Year 11 Planning/Resources

Thank you for the recent work on the mapping of Year 11 schemes of learning and the development of resources in line with core expectations.  As mentioned in Monday’s briefing, I have discussed this with other members of the senior team to ensure that there is a shared clarity for the ‘non-negotiables’.  To this extent, alongside the 4Es document, the following has been extrapolated and should be explicitly built into plans:

• Scaffolding to support students to attain the one clear objective
• Methods for checking understanding
• Opportunities for granular feedback
• Independent practice

As Louise has previously communicated, the scheme of learning document is only necessary where departments feel the format will help.

Linked to the ongoing improvement of the Quality of Education, I am interested in the views of CALs.  This will be explored next half term (as part of work highlighted in the item below).  Should you wish to arrange a discussion with me, please let Lindsay know.

Staff Perceptions Survey

As previously mentioned, please see an overview of the recent staff survey.  73 responses were submitted with the groups, as identified by individuals, included.  Alongside the graphs, which include benchmarking against average scores, you will see the breakdown of responses for each staff group – numbers below 4 are in red whilst above 5 is in dark green.  I have communicated on two separate occasions that I’m interested in feedback from staff within the teacher group, this offer remains and is now extended to all colleagues.  With the survey being anonymous, it is useful to a degree (as outlined below), but where the views of specific groups seem incongruous with the overall outcomes of the survey and with ongoing feedback, evaluation and general views of school, hearing from individual colleagues is the only way to understand the rationale for perceptions.

General areas highlighted as causing concern are behaviour, professional development and quality assurance (referred to in the survey as observations/performance management).  In response, please see the points below:

• Repeated low-level disruption and how this is managed was discussed at the Behaviour Working Party.  Details of tweaks to the Behaviour Policy will be communicated in due course with further information on the whole-school approach to this and the expectations for individual members of staff
• I will be working with the senior leaders for Q of E to review and develop our processes for Quality Assurance.  The focus will be on how this captures the delivery of our core curriculum principles, the way it evaluates the design and implementation of our teaching and learning strategy and how this is used to inform the development of best practice across departments and for individual colleagues

As mentioned above, I welcome any further, relevant feedback/discussion

Thursday 24th April

3pm to 5.30pm

Cognition & Learning – this session is relevant for all student-facing staff.

Any admin staff who would like to attend this session, additional hours can be claimed if you’ve already worked your term time plus allocation.  Please register your interest with Lindsay if you’d like to attend the session.

Year 8 Parents’ Evening

Thursday 3 April – 4pm to 7pm

Thank you to all staff who volunteered to support with distributing the Community Iftar meals.

Click here to view current vacancies

If you are not already in the workplace pension scheme, and meet the criteria below, you will automatically be enrolled into the scheme in April 2025.

In October 2012 the government introduced a new law to make it easier for people to save for their retirement.  Kirklees Council had to enrol their workers into their workplace pension scheme if they were not already contributing and met the following criteria:
• Are aged between 22 and state pension age
• Had earnings which equated to £10,000 a year.

The legislation states that employers must repeat the process every three years, and we are now making preparations for our fourth re-enrolment exercise.

If you’re already in the workplace pension scheme you won’t see any changes.

If you have previously opted out of the workplace pension scheme and still don’t want to be in the scheme, you will automatically be re-enrolled and a deduction will be taken – you can opt out again and receive a refund as long as you opt out within 3 months of being re-enrolled into the scheme.

By law we must make a pension deduction before you can opt out of the scheme.

Please note, if you have opted out within the last 12 months there will not be a requirement for us to assess and re-enrol you into a pension scheme.

If you would like to contact the Pensions Team, email pensions@kirklees.gov.uk or call 01484 221000 – ask for Human Resources, then select option 3 for pensions.

For more information visit:

Support staff
Teaching staff

Reminder that in addition to the services offered by Kirklees Employee Healthcare, staff also have access to our new SAS wellbeing service – the SAS service offers a GP consultation service which is proving really useful for staff.

Please do note however that if you are usually exempt from paying prescriptions, through the SAS GP you do have to pay for prescriptions.

Academisation Update

As you know, an application for NHTS to convert to an academy and to join a newly proposed Multi-Academy Trust (Industrious Education) was submitted prior to the end of December 2024.  As part of the due diligence process, the DFE scrutinise each application and – where deemed necessary – provide what they consider to be useful information.  Following such discussions, the difficult decision was made for Industrious Education Trust to pursue the application as Primary only.  The rationale for this decision relates to the risk of there being only one secondary school in a proposed new MAT.

I met with representatives from the DFE/Regional Director team who provided their rationale which, whilst not agreeing, I understand and can accept.  I have informed Governors and Trustees and will write to parents/carers during the course of next week.

I’d like to thank colleagues for your input into the process which has helped clarify our thinking and reaffirm our priorities.  We remain in a very strong position as a school and this will not deter us in the partnership work with our local primaries and across the wider community.

Staff Surveys

Thank you for completing the recent surveys.  The responses are very positive overall with some areas highlighted as needing appropriate discussion, clarification and potential development.  I will provide a fuller update on the perceptions survey once the senior team has had the chance to digest it and we have discussed it in more detail.  Follow up to the stress survey will also be forthcoming.

Whilst the above process is taking place, I am interested in hearing the views from the following groups of staff who completed the survey:

• For the perceptions survey – teaching staff
• For the stress survey – first level leader

Should you have identified in either of those groups whilst completing the survey, I’m interested in talking to you about your perceptions, please arrange through Lindsay.

Andrew