An Update from Simon Danciger, Chair of the Board of Governors.

School Governors agreed at our last meeting that we will focus on five objectives over the coming year in order to move towards our vision of academic excellence at the heart of our community:

• Increase year seven entry numbers, with focus on our link primary schools. There is an obvious opportunity for the Community Board to help here. We have seen a significant increase in applications for September 2011 (over 100 already confirmed acceptance of a place), with very encouraging numbers from Barnes Primary. We now need to build on this with our other link primary schools.
  
  
• Move more teaching from satisfactory to good and good to outstanding. We are fortunate to have a core team of outstanding rated teachers at the school, as many, if not more than most secondaries of comparable size. These outstanding teachers are providing best practice which we want to see inspire all our teachers.
  
  
• Make the most of our £10 million capital funding. One of the obvious benefits of academy status, we now need to use the money to good effect. Again, Community Board members with relevant skills are welcome to contribute to the planning.
  
  
• Improve our GCSE 5 A*-C inc English & Maths performance. Academic excellence is at the heart of what we want to achieve. We are about to embark on reviews of Maths and English provision to ensure we are delivering the best possible curriculum. We are stepping up Gifted and Talented provision, introducing Latin for top sets in Year 7 for September 2011.
  
  
• Improve our punctuality and attendance performance. We have already seen improvement in the last term which is encouraging. Over the coming months we will review the school day to determine whether the current timetable / hours is the most effective.

Simon