This week’s blog entry comes courtesy of Mr Allman, Pastoral Manager for Key Stage 4..

Wow, my first blog entry! It’s been great to see all of our pupils back at school and in good order – I think I would go as far as to say I’ve missed our pupils over this half term..

The first week back for the Pastoral team here at Spring Brook Academy has been a very busy one and we have had to enlist some of our pupils to assist us. So a big shout out to Callum who helped tidy our office after a small incident which saw a pile of paper being re-enacted as a carpet, Levi who has been instrumental in keeping our TAs wits about them and how can we forget Connor D. who ensured that our computers remained working after a technical hitch with the plug being switched off at the wall (and I still haven’t heard the last of it!).

We started the week with the sad news of the London attack. This being so soon after the Manchester attack gave me the chance to spend some quality time with our pupils who felt worried and affected by these atrocities. To see how our children respond to these kinds of incidents is heart-warming and reassures us that our pupils do care about the community and want to help.

I’d like at this point to say a huge WELL DONE to my Key Stage 4 pupils who are currently in the middle of their GCSEs – I am hearing good things from our invigilators. Keep up the hard work, it will be worth it in the end..

Also, a big thank you to Key Stage 3 who, on the whole, after putting up with disruptions of staff and classroom changes, have managed to keep the noise down so that the exams aren’t affected. So thanks again!

With the end of the academic year fast approaching, we are starting to look at what the future holds for Spring Brook Academy. We will be seeing some of the Year 6s soon and Key Stage 4 will hopefully be starting some work placements, and with the Springboard Project on its way there are going to be a lot more changes occurring. So to our pupils I say ‘Try and stay calm, you have done this before. We will go through this together,’ and to our staff…well, I say the same thing.

Before I sign off, a quick shout out to Miss Beaumont: thank you for going travelling, I hope you both are enjoying your time away in Australia. Without your decision to go, I personally wouldn’t have had the opportunity to help our young people in such a unique way and although we all miss you, please take your time coming back!

Finally, no good blog is complete with out an inspirational quote..

‘Many of life’s failures come from people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up.’ – Thomas Edison, inventor of the lightbulb.

Keep it up kids, you are doing great!

Mr Allman
Key Stage 4 Pastoral Manager

You can find all our weekly blog entries here

Mr Quinn has been with the children on the Disneyland Paris residential this week but you can view his previous blog entries here