Posted on: March 23rd 2023

Headteacher Update 23.03.23

Alaric govan sml pic“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new” Socrates

There are two types of change. The first, which is my preferred way of working, is to change things in a planned way, and to communicate this properly to students, staff and parents/carers. The other is to make change quickly when something urgently needs to be addressed.

I don’t usually change things midweek, but behaviour between lessons over the past two weeks has been more challenging at times. Too many students have been late to lessons, which has been disrupting the learning of everyone else in the class. There have also been a small group of students who have been vandalising the toilets. This has meant that they have had to be closed while the site team has fixed them. On Tuesday, there were a number of toilets closed because of vandalism. The cost over this academic year has been in the tens of thousands of pounds. This is money that I would prefer to spend on improving the catering facilities, updating areas of the school that urgently need it, and employing more staff to support your children. On Tuesday, there were too many students out of lessons and I felt that I needed to address this immediately, not wait until next week.

I appreciate that communicating this via Facebook did not reach all of my intended audience. That was my mistake, going forward, we will improve this communication. 

To be clear, I haven't closed all of the toilets. All toilets are open before school, during break and lunch, and at the end of the school day. During lesson time, the downstairs toilets in Humanities remain open, as does a Disabled toilet next to the Lancastrian Hall. These toilets are centrally located within the school (and not all of our blocks have toilets anyway). Some students have medical cards to allow them to leave lessons. Students can go to the toilet during lessons if they need to, but we are encouraging them to do so during breaks or in between lessons, in the same way that staff have to.

My assemblies this week have been about personal responsibility. Students have a responsibility to be on time to lessons, to work hard, and to avoid disrupting the learning of other students. My own responsibility is to make this school a safe environment for all of the 1350 students at this school. Over the last two days, the corridors have been quieter during lessons and very few students have been out and about. Vandalism in the toilets has decreased.

In my message yesterday, I said that this decision would be reviewed at Easter and it will be. In an ideal world, I would like all toilets to be open at all times. But I do have a duty of care to improve behaviour across the school which is why I had to make this difficult decision.

A Govan
Headteacher

Image] Quote by Socrates : r/GetMotivated

 

 

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