Last week (10-16 May 2021) was mental health awareness week. It is an annual event that creates an opportunity for the whole of the UK to focus on achieving good mental health. The event has grown to become one of the biggest awareness weeks, across the UK and globally, and it aims to highlight the...

Last week was National Careers Week and it is also a time of year when many pupils are looking ahead and thinking about their futures – GCSE and A level options have recently been submitted by Fourth Form and Upper Fifth pupils, and university offers are imminent for our oldest pupils.  D...

We’re only a couple of weeks into the new term - and not much further into the New Year – but I have to say that it feels like longer. On Monday 4 January, our whole staff team were meeting (virtually) for an INSET day. We knew it’d be a slightly strange start to the term, we were...

On Remembrance Sunday this year many households stood silently on their doorsteps at 11.00am to remember those who have died in war and today – 11 November 2020 - we came together as a school community at St John’s to remember all who have been lost or affected by conflict through the ye...

At a recent school assembly, I asked our pupils what they would want to have happened in their lives by the age of 25 for them to view it a ‘success’. As a headteacher I probably spend more time than most thinking about the importance of aspiration and working hard to achieve goals. We w...

At the start of every school year, I talk to our pupils on a topic that feels relevant to our community but that also has a wider resonance. This year my start of year assembly was a little different from normal. For a start, I was even more excited than usual to be welcoming pupils to the new acade...