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CONTACT US Word from the Head – 6 June 2025
Dear Parents,
On Monday lunchtime I bumped into one of our Year 13 students, who had just finished her A level exams. She was (of course) delighted that they were over – but also reflective about the experience and feeling a new-found sense of maturity for having gone through the process. Hers were unusually swift, as the vast majority of the year group will still have exams into next week, and Year 11 are about halfway through at this point. Likewise, Years 10 and 12 are halfway through their internal summer exams and I know that many of them are feeling quietly proud that they are managing what they had anticipated to be a stressful experience much better than they had thought they might.
I have no doubt that Years 7, 8 and 9 can go into their end of years with the same mindset. That’s not to say that there won’t be blips here and there – unexpected questions, moments where minds go blank and other such calamities – but we know that on the whole our students are well-prepared for these exams. I wish them the very best for the coming week, and give enormous thanks to my colleagues who have, and will, set, invigilate, mark and feed back on these exams.
I was asked in a meeting yesterday (by someone who has never worked in a school) ‘which is the quietest term at school?’ and there were stifled giggles from all the teachers in the room. There’s no such thing! However the school year has an immutable rhythm to it. While the second half of the Summer term inevitably brings exams, marking and report-writing, alongside reflections on the year past, it also brings planning for the year ahead. In particular, the Senior Leadership Team and I have been working hard on developing the first year’s operational plan which will put into action the vision for Channing 2035 and the five new strategic objectives which I unveiled as part of our 140th anniversary celebrations in January.
To do so we have been reviewing the feedback we have received from staff, pupils and parents through the Love It, Lose It, Change It, Create It framework. So much has chimed across all three groups. For example it was great to hear that parents love the School’s nurturing, happy, and positive atmosphere, its ethos and values, and its focus on knowing and caring for the individual child. Likewise our strong pastoral care, support for wellbeing, sensitivity in handling friendship issues, and generally making children feel at home were highly valued. Staff and pupils agreed with this and added the joy of Channing’s special traditions, with Channing Christmas a particular highlight.
Unsurprisingly two areas which particularly interested all three groups were the food and our uniform. ‘Twas ever thus, in every school I have ever worked in, although what I find so wonderful is the range of perspectives that these two perennial bugbears bring.
Take food, for example. Staff love the food at Channing: they appreciate the quality and variety of dishes available to them each day. Likewise, half the food feedback from pupils was related to what they love (a big shout out for the hot chocolate machine, chicken katsu curry, the spag bol, interesting salads, the range of sandwiches and the availability every day of pasta, sauce and baked potatoes for more picky eaters). The other half was devoted to the improvements they would like to see: different salads, different sandwiches, less pasta, other choices for picky eaters…and parents’ views were as divided as their children’s! However the good news is that Mrs Hibbert, our Catering Manager, and Chef Rao are looking forward to their annual discussion of next year’s menus with the School Council in their final meeting of the year in a couple of weeks’ time. This always proves fruitful (if you’ll pardon the pun) and it’s important that the pupils are involved in the serious question of what they eat.
Uniform also provided an interesting tension. While some staff wanted a move towards a much stricter and more formal uniform, the pupils more or less unanimously wanted further relaxations of uniform, footwear, hair, make-up and jewellery rules. Once again parents were split in their views, although a request for more consistency in PE kit requirements came through strongly. To that end I am delighted to say that our new Channing-branded PE kit joggers are now available for purchase from Uniform4Kids. This means that pupils who prefer to wear baggier bottoms with their PE kits can now do so in line with the school uniform rules. This means that any other kind of tracksuit bottoms will not be allowed and I look forward to seeing all our pupils wearing a fully-branded PE kit on the days they have PE or clubs from September. As a reminder of what is expected you can see our uniform list HERE and you can make further purchases either from the Channing Association’s pre-loved uniform sale on the afternoon of Monday 23 June here in Founders’ Hall, or at Uniform4Kids where they are holding a special Channing Appointment Weekend on 5 and 6 July 2025.
One final point raised by parents related to communication. There is a strong desire for more direct, personalised, transparent and consistent communication and we are working hard on improving this. One new development which will assist in this from September is the introduction of SOCS, a software package you may be familiar with from other schools. This offers parents a detailed and personalised school events calendar, which will only show you events relevant to you and your child(ren). It will also revolutionise our fixture organisation and communication. More to come on this at the start of next year.
The joy of school leadership is that we never stand still: we’re always innovating, reflecting and refining to ensure that the education we offer, and the systems which support this, are the best they can be. Thank you again to those of you who contributed their views last term and I look forward to sharing more details about the priorities for the year ahead in September.
For now, I wish you a quiet weekend of focused revision and rest. Chag Sameach to our families celebrating Shavuot earlier in the week, and Eid Mubarak to those marking Eid al-Adha today. Good luck to our Year 11 band, Spraytan, who will be performing on the main stage at Fair in the Square tomorrow and please don’t forget to visit our Young Enterprise teams’ stall if you are visiting.
With warmest wishes,
Mrs Lindsey Hughes
Headmistress
