Our Community - Our Future

Keep attending until 23rd December!

There’s a lot that I don’t know about education, but amongst some of the things I do know is this. The more a student attends school, the better they do. Fact.

This fact has been known for a long time. As the data around schools and performance gets more and more sophisticated, the evidence for the impact of attendance vs absence grows clearer and clearer. As I explained to Year 11 in September, the single most important thing that they can do to maximise their progress is to turn up every day. When a student is not here but the rest of the class is present, then the absent student cannot help but fall behind. Many can catch up to a degree, especially as teachers now often share work with those who are off, but the impact of regularly missing lessons soon builds up.

Nationally school attendance has never recovered after Covid back to where it was in 2019. At MHS we’re tracking comfortably ahead of the national data, but even so we’re keen to ensure that all students attend as much as they can. A day here or there DOES matter, it does add up and it definitely has an impact.

Our Christmas holiday starts much later than most schools and so we still have a week to go. Last week, we were 4 full percentage points above the national average (which in attendance terms is a huge amount) and I want that trend to continue right to the end of term. Just to make it clear, next week your children can expect proper lessons, real work and no ‘fluff’ activities such as watching Christmas films. We don’t do that here. There may be a collective Christmas activity or two laid on by the school but these will be enriching and purposeful, within a week that will be largely focused on proper learning. So, if your son or daughter says ‘but they’ll just be watching videos…’ then you can confidently tell them that we won’t!

There won’t be a blog next week so I’ll end by saying thank you for all your support this term, I wish you a restful holiday and a Happy New Year.

Best wishes

Joe Barker

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Our Community - Our Future
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Marple Hall School
Hill Top Drive
Marple
Stockport SK6 6LB Headteacher: Mr Joe Barker
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