20 November 2019

Autumn Concert

Thanks to Miss Pugh for organising a really excellent evening of music last Wednesday evening.  There were over 30 student performers supported by a good number of parents and staff.  We were entertained with a wide variety of musical numbers played/sung by students from every year group.  Every performance had something to commend it with some truly memorable numbers which really showcased the talent at Collingwood.

2015 Learning Partnership Curriculum Review

As you will know Collingwood is an active member of a collaborative partnership with four local secondary schools known collectively as the 2015 Learning Partnership.  The four partnership schools are The Bishop David Brown School in Woking, The Magna Carta School in Staines, Kings International College in Camberley and The Winston Churchill School in Woking.  The primary aim of the partnership is raising standards across the schools, through improving teaching and learning.  The partnership’s activities include peer review, staff development, departmental support and increased student opportunities. Unlike Multi-Academy Trusts there is no Chief Executive or Trust staffing and all work is done by giving up time to support the LP’s work without any financial commitment.

Yesterday we had a Curriculum Review at Collingwood focussing on English, Maths, Science and Geography.  Six senior colleagues from the four schools, led by one of the Head Teachers, spent the whole day speaking to Heads of Department, staff and students as well as observing lessons and looking at students’ work.  At the end of the day SLT received very comprehensive verbal feedback on their findings. The review team were hugely positive regarding our curriculum planning, our aspirational students, our consistently strong teaching teams and our ‘fantastic departmental leaders’.  They have confirmed the strength and depth of our work, whilst providing a small number of ‘Even Better Ifs’ to focus on in the future.

I am obviously very pleased with this external validation of our work, especially as it is given by working practitioners from schools in similar contexts.  It also highlights a very small number of areas for us to focus our attention on in the future although, reassuringly, there were no surprises in their findings, and the majority of actions are already in our development plans.

I thought parents and carers would like to know the excellent outcome of this review.

Science staffing

I reproduce below my recent letter to parents regarding Science staffing in case anyone has missed it.

I want to take the opportunity to inform you of the measures we are taking to address the challenging staffing situation we have been facing in Science due to the unavoidable long-term sickness of two of our teaching colleagues.

As a College we are doing everything in our power to minimise the impact this is having on the education of our students. Whilst we understand that this is frustrating for all, in situations such as this the College will prioritise examination groups.

Short term measures already implemented include reorganisation of the Science timetable to give as many groups as possible teaching from science teachers for at least some of their lessons. We have also engaged Science specialist supply staff and are also hoping to find a suitable candidate to fill the Science post we are currently advertising.

Delivering quality education for your children is, as always, our aim here at Collingwood, and I can only try to reassure you that we are doing our best to achieve this in a very challenging situation.