Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors

Headteacher’s Letter 2 December 2022

Dear Parents and Carers
I began my day with two extremely kind communications from parents. The first was a £500 cheque to support local families. I am so grateful to this family and will ensure that Mrs Budd, our family support worker, can work with colleagues to help make a real difference. So kind and so incredibly generous!

The second was an email and another kind of generosity, this time of spirit. I have anonymised the email for you and it serves as both a review of Matilda – The Musical’s opening night, and something that my colleagues and the cast can also treasure…

Ever since Mrs Du Crôs (head of performing arts) and I first talked about staging our first musical since COVID about twelve months ago, we have all looked forward to the impact we know it will have on our audiences and our cast. I shall be there tonight with my family and cannot wait to see it for the first time. I am hoping the plot presents a revisionist interpretation of headteachers, who are so often unfairly maligned…

Last night, my family and I went to see the Matilda production of which my daughter was in the chorus. In all honesty I was expecting to be spending the night checking my watch, fidgeting in my chair and wishing I was anywhere but using up my evening at a school play(!)

How wrong I was! Instead, the time flew by, I was on the edge of my seat and found myself laughing, crying, and simply wishing for more. What the staff and students of Chipping Norton School achieved should be something you are all proud of. What I witnessed last night was a perfect piece of entertainment, one I would have watched with joy even if my child wasn’t in it. I had tears of emotion streaming down my face during Miss Honey’s solo (and I don’t even know who the talented actress was!) – such a beautiful performance, and your Miss Trunchball was perfection!

I would love for you to share my thoughts with the team involved. I’m sure they know they were exceptionally brilliant, but they deserve to hear all the praise that I’m sure they will receive, and know that the time and effort they put in was worth every second of what I, and the entire audience, experienced last night.
I would also love to thank the staff providing the refreshments, a wonderful touch to help deliver the perfect evening.

So what I’m trying to say is thank you! Thank you so much Chipping Norton School for one of the most memorable evenings of my life. I envy everyone who gets to see this tonight and tomorrow!

Your school is amazing, and you should be so proud of the talent and effort everyone has put in for this play. Thank you for delivering such a beautiful performance.

Young Activist Finalist – Harriet Pike

]Congratulations are also due to Harriet, who was a finalist in Got2b’s West Oxfordshire Youth Awards, in the activism category. Harriet embodies that goal for our young people to shape their world and not be shaped by it. Harriet is passionate about the future of our planet and campaigns to raise awareness and encourage collective action to steer our planet to safety.

Sustainability Team

Harriet’s achievement came as we work towards the creation of a sustainability team at CNS. I have asked Harriet to be the chair of this team and will join me, our site manager, school business manager, catering manager, several curriculum leaders, and a further six student representatives. We will agree, together, our terms of reference, but the broad goal will be to reduce our carbon emissions and raise awareness. More on this in the New Year.

Next Pre-Loved Uniform Sale – Tuesday 13 December 2022

Which links very neatly to pre-loved uniform. Please dig out any unwanted or outgrown items and leave them in the special container any day next week. This relatively new initiative is gathering pace and is proving to be more and more popular – but we rely on families to dig out that unused ‘stuff’ so that we can sell to other families and raise further funds that go straight back to supporting families in need.

And just a quick thank you to Jon, one of our parents, who designs our rather snazzy posters!

Chippy Larder Event

We also hope that families received the recent flier from Chippy Larder. This invites members of the community to a support event on Friday 9 December, between 10:00am and 12:30pm at the leisure centre.

Behaviour Matters

I shall not write or speak too soon but this term has been quite remarkable in a number of respects. We do not live in a fantasy that suggests we do not have ‘issues’, but the vast majority of students are, for the vast majority of the time, doing all the right things and ensuring that we can teach and everyone can learn. My teaching colleagues are extremely busy marking year 11 and now year 13 mocks, assessing other year groups and entering data for your reports. Their lives are made so much easier by knowing we can rely on your children to be positive, helpful and engaged. I plan to write to you on another occasion about the use of social media outside school and how this is causing great sadness for children in school. One for another time, but as we consider gifts for Christmas note that without us carefully supervising and monitoring how our children are manipulating technology, that technology can end up manipulating our children.

Attendance Matters

As we enter the final weeks of term we again ask for your full support in encouraging the very highest levels of attendance right up until the very last day, on Tuesday 20 December. Whilst we don’t aspire to be The Grinch or Scrooge, we do teach and plan learning until the end of term and so please do not listen to stories of us watching Shrek or that the last week or days of term do not matter. Every day counts, but the final morning of term will be a chance to take our foot off the gas and wind down and be ready for the break.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Yours faithfully
Barry Doherty
Headteacher

Book A Tour