Dear Families,
As we approach half term, I wanted to write to you with a couple of important updates that will impact the school moving forward.
Many of you will know that Preston was a school built in 1960 to accommodate around 600 pupils. We are proud of our site, including the significant developments undertaken over the years, but are aware that certain areas are no longer fit for a school of over 1000 pupils. One area which is undeniably undersized is our catering and canteen facilities, which see over 500 students a day fed a nutritious, hot meal. We have worked hard to streamline the service in this area, including the use of student fobs, and have recently increased the number of staff serving meals to ensure students queue for less time. That said, there is a limit to what can be achieved in a space the size of our current Hub.
I am delighted to share that before Christmas we were successful in being awarded a substantial central fund to help us expand our dining facilities. This is expected to be in the region of £2 million and will see a substantial development at Preston over the next 18 months. While still in the early stages of the design phase, and with planning permission still to come, the hope is that this will see a new Main Hall built on the current small hard courts, featuring a stage, retractable seating and modern audio-visual technology. In turn, this will see our current Hub expanded into the current Main Hall, which will become a permanent dining facility. This will significantly increase the indoor space for students to eat within, as well as adding an additional service counter to further increase service speed. As part of this project, we hope to convert the current stage area into additional student toilets, reducing demand on the blocks already present in the main corridor.
I am exceptionally excited about this project and see it as the natural next step in continuing to modernise the school. The facilities will improve student experience, increase wellbeing, and undoubtedly benefit the experience students receive as part of the Music and Drama curriculum areas. I am hugely grateful to the team who have worked to secure this funding, both internally, but also at Somerset Council.
We are still in the early stages of designing these new facilities, and students are unlikely to notice any changes this school year, while the architects and planning team work in the background. However, during the next school year we envisage building work will commence, with the aim of completing the works by September 2027.
You may have also seen significant press coverage over the last two weeks around mobile phones in schools, with the Department for Education strengthening their guidance that “schools should be mobile phone-free environments by default” and confirming that the “Department for Education (DfE) expects schools to implement a policy whereby pupils do not have access to their mobile phone throughout the school day including during lessons, the time between lessons, breaktimes and lunchtime”.
The policy at Preston has long been that mobile phones should be switched off and in the bottom of bags. I do fear however that this has not been consistently implemented, with students often using their mobile phones as fobs in the canteen, to check timetables, complete Kahoot-style quizzes in class or even to contact home. We will be strengthening our policy around mobile phones after half term to ensure that mobile phones are truly ‘not seen and not heard’ during the school day.
I appreciate that, for some, this may be a controversial topic, with phones used as a safety device on the way to and from school. Our updated policy will absolutely reflect and support you in this. Similarly, a small number of students use mobile phones as medical devices, to monitor blood sugar levels as part of a diabetes diagnosis. There will absolutely be exemptions for this. I would however ask for parental support in resetting our expectations around mobile phones. Too often, students claim to be contacting parents in the middle of the school day when asked to put their phone away. While I am sure this is often an inaccurate excuse, we do have a phone available in our reception if urgent contact home is required. Students should not be texting home during the school day.
I would also like to take this opportunity to remind students of the serious risks and consequences associated with false or inflammatory content shared on social media. Such posts can cause real harm to individuals and undermine trust within school communities. We have had a small number of incidents recently of students posting entirely fictitious content online and even creating false accounts pretending to be members of staff. The use of staff images, particularly from Google Classroom, is not only against the school’s behaviour policy but risks breaking data protection and GDPR legislation.
Finally, I would like to thank the families who completed the feedback survey shared in my last email home. I have read each response, including the open text question and hugely value this feedback. We have read through these in our senior leadership team meetings, and I will respond to as many of these as I can, including action plans for improvement, via our social media channels next term. The headline figure here is that 94.7% of families would recommend Preston School to another parent; this is something I am exceptionally proud of.
Thank you for your ongoing support,
Matt Doble