Newsletter, 24th October 2023

Good morning,

I hope that you and your family are well, and that all our students are enjoying a restful half-term break. Our first half-term of the 2023/24 school year ended very positively here at Westfield despite the very wet weather brought by Storm Babet on the final Friday of term. At one point, our students spotted a goose on our school field - it had presumably mistaken the enormous puddle that formed there for the lake at Rother Valley!

October Updates

We would encourage all families to take a few minutes to view two important video updates that have been uploaded to our website by Mr Clayton, our Assistant Headteacher in charge of behaviour & engagement. As you will be aware, we launched the Westfield Way with our school community in September and, so far it has provided an excellent framework for ensuring we have high expectations of our students’ conduct. Our October updates build on the themes of the Westfield Way.

• Update 1 focusses on how we can maximise lesson time for our students, through a clear and concise approach to punctuality. It also details how and when students can access toilets throughout the school day without this having a detrimental impact on their learning. You can view update 1 here.
• Update 2 focusses on how we provide positively framed feedback to our students around their behaviour & attitude to learning. It encompasses our approach to celebrating and rewarding positive behaviours, and how we offer feedback to students to correct unwanted behaviours. The update covers changes to our approach to sanctioning students to ensure that our sanctions are a fair and proportionate disincentive to negative and disruptive behaviour. You can view update 2 here.

 

Year 7 Settling In Evening

Thank you to the many families who joined us in school on Thursday evening for our Year 7 Settling In Evening. The evening provided a very important opportunity for parents and carers of our Year 7 students to meet their child’s form teacher, to learn more about what their children are learning across the curriculum, to view some of the work that their children have produced, and to review their first seven weeks at Westfield. Mrs Page, our Key Stage Leader for transition and Year 7, was delighted with how the evening went and was impressed by the many positive reports and smiling faces as students and their families left following their appointments.

 

Year 9 Photography Trip

Well done to our Year 9 photography students who last week visited Sheffield city centre to photograph some of the famous landmarks in our fabulous city. On their return to the classroom, students will manipulate these photographs to create incredible, creative pieces of art that will form a key part of their coursework for this GCSE qualification. Each year these projects yield the most beautiful work and I look forward to again having some on display in my office and around the school!

 

Year 7 Football News

Commiserations to our Year 7 boys football team who fell to their first defeat last week against local rivals Birley. Despite being the better team, the boys were edged out in a tough away fixture. Nevertheless, the team can look forward to the challenge of the quarter-final of the Sheffield Cup that awaits them next half-term.

 

We hope our students enjoy what remains of the half-term break and return refreshed and recharged on Monday 30^th  October for a busy eight weeks until we break again for Christmas. The coming half-term is a particularly busy one for Year 11, who will begin visiting Sixth Forms and will sit their first set of Year 11 mock exams.

With many thanks for your ongoing excellent support.

Joe Birkbeck

Head of Westfield School