A warm welcome to our new students. I hope that you’ve had a great first week. Your behaviour and uniform have been immaculate!
So let’s talk about results.
Looking back at 2013-14, I am proud to say that we’ve lived up to our Carpe Diem school motto. We’ve certainly seized the day and made the most of the exciting opportunities which have come our way.
Look at what we’ve achieved: record breaking GCSE results, great OFSTED report and the increasing support of prospective parents. Remarkably, we’ve admitted 60 students by mid term transfer since September so the good word about us is definitely getting round. It’s great to know that parents and carers from all over North Tyneside and south Northumberland are seeing us as their first choice of secondary school, even though they don’t live in our immediate locality.
And to top it all, it is thrilling to know that we have secured government funding for an entirely new school building. So in September 2016 we will open the doors to a brand new Marden High School, containing far superior opportunities for academic study and fully integrated provision for technology, sport and the arts so that the extracurricular life of the school will flourish even more.
A big event happened this week.
We saw the first designs of our new school building.
In an exciting two hour meeting, the architects talked us through their initial ideas for a compact, state of the art, 21st century school for 900 pupils with suites of subjects strategically positioned around the campus. But the most important feature was that they had listened to our “design drivers”. We told them that we wanted a modern environment but that the essential components of the Marden DNA were not for sale: Carpe Diem, teaching and learning come first, everyone matters…you know the kind of thing. And it was thrilling to see that they were all there, but even better than they are now. So in September 2016 we will open the doors to brand new facilities, containing far superior opportunities for academic study and ( here’s the big point) fully integrated provision for technology, sport and the arts so that the extracurricular life of the school will flourish even more.
We are proud to announce that Year 9 student Rebecca Moore has been successful in her application for the Health & Wellbeing position for the North Tyneside Young Cabinet. Well done Rebecca!
Well, it’s happened.
The phone call came at 12.05 on Tuesday and by 16.30 on Thursday it was all over.
OFSTED
The single most intense and dramatic event in the life of a modern school had come and gone.
Now before I go any further, I’m not allowed to tell you the inspectors’ verdict before the publication of the final report in a couple of weeks time. Let’s just say that the staff and I are looking forward to reading it.
I must also say that we were overwhelmed by the massive support from parents and carers we received in person and on Parent View. The inspectors were amazed by the positivity of the responses and I hope that this is fairly represented in their judgements. You can find the Parent View findings very easily on the Internet where you’ll read that 96% would recommend Marden to other parents.
So what was it like to be “ Ofstedded”?
Thanks once again to everyone who attended our Awards Evening last week, in which we celebrated the achievements of last year’s Year 11 leavers, who recorded the BEST EVER GCSE results in the history of North Tyneside.
