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Hear from the Principal 17.03.21

Return to College

First and foremost, I would like to thank all of our parent community for the support you have given us as we have transitioned back to the physical classroom. As you will be aware, strict COVID-19 protocols are still in place, and will remain throughout the term, which we hope is providing reassurance for the whole College and local community around our reopening.

We are pleased to confirm that we have a large body of trained testers and staff supporting the College with our mass testing programme, and we are in the midst of undertaking almost 5,000 tests in a fortnight; administering 12 tests every 10 minutes throughout the day via appointments that have been booked online. All of our staff are also being tested twice a week from home.

We hope that none of our students will be required to isolate, however, if this does occur, then we will be live streaming the full timetable from the classroom to students’ homes via Microsoft Teams, to ensure that no learning is missed.


Congratulations to our mathletes!

I was thrilled to receive an email from our Lead Practitioner of Mathematics, Mrs Scholten, this week, to inform me of the amazing achievements of our Mathematics students in the United Kingdom Mathematical Trust Intermediate Challenge. Over 50 of our students will be receiving certificates to celebrate completion of the challenge, 17 of which have been invited to take part in the next stage of the challenge, and two of our students have been invited through to the Olympiad stage of the challenge!

Huge congratulations to all students involved, who have shown true dedication to completing the challenge remotely and out of school time too.


A growing IB cohort

I am delighted that we have made a record number of offers to students to study the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) at our sixth form for this September. I am particularly pleased to see that, year on year, the number of students choosing to stay on from the main College continues to grow, despite the very competitive post-16 market in the area.


Student spotlight: Emilie S.

I would like to share huge congratulations to Year 11 student, Emilie S., who last week received the Sportswoman of the Year Award as part of the prestigious Roy Burrell Sports Awards! Emilie is a shining example of our student cohort and the accolades they can go on to achieve. Emilie, who is currently signed to Arsenal Football Club and has played twice for England, wholeheartedly deserves this recognition for her determination and dedication to football; a wonderful inspiration and role model to all our other students.

We can’t wait to see all that Emilie achieves in the bright future that is ahead of her.


Leading the way in flexible working

I am proud to share that the College has been appointed as the Flexible Working Ambassador School (FWAS) in the East of England and North-East London region, joining seven other schools in England delivering the programme between April 2021 – December 2022.

We have been selected based on the strength of our policies, practices and culture that supports flexible working across our management, teaching and non-teaching positions. We are incredibly passionate about flexible working and the impact remains clear for our College – over the last three years we have seen staff absence rates significantly improve and staff retention has also been enhanced.

I am so proud that we have been given the status of a flexible working champion, and I am looking forward to sharing best practices with schools across the region to improve retention rates and positively impact learning communities.



March 17, 2021