With the heat of the Summer Diamond Jubilee Festival and Sports Day now a warm and distant memory, another year draws to a close. This holiday season is always a time for reflection as well as looking forward to a new year. We began this term reflecting in our opening assembly on the idea that being your best sometimes means learning from your worst and believing in your best when others don’t!
2018 has seen many achievements for so many students and staff and a brief glimpse at our news stories and twitter account includes numerous successful educational experiences that have taken place outside of the classroom: CERN, field trips, theatre visits, foreign language exchanges, art galleries, university lectures and glittering success in national academic competitions. We have been visited by guest speakers such as Ian Callum and Dr David Landsman and strengthened even further our links with our local charities and parish councils. Our Duke of Edinburgh Award participation levels are building and we now offer bronze, silver and gold. This year’s Festive Concert and production of Popstars: the 90’s musical were a joy and showcased the broad range of talent our student’s possess.
Sporting highlights include: one of our Year 8 students playing some fantastic golf against older players on the Brabazon course at the Belfry; two of our students performing so well after representing Solihull at the county cross country championships that they gained their West Midlands vests to compete in the inter-regional match in Cheshire; we have had a full term of football with our Year 7 & 9 boys progressing in rounds of the cup and the Year 7 & 8 girls coming second in their debut tournament. All four girl’s netball teams have made positive starts with wins under their belts, likewise the four boys basketball teams have made an equally solid start, competing in their respective leagues. The overall spirit is one of embracing new activities, working hard to improve and striving for more.
At both open evenings this term our Head Boy and Head Girl spoke of their experience of a school where everyone can excel through effort. They reflected on the need to make mistakes and to be given the opportunity to learn from them. They outlined experiences which had challenged them to “think-hard” and allowed them to grow. Becoming a reflective and creative thinker is key to achieving success and it was heartening to hear them clarify to future students, parents and carers that they had been taught how to think rather than what to think at Heart of England. This brings us full circle to the idea of believing in yourself, daring to be your best and learning from rather than fearing mistakes.
Being kind is central to our values and that includes being kind to yourself. There is much that many will be coping with this holiday and our students have done much to raise money for charities such as Shelter and are indeed a credit to our school. This year we ended the term with QuizMas, a live Fusion Radio broadcast from our own Recording Studio, created and hosted by Miss Clare with guest appearances from staff and students. We tuned in as a whole school and agreed that humour is alive and well at HoE!
Thanks to you and all who have helped us this year as we strive together to create safer and more brilliant futures for our children. Thanks also to our dedicated staff, governors and PTA who work so hard all year. As always I will end on a student comment which came at the end of the first night of our school production on Tuesday of this week. “This school rocks!”
I hope that you have a good holiday and take good care of each other.
J Hughes-Williams