MHS update 4/11/2022

MHS update 4/11/2022

For a couple of years my weekly blogs were dominated by covid and as a result were often fairly practical in nature. Just twelve months ago we were still operating partial one-way systems, sitting in well ventilated (ie freezing) classrooms and asking everyone to wear ‘masks on the move’. Happily there’s no need to any of those things now and therefore my blogs can usually return to what they were always meant to be – a little snapshot into life at school. However, as you’ll see, today’s blog is a bit of a mixture.

Firstly, a big ‘shout out’ to everyone involved in final preparations for next week’s school performance of ‘We Will Rock You’. I know that a huge amount of effort has gone in so far and that the cast and crew are working flat out, and I can’t wait to see Bradshaw Hall buzzing next week.

Secondly, advance warning to parents and carers that we’re planning on making a small change to how we manage movement around Bradshaw building. This is the main building housing English, Maths, Humanities and Creative arts, and when it is busy it is VERY busy. As our school gets more and more numerous, and more classrooms are created on corridors that remain stubbornly narrow, I have been concerned about quite how busy some of the corridors and entrances are getting. Therefore shortly we are going to reintroduce one of the old covid measures and restrict access to Bradshaw building to two doors only. This might sound counter-productive, but actually this is much easier to manage safely and will ensure that students can get to their lessons more easily. I’ll be speaking to students about this next week before the change happens.

Thirdly, as you’ll know from an email yesterday from Miss Gregory, we have taken the decision to temporarily ban ‘Prime’ drinks in school. These hard-to-come-by drinks are incredibly popular amongst some teenagers and are being sold on for greatly inflated prices, causing unnecessary arguments in school as well as pressure on youngsters to be seen with them having spent well over the odds. As impressive as the ‘Prime’ marketing strategy may be, we don’t need any more distractions in school and so for now at least the drinks will be confiscated if seen. I know that not everyone will agree with this approach, but I hope you can support what we are trying to do.

Finally, and this will only affect a small number of students, we are going to track much more closely when a student leaves a lesson for any reason. We know that attendance in school is the single biggest factor in how much students learn, and so it makes sense to also assume that the amount of time a student spends in lessons during the school day is also very important. Whilst the vast majority of students are in class all the time, some students are not and miss too much learning time. This might be them going to the toilet several times a day, visiting first aid, attending internal appointments or a wide range of other reasons. Next week I’ll be speaking to colleagues about how we will be doing this, and will then inform students and parents of the new processes.

That’s it for now, I’m off to see some students play the ukulele.

Best wishes

Joe Barker

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