17th May 2017
Dear Parents / Carers
As it has been a little while since I last wrote to you I would like to take this opportunity to bring you up to
date with developments here at Stoke High School – Ormiston Academy.
I hope you enjoyed, as I did, the newsletter that was out last term, if you have not seen a copy then
please visit our website on http://www.stokehs.suffolk.sch.uk/Newsletter/
In addition to all of the good news stories in the newsletter, I am also very proud to confirm that our
students raised £70 for the Ormiston Families charity, £600 for Save the Children, during our Christmas
Jumper Day, and almost £900 with the various events of the recent Red Nose Day.
We have recently had a monitoring visit by Ofsted on Friday 21st April, I am delighted to report that the
feedback received was extremely positive and you can find this in full on our website at
http://www.stokehs.suffolk.sch.uk/docs/OFSTED_REPORT.pdf
To summarise the findings, the school is making excellent progress towards achieving a ‘Good’ Ofsted
rating at the next inspection. The inspector remarked upon calm, purposeful and constructive classroom
environments, consistent feedback on written work, and improved student progress overall. Whilst I am
very happy with the direction that the school is taking, we are still presented with challenges going
forward, these include a focus on the progress of disadvantaged students and attendance overall.
As you will be aware safeguarding the welfare of young people here at Stoke High School – Ormiston
Academy is a high priority for us. As a part of safeguarding we are required to have a ‘lockdown’
procedure as a statutory requirement, this is to enable the school to ensure the safety of its students in
the eventuality of a reported incident or civil disturbance in the local community with the potential to pose
a risk, or as a result of a warning being received regarding the risk of air pollution, or even the possibility
of an intruder on the school site. We will be sharing the details of what to do in the event of a lockdown
with our students, over the coming month and at some point after half term we will be potting this into
practice in the same way as we would do with a fire drill. This is not intended to be distressing in any
ways and I am sure that our students will bear with it in the same mature manner as with the fire alarm.
As always this is a vital term in the school year, with preparations for year 11 and year 10 as they enter
the summer examination period underway, and I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our
students the very best of luck. I know how so many of them are working extremely hard, and would
remind parents of the opportunities that are available to the students in order to access further revision,
these include our after-school #Period 6 sessions. In the case of examinations, the best form of stress
relief is to feel fully prepared for the task ahead.
If I could take this opportunity to remind parents that students should be in school as often as possible,
minimising time outside of the classroom will have a direct and positive impact on how well young people
progress in their studies, and ultimately their examination performances. We are presently running a
number of initiatives to help motivate our
students to attend as frequently as possible, and I am proud to say that many of our students have
excellent attendance records.
We are always looking for new ways to communicate the great things that are going on in our school
and up to the minute information on activities and achievements, please take the opportunity to follow
us on our Twitter; @StokeHigh where we endeavour to tweet as regularly as possible in order to keep
parents, and the community as a whole, up to date. In addition, we also run a Parents Forum which
you would be very welcome to attend, the next one of these is due to take place on Monday 22nd May at
6.00 pm in the Stoke Community Library, please contact us on [email protected] if you wish to
attend.
Please could I also draw your attention to some of our upcoming events this term, these include
Activities Week, Year 10 Work Experience, Shakespeare Week and Sports Day, to name but a few.
We thank you for your continued support in ensuring that our young people are afforded every
opportunity to develop, and become the very best that they can be.
Yours sincerely
G. Mellor
Glenn Mellor
Principal