Board of Trustees

Dear Parents and Carers

As Trustees we wanted to share with you how much the school has grown and changed over the last 4 years.

In addition to the huge amount of site work that has taken place-we estimate around 3 and a half million over this period of time we have heavily invested in the School’s pastoral, Achievement and SEND structure.

Our Pastoral structure used to be that each year group had an Achievement Co-ordinator who was a teacher who had a slightly reduced timetable.  They had their own office and they would have responsibility for the achievement and pastoral care of the students in their year group.  We now have 4 Pastoral Leads who are teachers that have a reduced timetable and they are responsible for the pastoral care of the students in their House-Malala, Angelou, Parks and Lovelace.  They are part of a significantly larger Safeguarding team as well.  In addition, each House has a full-time non-teacher who is a Pastoral Assistant. Their role is much more than just pastoral care as they have mental health first aid training as well as being trained to run specialist interventions with students. Tracy Knott, our Mental Health and Wellbeing Coordinator and Mark Hitchen Assistant Headteacher (Senior Mental Health Lead) lead this area of our school support which has cut down waiting times for students accessing support they need. All of this care is based within our Pastoral hub.

We now have a clear and separate Achievement Team who work with students across a Year group.  From September, Miss Windle will lead on transition and Year 7 Achievement.  Mrs Clark will lead on Year 8 and 9.  Mr Halstead will lead on Year 10 and 11. Mrs Gillespie leads on our pupil premium students. They support all students with academic and personal development skills, across all abilities, to increase their life chances and aspirations to construct a sense of themselves as a success

My name is Gerry Heath I have been involved with Sandbach High for over 20 years, positive behaviour has always been at the hub of our school environment.  It is the strong foundation that all learning is based, we pride ourselves in a safe, happy and disciplined arena for learning.

When we have disturbance within that setting, it is to the detriment of all, this includes staff as well as students and with that in mind we are always focused on any breaches that take place.  Having said that our systems for dealing with breaches are firm but fair and our pastoral care team along with the SLT will give every opportunity for poor behaviour to be put right, thus restoring our treasured place of learning to the required standard set by the Trustees.  A great deal of specialist expertise has gone into ensuring that in our school students feel safe because they know that learning will be protected by really clear and consistent application of the Model of Excellence. Our high standards of behaviour is part of our DNA at Sandbach High and I am sure it is why so many of you choose to send your children here - for many of you this is at great cost due to your children living further away from school.

SEND here is now unrecognisable.  Our SENDCO Jess Squires has been in post since June 2021 and with the support of Mark Hitchen, Assistant Headteacher (also a Qualified SENDCO) they have completely transformed the team and provision in the Bridge.  They have acted on historical feedback to provide a provision for our SEND children that we are really proud of.  This was expanded further in July 2024 with two non-teaching Assistant SENDCOs Miss Lester and Ms Harper. Our Learning Support team is large, skilled and is dedicated to our SEND children. Teaching staff have and continue to have ongoing training and our SEND students do succeed due to the team and the work teachers do in the classroom every day.

Finally, as Trustees we were thrilled to hear from Ellie Griffiths a few weeks ago talking about the Literacy support that our highly qualified Literacy team (3 teachers) who deliver high quality Literacy intervention to students who are 2 years or more below their reading age.  They also provided skilled support to our growing number of EAL (English as an Additional Language) students.  The impact of their work is so impressive however we know the importance of ensuring that the impact of this work is sustained while the students move throughout our school.

I wish you all an enjoyable summer.

Gerry Heath

Vice Chair of Trustees