Dear UCC Families

 

What a wonderful week we have had at UCC. We hosted two world renowned education gurus on Tuesday, as part of an exciting project we were fortunate enough to be selected for. John Tomsett and Tom Sherrington are former headteachers, authors of many excellent education books and now highly sought-after education consultants. They have selected 6 schools to form part of their Improving Teaching Programme this year, using a set of books called Walk Thrus, which contain evidence-based approaches to highly effective teaching. In total they will spend three days at UCC during 2022-23, observing lessons and working with Senior Leaders and Heads of Department to refine and further enhance our teaching practices. Tuesday was day one of the programme and it was simply brilliant. Having external experts observe lessons at UCC and then help us shape our strategies to make teaching here even better was a great experience for everyone involved and we are already looking forward to them returning in November. 

 

We are working with students to ensure they are on time for all of their lessons. Punctuality is an important attribute to develop and it is of course, an essential aspect of the adult world when it comes to work and professionalism. In order to prepare students for the demands of the workplace, we focus on punctuality so they develop great habits and are ready for the requirements that will be placed upon them in adulthood. If students arrive late to a lesson they receive a C1 behaviour point for being late and when these start to add up, Progress Leaders organise detentions at lunchtimes. You can check your child's points total (House Points minus Behaviour Points) using the School Gateway app. Please have a conversation with your child if you can see they have been late for a lesson and remind them of the importance of punctuality. 

 

We have been made aware, through our partnership work with the Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland, Drug Alert - Professional Information Network (PIN), that the use of vapes in the under 18 age group is extremely high. If students are caught vaping on the journey to or from school, or whilst on the school site, or if they have any vaping paraphernalia on their person, they will be suspended from school. We are treating vaping very seriously as the police have shown us identical receptacles of liquids used for vaping, both smelling and looking exactly the same, but one is laced with extremely high levels of THC, a synthetic drug which is incredibly dangerous. Again, I would greatly appreciate you speaking with your child/children about the dangers of vaping - this is a conversation I am having with my own son, who is 13; the easy availability of vapes to young people is worrying and it is very easy for children to conceal their use of them. It is not like in years gone by, when teenagers may have been drawn into smoking cigarettes whilst underage - vapes won't leave any residue that can be detected by a distinctive scent and therefore we can only tackle this through educating our children about the dangers of vaping by having open and honest conversations with them.  

 

We were due to have the Police present sessions for KS3 students on County Lines dangers this morning, but due to staffing issues they had to cancel at the last minute. We will reschedule this important workshop as quickly as we can, and we will let you know the new date as soon as we've organised it. 

 

Please take the time to read through the rest of the newsletter, so you are up to date with everything that has been happening at UCC.  

 

I hope you have a great weekend.

 

Mr Solly.