Headteacher's Blog #23

This will be my last blog of the term and I'd like to thank the whole LSA community for your ongoing support, it has made a difficult job much more straightforward and has allowed all of us to focus on what is really important, improving the life chances of young people. I firmly believe that clarity is kindness, we have much to do to further improve the school and I will continue to be clear with you all as to how we will do this. LSA has undergone significant change since the pandemic lockdowns six years ago, the recovery period following the closures then the migration to a new school building inevitably put pressure on the school; these events were then followed by changes in leadership and academisation. There has been a lot of change. Change is often positive but in schools can bring problems, as systems bed down and new routines begin. It needs to be managed carefully and communicated at each phase.

 

We are at the end of the first phase of change. In my letter to you all in September I stated that my top priority was to stop internal truancy and begin to improve attendance. These issues were draining the human resources of the school and were compromising student safety. Young people need to be in school, in class and learning. We have a long way to go on attendance, but green shoots of recovery are clear to see. Next, we have tightened up on uniform guidance, normalising our uniform and making it more cost effective. This has meant making tough, long overdue decisions. We will soon be publishing guidance on communication, making it easier for parents and carers to contact the school and get to the right person in a prompt manner, I am aware that communication has not been good enough and this has affected the relationship with our community and wasted hours of staff time dealing with complaints that could have been resolved earlier. We will do better.   

 

Over the last half term, I have been visiting lessons across the school and seeing our young people learn. I know only too well the problems schools face in recruiting and retaining good quality teachers, LSA I am delighted to say is full of them. Our staff are great and our young people keen to learn. In the next phase of change we will be working on embedding great classroom routines and developing consistencies and approaches to teaching that help all young people achieve. This will take time, but the foundations are strong. Ultimately it is what happens in classrooms that does most to shape futures and improve lives. LSA is a great school with enormous capacity to improve further, the sky really is the limit. Thank you for your support so far, this is only the beginning but you have my assurance that we will be on this journey together, ensuring that we are all proud to be LSA.

 

Have a restful Easter break