Fire Drill, Rewards and Secondary School being ‘Just Different’

It has been another busy week in the life of Hastings High school.  This week we have had our first formal fire drill (and our first as Co-Headteachers…).  The pupils all left the school quickly and calmly and one of the rare occasions I get to address the whole school at once.  Overall the evacuation of the building and being back in lessons took just over 10 minutes, that’s no mean feat with nearly 950 people!

Thursday saw us welcome year 7 parents to our parent information evening, it was great to see everyone and talk them through the amazing adventure that their young people have been embarking on and celebrate how quickly they have become part of our Hastings family.

As with previous weeks I have spent lots of time walking around the school at every available opportunity visiting lessons. This still fills me with joy and we celebrated some excellent contributions to our school values with our ‘Hot Chocolate Friday’.  This week we had representatives from all year groups (except year 11 who were busy studying hard) and one girl made a comment that really made me think.  She said how much she was really enjoying secondary school and that secondary school was ‘just different’.  The young lady in question was so enthusiastic  and spoke so eloquently about how each lesson challenged her and how much she was learning and then talked about all the work some of our amazing staff were doing to help her.  As she left I thanked her for her comments and told her that the staff she had mentioned would be on our ‘Hot Chocolate’ list next Friday, Her words filled me with pride and hopefully her certificate is already in the fridge!

Mr Shipman