy choices at other times of the day.

There has also been quite a buzz around the school recently due to our competition to design a new school badge for the blazers which we are introducing for all pupils from September 2006. My thanks must go to Mr Gordon, Miss Stockdale and Mr Simm for leading this work in their Art lessons and I look forward to meeting with some of the school governors very soon to judge the winners. The best design in each year group will be rewarded with a mobile phone, and the overall winner will receive £100 worth of Trafford Centre vouchers, not to mention the honour of knowing that for many years to come, their design will be worn on the blazer.

We have also been working hard in recent weeks to finalise the design of our new school website and I hope to be able to inform you of the official launch date very soon. Recent surveys, carried out at parents’ evenings, show that a very large percentage of your homes now have internet access and we wish to give you this option of finding out about all that is going on, not just at Wentworth, but at all of our local primary schools. As they say, watch this space.

Our main focus, however, remains on pupil achievement and, with the examinations for year 9 and year 11 getting ever closer, we are now commencing our additional support for those taking KS3 SAT’s and GCSE’s this summer. Many of you will soon receive detailed information about what this will involve for your children, as we schedule booster classes, revision timetables and mentoring in the coming weeks. For year 11, the 100 Club is up and running and we are currently making sure that pupils’ coursework is completed to the best of their ability, prior to switching our focus to examination preparation. Please be aware, if you have a child in year 11, that there will be a revision programme running right through the examination period, in place of what used to be study leave, and we will expect pupils to attend the sessions which we run for their particular subjects.

Time has really flown since last September, and I am extremely proud that we have been able to do so much in such a short time. At a recent meeting with several senior members of the Local Authority I was told that, in their view, we are ‘progressing very well’. I am very fortunate to have such a dedicated, hard-working team of teachers and support staff, who genuinely believe in what we are trying to achieve on your behalf, and we will all continue to do whatever it takes to drive this wonderful school forward.

Thanks as ever for your continued support.

Yours faithfully

J C Keeble
Headteacher