Headteacher's Blog

A Time for Optimism

To our wonderful JTFS Community,

I would like to thank you all for your support during what has been an incredibly challenging term at JTFS. We have faced significant issues with Covid related absence for students and staff and you have been very understanding with our need to move to remote education for a short period of time. We are grateful for this support and recognise the problems it causes for you at home. I wanted to reassure you that we are doing everything possible to ensure that students remain in school and that we only move to remote learning as a last resort.

Now that the clocks have changed, the weather is getting warmer, I am hoping that spring brings us a time for optimism. Higher temperatures means more time outside and with the windows open – this is well known to improve our mental health and sense of well being.

Here at school we also welcome some new members of staff who join us in the summer term:

– Mr Lacey – Progress Leader for Marchington and Kingstone
– Mrs Hammond White – English Teacher
– Mrs Edwards – History Teacher
– Miss Wilton also returns from maternity leave and as well as having her baby, she got married and is now Mrs Ridley – congratulations!

We are looking forward to welcoming them to the team.

There has been much to celebrate this half term with success on the sports field, numerous enrichment and charity events taking place as well as students being awarded praise points, merits and Golden Tickets for effort and achievement in school. Celebration assemblies took place last week and we recognised the efforts of those who have been “turning up, working hard and being nice”. We have also been talking to students about what our rewards should look like and more information will follow on this soon.

Year 10 students have been thinking about what the end of Year 11 will look like for them — how do we celebrate the first cohort of JTFS students as they complete their GCSEs? We need to make sure this is a really special event!

The summer term is also a time when we start to meet our new intake who join us in September. Induction activities will be taking place both here at JTFS and in the primary schools to ensure that students are well prepared when they start in Year 7. We will be full in Year 7-11 from 2022 onwards, with 1,170 students in school!

So, even though there have been challenges in recent months, there is also much to look forward to and we remain hopeful that the positive approach we have at JTFS will carry us forwards to even better things.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –“

Emily Dickinson

Whether you are celebrating Easter, observing Ramadan, or enjoying time at home with your family over the coming weeks, I hope the sun shines and you enjoy the holidays.

Sue Plant

School Student

If you have questions or would like to know more about our school, please don’t hesitate to get in touch

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