Newsletter 29.08.2025

Headteacher’s Update

Dear Parents,

It has been a wonderful first week back, it has been great to see our students return to school with such a positive approach, and of course to welcome our new Year 7s into school.

We have moved to a year group structure and I held our first assemblies in year groups this week.  This was a new experience for all but Year 7- but it was nice to see year groups together.  We focussed on good starts, maintaining positive efforts from last year, and in some cases making a new start and ‘wiping the slate clean’ for the very few.

We have also introduced a new catering company into school this week.  Whilst there will be teething problems as things bed in, the students seem to be enjoying the new food served at breakfast, mid morning break and also lunchtime.  Please note- we now offer FREE porridge every morning- available to every student to ensure they have something to eat to start their day. Students can collect this from our Streateries service point.

Next week on TUESDAY we welcome our photographer into school to take photos of students.  These will be available to purchase and details will follow once the photographs have been taken. Full school uniform required please!

We have also distributed our iPads to our new Year 7 students and they will be getting used to using these over the next few weeks.  It is really important that students look after their iPads, and keep them away from bottles of water in their bags and also muddy PE boots etc.  They need to be brought to every lesson charged, with a stylus.  We ask you to make a minimum contribution of only £18 for the year, and this can be paid through Arbor.  This is a small charge but helps us with the filtering and monitoring software to ensure it works at home, and also goes towards the cost of cases.  An iPad is essential for learning at Manor High School, but we try to keep the cost to parents to an absolute minimum.

We also had a successful set of GCSE results, our students performed exceptionally and did themselves and their families proud. It is more than likely that this will place us in the top 10% of schools nationally once again, as we have been year after year. Impressively, a quarter of all grades were awarded at Grade 8 or 9, including a total of 158 Grade 9s, the highest grade possible.  Importantly though, on average all students achieved at least one grade better than internal assessments in Year 7 said they would (there were no Year 6 SATS scores to compare to). These results demonstrate the academic excellence that students have consistently strived for throughout their studies. Without the support of families and staff working together these results would not have been possible.  We thank you for working with us to achieve such superb standards.  This is something we repeat year and year and will continue to strive to do even better every year.

With best wishes

Mr S Greiff