Headteacher’s Welcome to The Radclyffe School (T)

Mr Cregg – Headteacher’s Welcome to The Radclyffe School

Please choose your language.

Hello, and a very warm welcome to our virtual Open Evening. My name is John Cregg and I’m extremely proud to be the Headteacher of The Radclyffe School.

As we are all too aware, we are currently living through exceptional times and it is unfortunately not possible at the moment to invite you and your family to visit the school and for you to experience in person the wonderful quality of education we offer. However, we completely understand that all parents and carers wish to be as well informed as possible before making a decision regarding their child’s secondary education.

We hope, therefore that through the virtual experiences and online resources on our new and improved website you will be able to gain a full appreciation of our ethos, values, standards and successes – and be fully confident The Radclyffe School is the right school for your child and the next five years of their learning journey.

The Radclyffe School is an Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ secondary school which provides a first-class, comprehensive education in a twenty-first century learning environment.

Our ethos is summarised by the school’s motto of ‘Working Together for Excellence’: we will always put our young people at the very centre of everything we do and as a staff team we work tirelessly to support, guide and lead our students to improve their knowledge and understanding across the curriculum. We also ensure that we encourage our students to support one another, develop friendships and to grow to become good and responsible citizens.

Our core values are based around the 5 Respects which guide all of our actions and daily behaviours: to speak and behave respectfully, to respect the school environment, respect one’s own learning and the learning of others. We insist upon extremely high standards of conduct and appearance – with a clear uniform policy to support this.

We have amazing facilities in every subject area and I encourage you to take a close look at all the faculty information and see this for yourself. All of our students are taught in a first-class learning environment across their entire timetable which gives them every opportunity to flourish and succeed.

In the last 12 months we have made great strides in developing and further improving our curriculum and we provide an exceptional, personalised learning experience in all year groups. We have broadened and deepened the Key Stage 3 curriculum, which now covers Years 7 to 9 and provides an excellent foundation for GCSE study in Years 10 and 11. We also have a huge range of extra-curricular opportunities in all subject areas.

Our aim is to allow each child to fulfil their own potential and we understand that all young people have their own unique and individual set of skills and talents. All subjects are equally valued at the school and we are able to provide wonderful opportunities for students to excel in all areas. As well as enabling exceptional success in core subjects, science, humanities, technologies and languages we have achieved Platinum School status in Sports and the Performing Arts. Just to take one example from many, we have very recently started a partnership with the Music in Secondary Schools Trust which means that every single child joining us in Year 7 will be provided with their own musical instrument which they keep for three years and can use to practise at school and at home.

We are a fully inclusive school and welcome students of all abilities and from all backgrounds and faiths. We have a unique pastoral and welfare system based around our Personal Learning Guides, Year Managers, Learning Mentors and associated staff. Students who need additional support receive this from our excellent curriculum support team who are extremely experienced and provide a personal, bespoke package for each child in their care.

Now more than ever we are clearly focused on the safety of all our school community and have many special systems and measures in place to keep everyone as safe as possible during the current national restrictions. Alongside this we have a dedicated and experienced team of senior staff with responsibility for safeguarding who do an amazing job on a daily basis to look after our young people and protect them from harm.

The Radclyffe School prides itself on our positive culture, based around celebrating success and rewarding achievement in all contexts. There are countless opportunities for our students to demonstrate their own outstanding talents and for this to be recognised in school – whether by receiving a positive log from a member of staff or by receiving the prestigious accolade of a Headteacher’s award and having their name recorded permanently in our Book of Excellence. We also strongly promote and develop personal leadership skills and provide many opportunities for this, with the pinnacle being our Head Girl and Boy who represent the school as well as their fellow students.

We understand that the transition from primary to secondary school can be a daunting one and we do all that we can to ease and support that process. Miss Bennett, Assistant Headteacher, has a dedicated transition role and ensures that we gather all of the relevant information from primary schools about each child so we can plan for them to have a successful start to Year 7. Not only will this senior leader and her transition team oversee the initial transition, they will retain pastoral responsibility for them until the end of Year 7 to ensure that any issues that arise in their first year will be addressed by a dedicated team of people who have detailed knowledge of them.

To conclude, I thank you for taking an interest in our school and for visiting our Virtual Open Evening. I very much encourage you to take a close look at all of the resources available so you can make an informed decision about your child’s secondary education. We always consider it a privilege when a family entrusts their child to us for five years and we very much hope that you will make the decision that The Radclyffe School is the right choice for you and your child.