Dear Parent of Guardian,
Well, we made it, not only through the recent heatwave and for some of you an accompanying shortage of water, but also through our first full year back. It’s hard to imagine that this has been our first whole year at school since September 2018 to 2019, the first year of public examinations, and the first full year I have experienced as Borden’s headteacher. It’s easy to forget, but the list below include just a few things that we have experienced at Borden in the past year,
- Asymptomatic testing centres, masks in classrooms and vaccinations
- Remote learning/meetings/parents evenings/events
- A very successful Ofsted in November (during the pandemic)
- A new website and newsletter
- A new isolation space and the expansion of restorative practice
- Improvements to the existing site i.e. reception, quad roof, garden and much more planned.
- Breakfast sessions with our GCSE students before exams and 'superlearning' sessions
- Expansion consultations/agreement and new building planning permission granted and implementation of the new Borden test
- Successful events i.e. Old Bordenians dinner, destinations events, Aim Higher primary club, sports day etc.
- Successful charity fundraising, particularly for Ukraine
- Expansion of peer mentoring and use of bodies such as Youth Resilience
- Five Education Secretaries with one only lasting less than two days.
What next?
So what next? There are so many things we have in mind ranging from trips, visits, clubs and careers events, to projects on meta cognition and the house system. However, I have picked three major things to give you an in depth taster…
Expansion will continue to take up a lot of thinking and time. It appears that initial building works will start next term, but there remain some less obvious but related areas we need to work on. For instance, we really need more trustees for a growing school. Are you or might you know someone who is interested? You don’t need to have specific skills, although financial or strategic experience is always very useful. Maybe that sounds interesting to you? Or maybe you have some contacts that may want a discussion to find out more? Please email me at the school if this is the case as it is a vital part of making the school what it is. Meanwhile, we have also started improving areas of the current site, with a large canopy hopefully being put up over the summer break for students to sit and eat under and new windows in the S block.
Curriculum underpins teaching and learning. We have started the process of completely redesigning ours, building backwards from year 13, making sure we have exactly the right level of challenge and knowledge needed for our students, taught in a way that develops a strong skill based understanding through the most modern teaching methods. This is a huge enterprise and will ultimately take 2 or more years to complete during staff development days and twilight sessions. You might ask why we can’t just ‘buy it in’, often suggested by the government as an approach. Whilst ready-made curriculum design and lessons have their place, they are no substitute for the deep understanding and commitment gained in creating your own. This ultimately makes what is taught in the classroom much more effective.
Pastoral care and wellbeing was seen as a real positive in our recent Ofsted inspection, but there is always more to do. We are considering trialling some vertical tutoring next year to allow more peer work and to reinvigorate our house system. We are expanding our restoration programmes in our isolation and inclusion spaces. We are also carefully considering how we improve our careers guidance from years 7 to 11, particularly including guidance on some of the vocational pathways that are on offer Post 16 (see letter from the once Education Secretary here). Finally, we will be looking to further expand our support for young people through counselling and support services and have some specific work planned with students on areas such as resilience and Internet safety.
Attendance
On this note, I would like to impress upon parents the importance of attendance. If you look on our website here (Expectations) you will see Borden based data that shows how attendance has a direct impact on student outcomes. The government has also brought in much stricter legislation and guidance to combat student absence and term time holidays which will result in faster escalation from us. Students should aim to have 97% attendance or better and anything below 90% is a serious concern because of the impact it will have on the child. Please contact us if you need help with this, but do everything you can to keep your child coming to school every day.
Borden successes
Overall, we have had some amazing achievements from quite a number of individual students this year. Students have competed at a national level in a variety of sports, have had their original designs patented and manufactured, and many have raising significant sums of money for charity. The students regularly make us very proud. Which had me thinking, what would I pick as the proudest three overall moments of the year?
Number 1 and Prize Giving would be an obvious place to start, but even more so the way our year 13 students handled themselves on their leaving day. They came in dressed in a vast array of fancy dress; they laughed, shook hands and said goodbye with caring and mature good humour. A particular moment? Seeing a student in a huge inflatable dinosaur suit struggle to walk along the Avenue of Remembrance without getting caught on all the trees, is still making me laugh just thinking about it.
Number 2 would be driving two full minibuses to deliver all the extraordinarily generous donations provided by students, parents and staff. It made me realise just how much of a community we are and how the worst moments can bring out the best in people.
Number 3 may not come as a surprise to you. It wasn’t just gaining the positive outcome from Ofsted that was obviously pleasing. It was more the way the boys spoke about their school with respect, pride and sometimes even love. Someone from the local authority said to me after our inspection that they had never seen the words “harmonious community” in a report before. They have now.
Goodbye and hello…
As is unfortunately always the case at this point of the year, we say our goodbyes to staff who are moving on or retiring.
- Mrs Ward is also leaving us to do other things having been with us for 2 years and her dedication to her students in French has helped create many students' love of the language
- Ms Katona has been a cleaner at the school for 3 years, particularly keeping us safe during the Covid period, moving on to becoming a science technician at another local school.
- Mrs Frost is taking up a promotion to assistant headteacher at another Grammar School having been at Borden for 17 years. She will be sorely missed by the Modern Foreign Languages Department and the numerous students who have experienced her as their caring and supportive head of year 7.
- Mr Chittenden, in charge of key stage 3 maths, is also retiring this year having been with us for 18 years and will also be hugely missed by students and staff alike. The chess club will never be the same again!
- Mr Artingstoll, Assistant Headteacher, is retiring this year having been at Borden for 26 years. Students and staff will miss him enormously, particularly his use of ‘dad jokes’ to lighten any situation and make students smile.
- Mr Hewitt is not really leaving us, but has retired full time from being our leading caretaker. He has worked at the school for 28 years and, like a stick of rock, may have Borden written throughout!
We wish all of these staff leaving us the very best of luck and will introduce all the new staff joining us early in September.
And finally…
I sincerely hope that you all have a wonderful summer break. In particular, we wish all of our students who have taken their GCSEs or A levels the very best of luck over the summer and have our fingers well and truly crossed for their results. For students that are leaving us, taking their next steps in life, we wish them the very best of luck and ask that they please keep in touch. If it is your first family holiday in a while, please make the most of it as, if the pandemic has taught us anything, it has taught us the importance of spending quality time with each other. I look forward to working with you all again in September and thank you again for your continued support.
Ashley Tomlin
Headteacher
Key Stage 3 Drama
Overall, throughout the exam period the boys conducted themselves maturely, and I look forward to seeing the results in the summer. After the exams finished, many of the boys returned to Borden for the sixth form taster sessions, as part of their transitions into the sixth form. We also had volunteers from Year 11 return to assist Year 6 boys in their transition day to familiarise themselves with Borden ahead of their start in September. The boys were a credit to themselves, and it was pleasing to see how mature they were escorting groups of younger students around the school to make them feel welcome. All of Year 11 deserve a good rest over the summer break, and we look forward to seeing many of them return for Sixth form in September. 
