Results Days 2025
Congratulations to all our students for their exam results following all their hard work. Your Year 13 and Year 11 results make us very proud
21/08/2025
I would like to thank Mrs Massey for being guest writer on the Headteacher’s blog! She has been working hard on developing STRIPE skills and metacognition with our students across the school. The STRIPE Journal plays an important role in this work – here, Mrs Massey explains why.
Sue Atkinson
In school, so much of our time is spent thinking about the future: in essence it is our role as teachers to best prepare our young people for what they will be facing whether skills and knowledge for the world, for examinations or in their careers.
One of the fundamental tools to support progression is not, however, solely forward focused. The EEF (Education Endowment Fund) has identified that metacognitive strategies can lead to an additional 7 months of progress for students and a huge part of metacognition is building students ability to be self-reflective.
Part of our drive to develop our students as metacognitive learners is through use of our reflective journals, something quite unique to our school.
Across the curriculum, students are taught to reflect on their learning by identifying what they have done well and how they can improve further, based on their own, peer and staff feedback. This process is one that is fostered throughout their journey in education and by the time students arrive with us in year 7, most are already quite comfortable with it.
The role of our journal in this process is for our students to then distil this information and identify for themselves clear strengths and areas that they need to further work on, and specifically when and how they will do this over the coming term. In our learning conferences, student-led consultations and tutor time, these are a core focus of conversations so that students are increasingly taking agency of their own learning.
Within the journal itself, there are a range of resources for students to access to support their learning in a range of different subject areas:
The journal also contains a whole section with guidance on revision and a blank timetable.
In providing students with this consistency in all lessons and at home, the aim is for them to become more independent in accessing the support when it is needed.
Currently we have a diary section in the journals where the objective is for students to plan out their extended learning, to record reflections on their learning and behaviour. Rather than students be passive and ‘do’, we want to encourage our students to become aware of their own ability to self-manage and take greater responsibility for this. By interrogating their learning and identifying in journals when they have succeeded or where they need to extend learning further, we are building in our students the metacognitive strategies that will help them to be active agents in their own learning, a key component of becoming a successful adult.
The next generation of our reflective journals are currently in the planning process with the team from Penstripe.co.uk for our next academic year: strengths have been identified, and targets have been set. In September we will be launching a ‘how to’ guide to support all of our stakeholders in use of the journal, to ensure that these have the maximum impact in helping to shape metacognitive minds.
Mrs Massey
Lead Teacher for STRIPE
Congratulations to all our students for their exam results following all their hard work. Your Year 13 and Year 11 results make us very proud
My reflections on the women who have influenced my younger self, and those who continue to do so today.
I would like to thank Mrs Massey for being guest writer on the Headteacher’s blog! She has been working hard on developing STRIPE skills and metacognition with our students across the school. The STRIPE Journal plays an important role in this work – here, Mrs Massey explains why.
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