Dear Families,
Firstly, I hope you had a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas break, although I imagine I am not the only one for whom it suddenly feels a long time ago! I would also like to join all of the staff at Preston in wishing you a happy New Year.
The end of last term was an exciting one at Preston. Our first staff quiz after school on the final Monday saw our administrative team crowned champions, beating every one of our teaching departments, while our excellent Christmas lunch was enjoyed by over 400 students later in the week. Thankfully, the wet weather of the final Thursday abated, and the last day saw two alpacas visit the school as part of our Zero Club and High Five rewards. It was lovely to see so many young people take part in this, and it was a brilliant reflection on the positive behaviour seen over the term.
Behaviour is often a challenge in schools, and like most, we absolutely face our share of challenges. That said, we have seen significant improvements in nearly every behaviour metric this school year. The number of behaviour events recorded this year has been lower every single week than the equivalent week last year and the year before. Last week, for example, saw 317 behaviour events recorded across our 1,004 pupils; the first week back in 2025 saw 603 behaviour events, while the first week back in 2024 saw 960 events. I am delighted to see instances of poor behaviour continue to reduce.
You will know that punctuality to lessons was a huge priority for the school this year, with a new, strict five-minute late bell introduced. We did this as we felt a growing number of students were actively choosing to be late, and that a short, sharp course correction was needed. This year, 99 students have been late by more than five minutes under our new late bell. However, 70 of these students have been late once and have not since repeated this behaviour, demonstrating again the impact of our high standards, as well as our students’ ability to rise to these. This time last year, we had 2,941 instances of lateness of more than five minutes recorded. This year, this number is 148, marking a 94.97% reduction in lateness to lessons. I would like to congratulate our students again on this brilliant improvement.
Homework remains a challenge and is the area from which the majority of our behaviour logs arise; 197 of the 317 behaviour logs last week related to homework. I would appreciate your continued support from home in checking homework via Google Classroom, as well as the Friday email home. Homework not only reinforces the learning undertaken at school, reducing the content students naturally forget, but also sets them up with brilliant learning habits for Year 11, when revision becomes a vital element in securing positive outcomes.
This week, our Year 11 students started the six-week countdown to their final mock examinations, which will take place during the fortnight commencing 2nd March. The six-week countdown is available via the Portal and provides students with clear revision tasks each week. This revision is vital; students have just 14 school weeks until their real exams begin, with many students sitting at least 25 papers over a six-week period.
This remains a busy term for all year groups though, with a number of brilliant opportunities open to students in the coming months. Monday sees a group of students take part in a prestigious public speaking competition in Taunton, while Thursday sees footballers from Yeovil Town Football Club continue interventions with a small group of students. The author Annabel Pitcher visits Preston on Monday 26th January, while students in Years 9 and 10 will sit the Intermediate UK Maths Challenge on Wednesday 28th January. A group of our science students will also visit Science Live in Bath. On Thursday 29th January, all Year 10 students will visit the University of Bath. The start of February brings our Year 10 Parents’ Evening, an all-important opportunity to gain feedback on the start students have made to their GCSE courses.
We are proud of the additional opportunities we provide for our students, and I would encourage all families to again look at the extracurricular page on the school website. This page currently lists 55 extracurricular clubs running this term, ranging from additional academic support through to exciting opportunities such as our race car club and our Duke of Edinburgh scheme.
I am keen that Preston School continues to improve in all areas. To support this, I am keen to gain regular feedback from our families. As part of this, we have created an internal version of the Ofsted Parent View survey shared during inspections. This short feedback form contains ten questions and should take no longer than five minutes to complete. I would be hugely grateful if you were able to complete this; the feedback will help guide our priorities as we move forward. Please see the email for this link
Sadly, I must also share the news that our school nurse, Ann Lambert, will retire at February half term. Ann has provided amazing service to the school and wider community, tending to thousands of students over her 22 years in education. I know you will all join me in wishing Ann well for the future.
Finally, I would like to politely remind families about the lack of parking on Monks Dale. We have received feedback from a number of local residents that driveways have been blocked and private parking spaces used by families, particularly when the weather is poor.
Thank you for your ongoing support. I look forward to another successful term and will write to you again as we approach the February half-term break.
Thank you,
Matt Doble