Our ref: 16-17/ltrs/JM
Date: 30 March 2017
Dear Parents
As promised in my last letter, this time my focus is on communicating the various curriculum changes
that we are bringing in with effect from September 2017. I will begin with the Preparatory School
curriculum, move on to Senior School and conclude with Sixth Form. I also want to finish by touching
on some of the findings of the recent parental survey carried out by Ratcliffe Hall. There is a lot of
exciting news to pack into my letter this time, so please accept my apologies for its length.
In the Preparatory School the following curriculum changes are taking place:
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We are replacing the current languages carousel (whereby students learn a different
language each term) with two lessons a week of French and one of Latin, running all the way
through Years 3 to 6. With carousels most of the language learned in a term can be lost by
the time the students revisit it a year later. The introduction of Latin (which is also appearing
in the Senior School curriculum) is partly in order to offer a potential long-term language-ofchoice for those who are not so skilled in modern foreign languages. Despite its reputation as
a ‘posh’ subject, Latin – because its structure is so logical - can actually be an enjoyable and
accessible language option for those who do not find French, German or Spanish as easy or
enjoyable as other students.
Specialist Religious Education teaching will now be available throughout the Preparatory
School from Year 1 onwards.
Specialist Music teaching will now be provided to all Preparatory School children, starting in
Reception. Year 2 students will benefit from one lesson a week of string instrument lessons.
And all Preparatory students will be taught using the innovative ‘colour strings’ method
employed by the Music School staff. In addition, all our Preparatory School students will join
Fairfield for one lesson of ‘Musical Enrichment’ every Tuesday morning. The exact activity
that individual children join will be determined by their existing skills and interests.
It is also worth mentioning that we have already invested in new schemes of work and
assessment materials for Preparatory School numeracy and literacy which reflect the more
rigorous standards recently introduced at a national level.
In the Senior School the following curriculum changes are taking place:
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We will be phasing out German and replacing it with Spanish. All students currently taking
German will have the opportunity to pursue it through to GCSE and beyond, but – from Year 7
– Spanish will be our new ‘second’ language.
Students entering Year 7 from September 2017 will all study French but will then have a
choice of Spanish, Latin or Academic Support.
On arriving at the School last August I noted that ‘creative’ subjects (Art; Art Textiles; Music;
Drama; Food; Design and Technology) in Years 7-9 only received on average about half-anhour a week of lesson allocation. I felt strongly that this must be increased to an hour a week
to allow for greater preparation for later GCSE studies in those subjects. Unfortunately,
effecting this change did mean reducing our menu of creative subjects from six to four. We
made the difficult decision on what to lose from our menu by looking at the following two
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pieces of data for each of the six subjects from the last eight years: (i) cohort size at
GCSE (i.e. popularity); (ii) value-added performance at GCSE (i.e. quality of exam
outcomes). On this basis we have trimmed the creatives curriculum to Art (which will still
contain opportunities for textiles based work), Music, Food and Design and Technology.
The loss of Drama as a curriculum subject in Years 7-11 is a shame, but it must be
stressed that extra-curricular opportunities for those interested in Drama will remain, and
it will still be available as an A Level option. Those students who love Drama will still have
the opportunity to perform in School productions and to take part in activities such as the
Shakespeare Schools Festival. In addition, we will actually be introducing a new extracurricular Drama opportunity called the New Directors’ Season, details of which will follow
before the start of the next academic year.
We have invested in some extra staffing in order to split Year 10 and 11 Mathematics into
three sets, rather than two. I feel that the extravagance of this move is more than justified
by the evidenced benefit of ability based setting and small class sizes for Mathematics
results at GCSE.
In the Sixth Form the only real change for 2017-18 is that we are now in a stronger position than
before to offer all 28 A Level courses that are provided across the Loughborough Endowed
Schools campus to all our students. In agreement with Loughborough High School and
Loughborough Grammar School we have formally decided that every A Level will be open to all
Loughborough Endowed Schools students on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. From now on we
will be advertising all 28 A Level courses in full in our Sixth Form course booklet. I have to say
that this breadth of A Level choice is amazing, and probably unprecedented, for a School of our
size.
For 2018-19 onwards we are currently exploring a revolutionised ‘additional curriculum’ which will
encompass not only the Extended Project Qualification, but many new options for students to
enhance and develop key skills that are relevant to their main A Level choices. More details will
follow in autumn 2017.
This year we have also introduced a new post-mocks student support programme for Year 11
and Year 13 students whose mock performance looks to be worryingly adrift of their target
grades. This is simply a system that involves the allocation of a mentor to each of these students.
The mentor liaises with the individual and their subject teachers to ensure that the student is
working properly to meet targets but also that they are receiving the kind of full and personalised
support that they require in the lead up to their exams. We will review the success of this pilot
scheme in light of public examination results analysis this August.
Finally, I did want to mention the fact that I have now received a full report from the marketing
company Ratcliffe Hall, who carried out a qualitative survey of parents and students during the
early weeks of 2017. The parental survey involved phone conversations with about one-fifth of
our parental body. Many positives emerged from the survey, but – inevitably – my focus must be
on the critical findings. The main critical findings are unsurprising in that they point to a number of
obvious areas that require attention over the coming months and years, as follows:
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Improved access to sporting facilities
General improvement of what is a beautiful but, in places, ‘tired’ campus
Better academic monitoring and reporting
More consistently high expectations from all teaching staff
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Improved careers provision
Clearer and stronger rules on uniform and class room behaviour
More extra-curricular opportunities after school (which depends in part on changes to the
Endowed Schools bus service)
In addition, two obvious requirements emerge from the report which I intend to fully address by
September 2017:
 The need for a School Counsellor who is separate from all existing staff structures
 An improved ‘pupil voice’ system
The first action is simply about getting on with it and finding a part-time counsellor. I aim to
address the second target by (i) splitting the Senior School council into a Year 7-9 and Year 1013 section and attending all School Council meetings myself, and (ii) tasking my new Head Girl
and Deputy Head Girls to run a regular ‘pupil voice’ clinic from which they can feed back
anonymised suggestions and concerns direct to me.
One final word on the Ratcliffe Hall parental survey. A few of those spoken to as part of the
survey express the concern that my drive for modernisation of systems, stronger performance
management of staff, slightly tighter discipline and so on represents some kind of abandonment
of the School’s traditional ethos of care and warmth. My goal for the School is actually to extend
the principle of personal care more fully and rigorously to every aspect of our provision,
particularly the academic. In fact, my long-term vision is that of a School that exploits the
wonderful advantage of its high teacher-pupil ratio to become a national beacon of individualised
care, support and aspiration.
As ever, if any of you ever want to meet with me to discuss my vision for the School please do
not hesitate and do not feel that you need to have a specific concern in order to arrange a
meeting. The success of our vision depends very much on my relationship with each and every
one of you, so the more opportunity I have to meet with you individually the better.
With best wishes for a joyful (and sunny) Easter.
Dr J Murphy
Headmaster