Before I start today – shameless advertising for this year’s main school production of ‘Grimm Tales’ with shows on 6th, 7th and 8th November. Grimm Tales tickets are available here!

It’s the final day of the first half term of the year, which is a good time to say thank you and well done to everyone who attends our school, works within it or supports it from the outside. I’m always grateful for the fact that I work here at MHS, and feel especially privileged to play my part as the headteacher of such a fantastic school. The hard work of the students and staff always fills me with pride, and in particular the very strong relationships that can be seen between students and staff. We are very much ‘in this together’ and that makes me smile.

That mutual respect and togetherness came to the fore on Tuesday afternoon when, unexpectedly, an air ambulance landed literally yards away from the art classrooms in Bradshaw building. As it happens, the air ambulance wasn’t actually needed and it left before the end of the day. The noise though was tremendous, and you can excuse adults and children alike being somewhat distracted from their lessons as it landed and took off. However, walking round classes in Bradshaw building that afternoon, the maturity and focus on show from the students was phenomenal. I wandered into English, Maths and Geography lessons and saw students working away, expertly being guided by their teachers as if nothing was happening outside. The respect shown by the students for those involved in dealing with the incident was also lovely to see.

On that, and as parents and carers know from our messages, we will not be sharing any further details of the accident that occurred. I would though like to say a huge thank you to all those many parents who contacted us with messages of support – both for the calm and professional way the situation was handled, and for understanding why it would be wholly inappropriate to share further details. For those who remain concerned, please be reassured that everyone is safe, there are no ongoing issues and it is very much a case of ‘business as usual’. As a final word, social media and the internet has made rumour and gossip much more powerful than it used to be. All I would say is that what you may have heard is almost certainly not true.

Have a great week,

Joe Barker

I’m using my blog today to confirm the term dates for the end of December this year, and the start of term in 2025. After a consultation earlier this calendar year, we changed the holiday dates slightly compared to Stockport Local Authority. So that everyone knows what to expect, the details are as follows:

1) The last day that students will be in school this December will be Friday 20th December. Students will be leaving site after the end of period 3 that day, at 12.20pm

2) The first day back in 2025 will be Monday 6th January. This will be a full normal day in school, starting at 8.30am prompt.

We’ll remind everyone again nearer the time.

Have a great weekend,

Joe Barker

The Ancient Greeks had a thing for public speaking. They used to teach it in school, as in fact so did the Romans after them, and then so too did European schools and Universities. ‘Rhetoric’ was a standard subject in English schools until the early 1900s, as the leaders of those schools believed it was important to teach young people how to put their views across in an engaging and persuasive manner. I don’t know why, but rhetoric (or ‘Public Speaking’ as it is now called) fell off the curriculum in the 20th century, with the result that it is now often named as people’s biggest fear. Being asked to speak in public fills most people with dread.

At MHS, we believe that learning to communicate through speech, as well as through British Sign Language, is very important. Unlike schools of the past we have many many more subjects to fit into the timetable, and so sadly there isn’t the space for actual rhetoric lessons. But that hasn’t stopped us, and once a year now we take students through the ‘Journey of Communication’. This is a two hour programme each year, supported by short refreshers each term, that help students to communicate with more confidence and skill. Whether it’s pitching 30 second adverts for made up products to their class, resolving conflict through the careful choice of words or learning to sign using BSL, students in Years 7-10 spent some time on Wednesday this week honing their skills. Not only that, but Year 10 will soon have the chance to practice their interview skills with real life business people and then get feedback on how well they did.

We don’t assume that all teachers are perfect either, and last year we did some fascinating work with a voice coach to help make our lessons as clear and interesting as possible. I do quite a bit of public speaking myself whether in lessons, assembly or speaking to staff and parents, and I can say that I found my time with the voice coach some of the best CPD I have ever had.

In a world where teenagers can pretty much share all their wants and needs via their mobile phones, never has it been more important for us to promote the art of communication.

Have a great weekend,

Joe Barker

Students at Marple Hall School have a great record when it comes to exams and qualifications. We’re a successful school, we know what works and how to support our young people to do their very best. It’s not just about lessons and homework, but also about showing students different ways to revise, organise their knowledge and practice their skills. At the moment our Year 11 cohort have been looking at these skills again in their form times, and on Wednesday this week we had our first Pomodoro session of the year. Pomodoro is a technique whereby a student focuses on a particular piece of work or revision for blocks of 25 minutes at a time, with short breaks in between. We’ve been running collective Pomodoro sessions in school in the lead up to Trial exams for many years now, and it’s a great way to show students what effective revision looks like. I think when we first ran the after school sessions we perhaps had 40 or 50 students turning up…but this week we topped 160 on week one, which is a fantastic indicator of how much students in the class of 2024 want to succeed.

But…and this is the key point. Attending Pomodoro for two hours on a Wednesday night is just the start. Anyone in year 11 who thinks that they can tick the revision box by doing this one thing will be disappointed in the summer on results day. Pomodoro is there to show the way, but it is not the destination. Successful Year 11 students will be doing their own work regularly each week – whether creating revision notes, testing their own knowledge or (best of all) completing past papers and practice questions. Anyone can do these things, it just takes a bit of planning and determination. When it comes to successful GCSE results we know one thing for certain: Effort pay off.

Have a great weekend,

Joe Barker

I’m writing this later than usual on a Thursday night, having just come home from this year’s Open Evening. I’m still buzzing from the event and so as I won’t sleep for a while I thought I’d write this week’s blog now. I really enjoy Open Evening. It’s the one occasion in the year that we get to show off our school to the outside world, and it never fails to amaze me how positive the evening always is. Firstly, we were very busy tonight – and that is always a good sign. We know that Marple Hall is a heavily over-subscribed school but we never take that for granted, and I am always humbled by how many people want to come and see the school for themselves. It’s a real honour to be able to speak to so many visitors over the three formal talks, and especially so to be able to share the floor with Rachel and Freddie, our fantastic Head Girl and Head Boy. I hope that between us we were able to get across a little bit about what makes MHS special.

Secondly, I love walking around the school and seeing the staff taking an obvious pride in their work. We are blessed with a great team of experts here, whether that be expert teachers or expert members of support staff, and seeing everyone pull together to showcase our school is wonderful.

Thirdly, it is great to be able to chat to parents and carers of prospective future students. There is always a mix of people from those for whom this is their first time looking into secondary schools, where the information can be a little overwhelming, to many familiar faces who have been through the process once, twice or many times before. And then of course there are plenty who came to MHS as children themselves, talking about what subjects used to be where and who used to sneak off round the back for a cigarette…! Whatever the circumstances I really enjoy chatting to parents and carers, answering questions and hopefully reassuring them that MHS is a great place for students to thrive.

Finally, and most importantly, I love seeing current students volunteering to help out at Open Evening. We are never short of offers and tonight was no exception. Students of all ages were in school in great number – too many to count – and their pride in the school was clear to see. It is an absolute pleasure to work with such fantastic young people and I have never been prouder to be the Headteacher at MHS.

One more day to go then a well deserved weekend awaits.

Best wishes

Joe Barker

The start to the new school year continues to go well here at MHS. I’ve enjoyed walking around school, visiting lessons and speaking to students and staff. It’s been great to see how positive and enthusiastic everyone is, a real testament to the ethos of our school.

One of the things that I’m always keen to see at the start of the term is how well students are attending school, especially early on. There’s been some really interesting research recently that suggests that if students take time off in the first few days September, then they are MUCH more likely to have low attendance by the end of the year compared to everyone else. I don’t understand the reasons why, but the trend is pretty strong. Of course it won’t always apply if the reason for the absence is something like a one-off planned medical appointment. However if students don’t come in when they probably could have done, then that could indicate a problem for the longer term.

Bearing this in mind, I was both pleased and concerned to see that our attendance for the first week was around 96.5%. When you compare that to the overall national attendance rate for secondary schools for last year of 90.8% it looks great, but it still means that quite a few students have missed sessions. Some of these will be for genuine reasons, but quite a few won’t be…and I’d be neglecting my duty if I didn’t point it out.

In my assemblies this week and last, I have been speaking to students in years 9, 10 and 11 on the direct impact of attendance on a student’s academic progress. The connection is clear. If you take two students with the same ability, attitude, support etc but one attends school more than the other, then the student who attends more will do better. I guess the reason is probably that no matter how hard they try (assuming they do!), catching up on missed lessons is really hard.

I know there are lots of pressures on families and for some, getting their child to attend school can be a real struggle. We understand this and we have people who can help, so please be in touch if you are worried. Being a teenager is a challenging time, almost as hard as parenting a teenager, but if we can keep promoting good attendance for all our young people then everyone wins.

Have a great weekend, warmer weather is coming!

Joe Barker

Welcome back to the MHS community for the start of a new school year. It’s always great to see the school come alive again after the summer break, with students and staff alike powered by a fresh enthusiasm for the year ahead. I thoroughly enjoy being able to speak to students for the first assembly of the year, even if this year I could only see Years 7 and Years 11 face to face. Being able to talk to so many young people is a privilege that I do not take for granted.

Unsurprisingly my ‘start of term’ messages often centre around students making the most of their opportunities. Showing the Marple Hall Spirit, turning up to school, being on time to lessons, being organised, working hard, looking after one another. However, the best bit is then seeing the students go out around school and doing exactly that, and I have to say that this year has been exceptional. We have had very high levels of attendance this week, a fantastic attitude on show from the overwhelming majority of students, a great work ethic in classes and so many examples of older students looking after the new year sevens, I couldn’t even being to cover them. Seeing staff and students working so well together, it makes me very proud to be the Headteacher of MHS!

Thank you to all the parents and carers out there making sure students are well prepared and well supported for the school day, it is very much appreciated. I hope that the first week has been positive for everyone in school, and that you all enjoy a well deserved weekend.

Take care,

Joe Barker

I know that the term hasn’t ended yet, far from it. There is Spark Evening tonight followed by Spark day tomorrow, both celebrations of the creative spirit that lives at MHS. After that, we have the small matter of 300 students on work experience, about 450 away on trips and another 450 taking part in a range of activities during enrichment week…all before we come back together as a school for the final morning on Friday 19th July. There is definitely lots still to do!

However, as this is my last blog of the year I will run through a few highlights of the year for me:

This year, MHS student have bucked the national trend are attending school significantly more regularly than is the average. This is massive. School attendance, coupled with reading, is the biggest indicator of how successful a student will be. Attendance at MHS is high and improving, and that is a very good sign indeed.

Linked to that, our work on promoting reading is really starting to bear fruit. Reading is the most essential of all skills when it comes to learning, and reading fiction in particular enables students to boost their learning power. We’re two years in to our determined effort to increase the amount that students read, and that is without doubt having a positive impact on many.

Our current Year 11 students, those who finished their exams last month, are on track to be the most successful cohort of students ever at MHS. Their attitude, determination and resilience shone through in the exam window and I have everything crossed for them that they get the grades in the summer that they absolutely deserve.

We have greatly enhanced our extra curricular offer, from sports to creative arts to clubs…and especially this year the advent of new online ‘digital discoveries’. Hundreds of students have taken part in them, enriching their experience of school,

Our school has a yearly admission limit of 300 and remains heavily over subscribed with 731 first, second and third choice preferences for the incoming class of Year 7 students in 2024. This did not always used to the be case, and is perhaps the one of the strongest signs that we’re getting plenty of things right.

We’re blessed with a fantastically hard working, dedicated and professional staff body, and this year like all others I remain grateful and astonished at the way that colleagues go above and beyond on a regular basis. Sometimes working in a school is a thankless task, and I know how lucky we are to have such a talented and selfless staff team working here. We have also made some excellent appointments for the new school year and I look forward to working with all our new colleagues.

And let’s not forget, in September Ofsted came to visit MHS for the first inspection in five years. The team were thorough, rigorous and exacting – inspections are never easy – and they concluded that we deserved the very best outcome that our school could achieve with the type of inspection we had: ‘the inspection grade might be outstanding if a graded (section 5) inspection were carried out now’

And finally, we do all of that on the bare minimum of funding. MHS is one of the worst funded secondary schools in the country, attracting the minimum level of funding per student of around £6,050 compared to a ‘Department for Education’ average for the country of around £7,500. That’s a lot of money when multiplied by 1556 students….somewhere in the region of £2.25 Million per year. I’m very proud of what we do with our poor funding, but I’d rather be able to invest the same in our young people as other school leaders can do, and I will be renewing my campaign for fairer funding in the new year. As we have a new MP in the area, perhaps parents and carers might want to do the same?

Have a great summer when it comes,

Joe Barker

As we approach the final two weeks of the year, and as this is the penultimate blog of 2023-2024, I wanted to return to the well worn path of reading.

There are two things that determine success at school above all others. 1) Good attendance, and 2) Reading for pleasure. In other words, turn up and read. I don’t want to oversimplify the mystery and magic of learning, but the research is clear that these two elements have the biggest impact on a student’s progress in school.

That’s why this summer we are setting all our students a summer reading challenge. Mrs Lawton, one of our reading experts, has specially selected twelve short stories suitable for children of different ages. Six for students who will be in Years 8 and 9 in September, and six for those who will be in Years 10 and 11. The challenge is to read them all – the main prize of course being the joy of reading and the benefit to a child’s education…but there are also some more tangible prizes on offer too. We’re including our new Year 7 students in the challenge too, as everyone who attended the transition day yesterday received their own reading challenge booklet on the theme of ‘Villains’.

Mrs Lawton will share all the information about the challenge, including how to access these texts for free, via email to parents/carers. She has also arranged for a video message to go to every form group, and a set of the following cards to be handed out too.

The summer is long…but if you want to encourage your young person to do one thing to keep their brain ticking over then perhaps encourage them to complete this challenge.

Best wishes

Joe Barker

Firstly, huge thanks to everyone who took the opportunity last week to ‘thank a teacher’ (or any member of staff) by visiting this website: www.thankateacher.co.uk I know that colleagues really appreciate these small tokens of thanks and it’s not too late…hint hint!

This week we are saying goodbye to the wonderful class of 2024 as they move on from MHS. On Tuesday we had a brilliant final morning, with the year group and their staff coming together in Bradshaw Hall for a celebration of their time at the school. It was lovely to see so many students their, proudly showing off their beautifully decorated school shirts before then taking part in the legendary MHS foam fight. Everyone was in great spirits and I thoroughly enjoyed the heart warming events.

Later this evening the staff and I will have the privilege of gate crashing the class of 2024 Prom at the Concorde lounge at Manchester airport. It’s always a fantastic event and it’s a real pleasure to be able to say goodbye to the year group in style. All that will be left then will be the small matter of the exam results in August, but I am sure that this particular cohort will do just fine. They have brought a lot to our school over the years from a covid affected Year 7 through to a mature and hard working Year 11. I will not be the only member of staff by a long way who will miss them all.

But…school goes on…which brings me to moving up!

This week Mr Sharp and Miss Davies have been speaking to the remaining year groups in assembly to explain that as of Monday next week, they will have ‘moved up’ to the next school year. Year 7 will be Year 8, Year 8 will be Year 9 and so on. It’s a symbolic moment as everyone gets their heads around starting afresh in September, hopefully resetting their plans and expectations and renewing a determination to do the best that they can. The moving up process can take a little getting used to, especially for the new Year 10s who have to adapt to the later KS4 breaks and lunches, but it’s an important part of the MHS journey.

Finally, a reminder that Friday 28th June is a staff training day. Staff will be in school but students have the day off.

I hope that everyone has a great weekend,

Joe Barker