Holidays, Social media and AI

Attendance and holidays

Recent guidance and advice from the IBSA and DFE has been issued this month in regard to Granting Leave of Absence in Independent Schools and the DFE statutory guidance Working Together to Improve School Attendance, and the legal consideration I must give as headteacher when granting leave for family holidays.  To quote Section 37 and 38 of the latter document: 

“All schools have the power to grant leave of absence at their own discretion where a parent who the pupil normally lives with… has asked in advance and they deem there to be exceptional circumstances. In deciding whether a leave of absence should be granted schools are expected to consider each application individually taking into account the specific facts and circumstances and relevant background context behind the request. If a leave of absence is granted, it is for the school to determine the length of time the pupil can be away from school.

Generally, the DfE does not consider a need or desire for a holiday or other absence for the purpose of leisure and recreation to be an exceptional circumstance.”

A family holiday. Out of term time.

We therefore will be updating the Attendance Policy, for the Governing Board to agree and ratify, and in doing so, strengthen the School’s current position, support my legal duty and achieve legal and regulatory compliance.  

This will come into effect in September 2025.  Please be aware of this as you arrange your holidays for the coming academic year, and forgive me when I am resolute in my refusal to authorise any term-time holidays or leisure activities in the future.

Social Media, Deepfake imagery and Child Protection

You may have noticed a pause in our social media activity.

In its recent announcement, the Home Office has acknowledged that, since the start of 2023, there has been a worrying rising trend of AI-assisted ‘deepfake’ images of children in particular.  The HM Government proposal announced last week to create new offences is targeting the equipment and technology, and supply chain of AI-generated or manipulated child sexual abuse material. However, the creation and sharing of these images already constituted a crime, and this has not deterred criminal gangs online who in some cases have sought to target schools’ digital media (websites, SM etc) and individuals.  

This is not meant to alarm pupils, parents and staff, but heighten your awareness.  We, ourselves, have experienced the harm caused when staff images - myself included - have been used in most unsuitable ways, we suspect by ex-pupils shortly after I have requested to be removed from the school.  It is deeply upsetting and never fails to hurt, no matter how thick the skin. 

Our advisors, the ISBA and its legal team, have been giving careful consideration to how to address the growing safeguarding threat posed by this technology, and the changing expectations of parents, while balancing the longstanding expectations of many schools that they can make lawful use of images of pupils (including online) to help promote their activities.

Stock image - not one of our pupils!

To fully - but maybe excessively - protect our pupils, we may consider removing their images from social media and our website.  My team and the Board will discuss if this is a balanced and reasonable action, or whether other options are as effective.  Perhaps clever photography, for example, can celebrate our pupils’ activities without identifying them.  We welcome input from parents who have informed opinions on this matter. 

Please understand our concerns and the balanced way that we may go about addressing these issues.

Artificial Intelligence

To effectively address the multitude of cyber safeguarding issues, education is paramount. It is evident that pupils must be taught about both the dangers and benefits of artificial intelligence. As such, we are continuing to implement our AI policy and strategy in classrooms and offices. This includes introducing a clear AI assignment strategy, which will determine the level of AI usage permitted for specific tasks. Additionally, we are implementing age-appropriate AI digital literacy skills to promote the secure and effective use of AI prompts, critical evaluation of AI suggestions, and the protection of personal data. Ethical and environmental issues surrounding AI development will also be discussed.

My increasing use of AI  — and I believe our school and staff are ahead of the curve in this regard —  brings to mind Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I often receive a slightly patronizing, Marvin the Paranoid Android-esque response from Gemini: "What a great question, Richard. Brain the size of a planet and you ask me to spell check your grammar..." (Anyone under 40 may need to ask AI about Marvin. How ironic).#

We will be delivering some training to parents on AI shortly after Easter. I hope you will be able to join us.

Uniform

Some things don’t change, and our older pupils are currently challenging us with untucked shirts and ever shorter skirts.  Please take a moment to read Mrs Pargeter’s letter emailed earlier this week.  She and the entire staff have my support - and I assume yours also - in correcting the pupils as their vague attempts to be somewhat rebellious result in a deteriorating state of dress.  You can assist simply by ensuring both shirts and skirts are long enough. If you are reluctant to buy new uniform when they only have two years left, please consider our preloved website. All funds go back into the school, not into another company’s coffers.

Not exactly a jovial journal this week, but reasonable, important and necessary.

Have a lovely weekend nevertheless.

Richard Pollock

Headteacher

Venture beyond…

Dear Parents and Families

[Before I start, I’m at the end of a Ryanair air-con-induced head cold, so I blame any vagaries or rambling in this journal on overdoses of Lemsip and Covonia.]

New Revised Timetable

The new timetable for September, with its benefits of increased teaching hours and enrichment opportunities, has brought about some welcome discussion and a generally favourable acceptance.  Those questions that have been asked - in regard to timings, after school activities, consultation processes etc. - have, I hope, been answered in these two important documents below, separated for convenience into Junior and Senior, which I ask you to read carefully.

Any Questions? Revised timetable for 2025 (Juniors)

Any Questions? Revised timetable for 2025 (Seniors)

I am aware of the changes requiring personal and familial retiming and adjustment and appreciate all efforts being made to enable this new efficient and cost effective adjustment.

I ask that you indicate your initial preferences for the Friday afternoon, using the form below, for each of your children seperately, so we can initiate planning as early as possible.

The Friday Afternoon (Current Reception-5)

The Friday Afternoon (Current Y6-10) 

Ski Trip to La Molina, Spain

For many, taking a normal family ski trip is characterised with so many highs and lows (metaphorical and literal), with a great deal of stress and concern throughout.  Enough for some to question whether it is a holiday at all. 

So all those who have suggested that Mrs Storey, Mrs Atkinson, Mr Morris, Mr Low and myself were on a big holiday must themselves lead a trip escorting 40 children, including 25 Y7s, across Europe, high up in Andorra, and watch each child throw themselves with varying levels of control down steep snowy pistes, and experience our pupils’ emotional, mental and physical fatigue over six intense days (with an additional day in a busy Barcelona) before they should be so flippant!

My colleagues were magnificent, and pupils were, in the main, marvellous in their fortitude and resilience and behaviour.  They all came back in one piece (another school I was speaking with had endured four broken arms and a double collar bone fracture amongst their pupils and one teacher!), albeit with whatever bugs and viruses were running through the plane fuselage.  

Mrs Storey dedicates so much of her own time to meticulously arranging these trips for the enrichment and benefit of so many pupils.  She shines very brightly indeed.

Cransley Speedworks Motorsport

Cransley Speedworks F1iS car

Much to our utter surprise and bewilderment, as our entry wasn't the fastest by any means, the small but mighty Y10 Cransley Speedworks team not only won the prestigious award for the Best Engineered Car, but came second in the ambitious Development class at the F1 in Schools Regional Finals last week, out of 14 highly competitive large schools across the North West, and are now automatically entered into the National Finals on the 26-27th March.

Work has now begun on a full rebrand, new business enterprise plan, new digital media (instagram.com/cransleyspeedworks/), full re-engineering of the car itself and a series of testing sessions on our new F1 in Schools track, which arrived on the day of the Regional final.

Cransley Vitesse F1iS car. Photos courtesy of M Davies (Y9)

Congratulations too to the sister Y9 entry-level team Cransley Vitesse, who are learning very quickly about how difficult this competition is, and are now fully supporting the Speedworks team, and watching their inheritance grow, as the older team learn and develop so rapidly.

My thanks to the wonderful Mrs Cosgrove who conceived and enabled our participation in the event and the superbly talented Mr Hassell for his extraordinary grasp of complex technical requirements, CAD and CFD software, manufacturing processes and somehow managing to teach this to the pupils so they are able to actually see their creations in extraordinary 3D graphic models… and then literally in the palm of their hands. (Each car is only 10 inches long.  What did you expect?) 

Thank you also to Rix Motors, PDS Eco and Legend Print Services who have contributed to the Motorsport project’s success, together with a partnership with the original local Speedworks BTCC Motorsports team. 

Watch this space for the results later this month.

Spring Hoedown

I invite all Junior School pupils and parents to bring all the family to our inaugural traditional Spring Hoedown on the very last Friday of the term, 4th April.  I see governors, headteachers, parents, grandparents, pupils, brothers, sisters, friends all do-si-do-ing our way through some bluegrass country tunes, with some great American food being rustled up by Chef Ed.  

Book tickets now at ParentPay.

World Book Day

Mr Morris seems a little blue.

You know you have caught some horrible virus when you exit your Study to the sight of a looming 6 foot 4 bearded giant blue crayola pencil carrying a laptop.  

Then you vaguely recall from the murky depths of your clouded memory that it is World book Day, and the hairy crayon is actually Mr Morris.

Indeed the sight of so many fabulous book character costumes was either an utter delight or a nightmarish headtrip, sufficient to make you check the ingredients in your herbal tea. 

Congratulations to all children for keeping up their characters for the entire day, and to all you parents who worked the costumes so wonderfully.  Senior School too next year?  Mark the date and prepare, Senior School parents.  I imagine it is very hard to get a costume from ASDA for a fifteen year old at 9.45pm on a Wednesday evening.

That’s it from me.  More to share next week, but some recovery time is needed.  A final thank you to Mrs Storey who asked with a straight face “Ah, you are not well, poor man.  Is it all over your body… or is it just all in your head?” much to the hilarity of the office team.  Thanks, Laura.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mr Pollock

Headteacher

Cransley is evolving

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