Milestones are a feature of life, whatever your age. Significant birthdays, first jobs, retirement etc. For young people they come thick and fast. Walking and talking, first day at school, first day at big school, Year 11 prom and the like. Year 11 itself is one big long list of milestones as the ‘business end’ of the secondary school experience approaches. Yesterday, Thursday, was one such milestone.

Our Year 11 cohort gathered earlier than usual outside Isherwood Hall. With their form tutors, they filed into the venue and collected an individual envelope containing the trial exam grades earned in the recent set of formal practice exams. We deliberately set it up to replicate what the real thing looks and feels like in August. This year the weather even felt summery too. Students opened the envelopes surrounded by their peers and staff, and then heard from Miss Hall and Miss Davies about how to make the most of the short time that is left before the exams start in earnest. The hall was full, and the attention that students paid to the speakers was total.

Perhaps most importantly, Miss Hall suggested that students may be feeling one of three things.

1. I’ve done better than expected.
2. I’ve done worse than expected.
3. I’ve done ok, and that’s fine for me.

Obviously number 1 is great and we hope that these students take a boost from the experience and really push on to reach their potential. Number 2 is more of a worry, but if the student can recognise that maybe then didn’t work hard enough, or smart enough, then there is plenty of time to put right what went wrong. Number 3 is maybe the most worrying of the lot, as it suggests that students are settling for ‘ok’ when they should be striving to be their best. Our country’s exam system pits students against each other, as they have to compete for limited numbers of each grade. For that reason, settling for average is very risky indeed – it might just be that someone somewhere else works that bit harder, pushing students around them down a grade in the process.

All the staff at MHS are fully committed to helping our entire Year 11 cohort, and those Year 9s doing exams too, and we know that together our students can achieve great things.

Best wishes,

Joe Barker

I’ve always been very clear that there is more to life than school, and definitely more to life than exam results. This has been a feature of my speeches at Open Evenings for the past 12 years – that exam results are important and that with hard work MHS students will achieve very well – but that there is more to life and to education than just these qualifications. Developing as a person, learning how to co-operate and support other people, having empathy and understanding for others, knowing what is right and wrong…all these things are part of growing up and school has a part to play in it all. That’s why we spend a lot of time encouraging students to take part in extra curricular activities, as well as focussing on good conduct and respect for others around school. It’s the whole package that we are interested in.

But, school is just one small part of growing up and we know that many of our students are doing incredible things in their free time. We have students caring for family members, students taking part in almost every sport you can possibly imagine, incredibly talented artists, musicians and performers. We have students who write stories, create social media content and have started their own businesses. We have students leading in the Scouts and cadets, and students who volunteer in the community and in for charities. We have students coping with illness and injury, going about their school lives with an admirable determination. All these young people, and many more like them, are an absolute credit to their families, the school and the local community, and these are just the ones that we know about!

If your son, daughter or ward is doing something that you are proud of, and that we don’t yet know about, then please get in touch. Email their form tutor or head of year and share the news, and we’ll do our very best to praise them in school and show our appreciation. Teenagers get a bad press based on the actions of a tiny few. Let’s redress that balance and celebrate what is good about the young people of MHS!

Have a great weekend,

Joe Barker

The spring dance show has now become a staple of the extra curricular year at MHS, under the leadership of Miss Griffies from the PE department. As I write this the second of two performances is under way, with students showing off their talents and great energy in Bradshaw Hall. It’s always a fantastic evening, well supported by families and friends, and I hope to see the event grow even more in future years.

Also this week has been World Book Day, although we prefer to call it World Book Week. Regular readers of this blog will know that I often discuss the topic of reading, and how reading fiction books is one of the very best things a student can do to succeed in school. Turn up and read, turn up and read…you know the message.

Therefore it would be odd if we didn’t get involved in World Book Day, one of the most well known celebrations of all things literature. The only issue is we don’t actually like what WBD has become in some schools. I get that dressing up in fancy dress to represent famous characters from books can be fun, and I imagine it’s great for primary school kids (less so their parents!), but I think that at secondary school we can go a little deeper and focus on the reading over the fancy dress.

So, instead, we have World Book Week at MHS. We have competitions for students and staff running across the week that inspire everyone to engage with books and with reading, a fantastic assembly from our literacy lead Katie Shakeshaft on the gift of reading, and most importantly we have reading embedded across every subject in every year group. At the start of one lesson in every subject this week, the teacher will have showcased a fiction book relevant to that subject. Historical fiction for me of course, tales of sporting endeavour in PE etc. The class will have explored the front cover of the book, looked at a summary of the plot and read together the first few pages. The idea is to give students 10 or so great reading recommendations that they can go off and read for themselves. If you have children at the school then maybe ask if they are interested in reading one of the stories shown to them? In any case, hopefully our approach is less traumatic than seeing their headteacher dressed as a low-budget Harry Potter!

Have a great weekend,

Joe Barker

Over the past few weeks our Year 7-10 school community have been taking part in a big charity event, raising money for The Wellspring. This is a local charity supporting people who are homeless or at risk of losing their home, and we’re very proud to be helping them do their brilliant work. More details are available at The Wellspring | Charity for Homeless

The challenge involves each year group cycling a quarter of the way from Marple to Madrid in one day, on exercise bikes, over four days. The daily target of 300 miles would see us reach the 1200 mile target by the end of today, Friday. As I’m writing this on Friday morning years 7, 8 and 9 have already exceeded expectations and the current total cycled stands at 1048. Year 10 therefore just need to finish the job today, although I’m sure they won’t be taking it easy and will smash well past the final goal.

However, in order for a form to be able to put forward their cyclists, they had to raise at least £50 for the charity pot. This led to all sorts of fund raising ideas with cake sales galore, raffles, sponsored silences and much more. The highest individual fundraising effort was from a Year 7 student George who raised £120 on his own selling his cakes outside of school, and the most prolific form was Miss Swift’s form, who together raised a staggering £357 (and still counting)!

In total the school community has at the moment raised £2652 with more donations still coming in. Not only that, but the cycling challenge has gone brilliantly with lots of positivity and teamwork on show. Obviously though the 500 meters I chipped in at the start on Tuesday made all the difference….

It’s been great watching the creativity and drive on show from the school community, and I’d like to thank Mrs Wilson and the student leaders for making this happen. Well done to everyone involved.

Have a great weekend,

Joe Barker

It’s the day before the February half term break, meaning that we have successfully made the sometimes challenging leap from Christmas to very early spring. We managed to stay open during some wintery weather in January, and many students and their families have overcome several bus related problems. Fingers crossed we can put both weather and transport issues behind us for a while now.

Over the past three weeks our year 11 cohort, plus those students doing exams in Year 9, have all completed a set of trial exams. These are as close to the ‘real thing’ as our students will get before the summer, and aside from the outside temperatures the experience is very similar. At the moment teachers are working hard marking the exams, and then will come the very important feedback which will hopefully help make a difference for the next time around. I know from speaking to colleagues that our class of 2025 have given the trial exams a really good go, which is great to see. Well done to them, and huge thanks to the staff who will no doubt be giving up much of the week to come marking the exam papers.

The temptation I suppose could then be for exam students to have a bit of a break over half term. After all, that would be a natural response to a full-on three weeks. However, I’d argue that to do so would be a mistake. To reach their potential, any student needs to put in some additional effort at home. Just working in school and completing basic homework will get them so far, but independent revision is essential for anyone who wants to achieve the best possible grade. After all, the UK grading system means that only a certain number of students can achieve any given grade per subject. We’ve shared loads of advice with students about what and how to revise, and how to strike a positive and productive balance between working hard and relaxing. Therefore I hope that all our exam candidates can seize the opportunity that half term brings, and come back both refreshed AND having done some great revision.

Wishing everyone a good week,

Joe Barker

I don’t really care about Ofsted. There you go, I’ve said it. Actually I’ve said it a lot, and at least 36 times times in public, starting with once during each of the three speeches I have given on the twelve Open Evenings I have hosted as Headteacher of Marple Hall School.

I mean it too.

Ofsted is an important part of the educational landscape, it does an important job and I think that schools in general would be worse without it. My now very elderly dad was a teacher in the days before Ofsted and he used to tell me stories of the poor stuff that happened all the time. It sounds fun, but not good. Therefore I’m glad we have accountability as school leaders and I welcome it. But…I don’t worry about it. I don’t let it drive what I do, I try very hard to make sure I don’t compromise what we believe in just because of Ofsted, and I try even harder to make sure that any pressure of inspections doesn’t filter down to our colleagues. I consider that to be an important part of my job and one that means that we can all get on with what matters, which is providing a good quality education for the young people of this area.

I guess because of this I didn’t really mind the soon to be ‘old’ version of Ofsted that is due to change in the Autumn. But, change is coming and that’s fine too. There’s a consultation on the plans out now, and so this blog is just to advertise the fact that colleagues, parents and carers are also being asked to contribute. If you fancy having your say then the link is here.

Have a good weekend,

Joe Barker

ps TfGM are listening, the buses are better but not yet quite good enough. Thank you to everyone who has helped us to make the necessary points to those in charge.

After three weeks of mentioning buses (which are marginally better, by the way) I thought I’d dive straight into a much more controversial topic. Screen Time.

The issue of whether too much screen time on phones and tablets is bad for children has been debated for well over a decade. It’s a logical evolution of the discussions with previous generations over TV and video games. More recently, this issue was back in the news with some emerging research that too much time flicking through social media and video clips does indeed hinder a child’s ability to concentrate. However, it’s not hard to find arguments for both sides of the divide.

What is interesting is to look at how the people in charge of big tech firms handle screen time in their own families. Famously the inventors of the ipad Steve Jobs and Jonny Ives both said that they don’t let their own children use them, despite designing them to be easy enough for a toddler to operate. That always raises an eyebrow for me, but of course there’s always more to a story. If you’re interested in what a range of tech leaders do or did do with screen time with their children then I’ve posted a link to what I hope is a fairly balanced article below.

Screen time v play time: what tech leaders won’t let their own kids do | Technology | The Guardian

Have a great weekend,

Joe Barker

It’s the Friday morning after year 9 Options and parents evening last night. Options and parents’ evening is one of the busiest of the year, as our Year 9 cohort and their parents/carers get to come and speak to staff about the options subjects on offer for next year. It’s one of the milestone events in a child’s secondary school career, and a moment when they can really start to picture the second half of secondary education. Not only that, but we combine the event with a formal sit down parents’ evening for the core subjects of English and Maths alongside Science and MFL. Needless to say, it’s always busy and last night was no exception! It was great to see so many people taking such an interest in the future of our class of 2027, not least the students themselves, and I loved taking part in some of the conversations. Huge thanks to everyone and of course to our staff, taking part in the second evening event in an many weeks.

Just to confirm that the online options form is open now and closes on 6th February. The process is NOT first come first served.

For the past two blogs I have mentioned the ongoing issues with the Bee Network’s bus service. It continues to be very poor, with buses late every morning and afternoon. I’m not sure if this makes it better or worse, but at a meeting with Secondary Headteachers yesterday from across the Borough it was clear that we are not alone. The issues are common to most schools, and as a result we will be making representations to TfGM collectively as a group. In the meantime please continue to log your concerns with the Bee Network here hello@beenetwork.com and by all means copy us in so that we’re aware.

Have a great weekend,

Joe Barker

Being a headteacher can be a strange existence at time. We have this amazing, huge, complicated job with many moving parts, and we spend a lot of time and effort trying to clarify complex situations and steer our schools on a steady and sensible path. But on other days we get obsessed by small things. Often with me it’s toilets, a subject I never dreamed I would spend so much of my working life thinking about. Sometimes it’s the weather that takes over, but this term it’s the buses. I mentioned this briefly last week, but if your child catches a school bus there is a chance that something has gone wrong at least once since we came back in January. The Bee Network took over the school bus services this term and it’s an understatement to say that they are having some teething issues. I am sure they are working hard to fix them, but the service so far has not been good enough. We have had:

1. Many late buses, often over 30 minutes late both in the morning and the afternoon. In particular the 844 in the morning has been very badly impacted, as have the 806 and 808 in the afternoon.
2. Buses not turning up at all, despite appearing to be on their way on the apps and then vanishing without trace. Or, as happened this week, school being informed that an afternoon bus was not going to arrive at all and then turning up 10 minutes after the poor kids had all left to walk home.
3. Buses getting lost on the way to and from school, and relying on our students to direct them. Some have stayed on the bus well past their stops on the way home to help the drivers work out where to go.

I don’t underestimate how complicated it must be to run a bus network and I am sure that colleagues at the network are working flat out. But, the service at the moment is not good enough. As a school we have raised numerous complaints, and you can see a copy of the response here. I’m glad that they acknowledge the issue, but I’m not sure there’s a recognition about how much this is disrupting children’s education. If you’d like, then parents and carers are welcome to also complain via this email address: hello@beenetwork.com

As you know I’m proud of our school and all the staff and students in it, and the hard work and effort that so many put into doing their best every day. School isn’t always easy and we’re good at overcoming challenges where we need to, but being able to get here and then home again shouldn’t be one of them.

Have a great weekend when it comes,

Joe Barker

Ok, not so warm!

Before I start, this is a fairly long blog mainly about the weather. However, if you have been bothered this week by poor bus services then do please skip to the end!

Headteachers famously don’t like snow, or ice for that matter. Even the threat of a solitary flake is enough to get people excited about the fabled ‘snow day’, and there are a lot of factors to consider when deciding whether to open or not. Health and safety comes first, but it is closely followed by the moral duty to keep educating young people. I’ve been a headteacher long enough now to have pretty much seen it all, but this week has been unique for the variety of challenges we have faced. Monday was the day of the doomsday forecast but actually not that much snow on the ground. Tuesday saw more snowfall, but also lots of rain that threatened to flood parts of the site. Wednesday was the hardest day of the lot, with Tuesday’s water freezing across the site, and yesterday (although colder) wasn’t as bad given that the ground was largely dry. Today looks to be more of the same. Every day was different, but every day also showed the very best of Marple Hall School.

Firstly, huge thanks go to Mr Hutchinson, Mr Day, Mr Gilmore, Mr Christie and Mr Archer of the site team. They have worked absolute wonders this week, clearing snow on Monday and then gritting the whole site over and over again on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. With 5.15am starts some days, the team have made our site safe to attend and they have worked tirelessly to keep our school open. Nothing happens in school if we don’t open, and so education starts with the site team. We are all very grateful!

Secondly, every member of staff has tackled the week with enthusiasm and determination. Break duty at -6 degrees isn’t the best gig, but the challenge has been met with a can-do spirit and a smile. Not only that, but they have been covering for colleagues stuck in traffic across Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Derbyshire, and generally giving the students a brilliant deal this week.

And finally, the students and their families themselves. It would be very easy for some students to not fancy coming to school when it is cold and dark, and when some other schools have closed, but we have hit over 91% attendance on some days this week. This is above the national average on a normal sunny dry day! As well as proving that our students and families really do value school, that’s the Marple Hall Spirit in action and I couldn’t be prouder.

Now, usually, I’d stop there. But I cannot leave today’s blog without a mention of school buses. This week of all weeks, with sub zero temperatures, the bus services has been incredibly unreliable. Our buses used to be provided by a number of companies, but as of the start of 2025 they are all being managed by the new Bee Network. This may well end up being a better service (no political opinion here!!), but I am fully aware of how poor it has been this week. No-shows, massive lateness, drivers getting lost (and students directing the buses themselves) – it’s not been good enough. I feel for the poor students waiting in the cold each morning for late buses or buses that never showed up. Rest assured we have been making our voice heard at the Bee Network, but if you have a concern to raise then do please email them directly. The email address is hello@beenetwork.com, and please make sure you clearly reference Marple Hall School.

Have a warm weekend, and thanks for the many messages of support this week!

Joe Barker