A ‘brief brief’ from me to you all as the school family takes a half term break - mainly because we leave for Spain with forty pupils on Sunday, and although I have everyone's medication, plus the ski travel first aid kit/suitcase cataloged and stored, and I have, as yet, done none of my packing.
The half-term has been shaped by the challenges of weather and windows, admissions and AI, tax systems and timetables, all conveniently alliterative and sometimes inconveniently impactful, and all a small part of being an independent school headteacher nowadays.
I do wish to take an opportunity to say thank you to my colleagues who are just superb at what they do and the manner in which they do it. My goal is for our teachers and pupils to continue their learning journeys unburdened and unaffected by all of these changes. Each gives their all in their field of responsibility and it fills me with deep pride. Our new teachers (how wonderful are they?) feedback openly that the experience working here is far removed from the difficulties and divisions of their previous places of employment. Truly, this can only benefit our pupils, when staff feel so comfortable and happy themselves that they can be creative and innovative in their teaching.
Isn’t it sad that the common workplace, and schools in particular, seem characterised by negativity, exhaustion, bitterness and er… management? I am happy to buck the trend, or at least attempt to. Trusting my colleagues to be the very best they can be is the easiest part of my role, and I am very fond and in admiration of them all.
Likewise our pupils who work their way through the days smiling, full of life, enjoying each other’s company, riding life's pot-holes, full of respect for each other, learning all that they possibly can on that day.
I am deeply proud of them not only for what they are becoming, but also for what they are not. We, as parents, are best minded to remember that.
Our new pupils for September, in Reception and Year 7, are already well known to us, having been assessed carefully over this last month. They are a delight - kind, caring and full of good potential to complement our existing students. The future of the pupil roll is in good hands.
Incidentally we have a Junior School Open Afternoon on the 26th February. Please invite any interested friends and families.
Cransley is evolving: it is not enough to remain as a traditional immobile school that should stay immersed in the ‘blob’ of the educational sector, but one that thinks about what our younger generation and their families need as they enter the next phases in their lives, and then acts on it, within our means, with the flexibility, operational adaptation and pure ambition to make it work.
Dear parents: I have asked a lot of you this term, with the school closure, revised contracts and terms and conditions, a new code of conduct and now timetable changes ahead. I hope you all will be patient and positive over the coming weeks, secure in the knowledge that this is all to benefit and enhance the experience of our pupils here and to guide the school safely through interesting times. It is what you would expect of me.
I wish you a happy half-term.
Richard Pollock
Headteacher