Dear parents and carers,

This week we were visited by our School Improvement Partner, Piers Ranger, for his first review of UCC of this academic year. Mr Ranger is a very experienced former headteacher and Ofsted inspector and he completes three visits each year to support and challenge us towards achieving our vision and goals as a school. Each time Mr Ranger visits we observe a number of lessons and he meets with me and other leaders in the school to provide strong external scrutiny of our provision. He was very impressed with his visit this week and we saw some superb teaching as we walked around the school during the morning. Our students were an absolute credit to the school and really impressed him whenever he interacted with them; however there was nothing special being put on, it was simply just another day at UCC and this was very pleasing for me. 

I was also very pleased to see how well our sports teams competed this week. Our rugby girls played superbly at Lutterworth RFC and received high praise from Mr Sievewright, whilst our Year 10 boys' cup run ended with a valiant effort against the City of Leicester. Thank you to all our students who represented UCC so brilliantly. 

Yesterday we welcomed our Spanish exchange students who will be staying with UCC families over the next few days and experiencing English culture. This exchange programme is still going strong thanks to the excellent work of Mrs Brooks and the goodwill and generosity of our host families who always make our Spanish visitors feel welcome and part of our community. At a time where school trips, especially foreign exchanges, are so difficult to organise, I think it is fantastic that our Spanish exchange continues to thrive and provide our students with a wonderful opportunity to make new friends and practise their Spanish skills.

I always talk with great enthusiasm about our core values of respect, honesty and kindness and I love to see examples of them being demonstrated by our students and staff. I saw kindness in abundance last week as our students worked really hard to raise money for Children In Need. At the last count we had raised £1600 which is a terrific effort from our school community and I know our students will be very proud of all that money going to a very good cause. 

We host Year 10 parents' evening next Thursday and I am very much looking forward to meeting many of you at this event. If you are a parent of a student in Year 10, please do your very best to attend with your son/daughter as we believe this vital dialogue between teachers, parents and students contributes positively to student progress and development.

I hope you have a great weekend.

Mr Solly