Firstly, my apologies for not sending out a Headteacher Blog last week.  I had one of those days where best laid plans are turned inside out, of which more later. 

Like everyone in the world it seems, my wife and I have been watching the Netflix drama, Adolescence, in recent weeks.  Given the theme and content, we made the conscious decision to watch it with our fourteen-year-old son.  It was a compelling, if not enjoyable, experience and I found myself thinking hard about the content and what it means for me as a dad but also a Headteacher.   

The scene which I found the most ingenious and memorable was the one in which the mum and dad reminisced about an event from their childhood where the dad, dancing to impress the girls, split his trousers causing hilarity to those present at a school disco.  This depiction of a much more innocent time, where humiliation meant being laughed at by a small number of mates, contrasted sharply with the kind of online humiliation that can be so devastating for young people today.  When I meet up with my mates we still reminisce in similar ways, laughing at daft things that we did growing up.  When we felt okay to be vulnerable and to make mistakes because we were in a safe space, amongst mates.  Now, the audience is much bigger, the stakes greater.  It is unsettling and, as parents, we all share the burden of looking after young people as they navigate this world. 

I found some of the school-based scenes quite shocking, however, and I can assure all parents that I have never come across a school in which safety and wellbeing standards are as weak as those depicted in Adolescence.  Just as police officers are always appalled at the way their profession is depicted in TV dramas, we are the same in education.  Schools are much more professional, standards are much higher and students are safer than they are often portrayed on TV.   

***  

It has been a lovely week in school and the opening of the school field has enabled students to use the full extent of the site, especially at lunchtime when the field has been full of footballers and friends sitting and chatting in groups on the field.  It has been great to see. 

I wrote to all parents this week outlining our changes to the lunch period from 22 April.  These will operate until the end of term and I hope to confirm arrangements for 2025-26 very soon as a few parents have queried this.  The letter can be found here. 

***  

We go into the Easter break with plans well advanced for our Year 11 students. Most of them are now staying in school late each day, taking advantage of revision sessions being offered by staff.  There are also similar numbers signed up for free Easter revision classes, which start on Monday and run until Thursday, each week of the Easter break.  If you have not signed your child up for these yet, there are still some spaces available for some sessions, which you can access via the Arbor app.   

***  

It is a busy start to the Easter break in the Groak household.  Tomorrow, our son is heading off on his first real adventure without us, travelling to Italy on Wolfreton’s school skiing trip.  He is hugely excited, and we are equally proud of how confident he is about it all. As he heads down the motorway, I will be going to the MKM Stadium to watch the Challenge Cup Quarter Final between Hull and Hull KR.  As much as I really want Hull to win, I hope that my team continues to improve and show as much pride in their performance as they have done in recent weeks.  Seeing twenty thousand plus watching a game which is also on live TV is great for both clubs and the city, so I am looking forward to it and only wish that my son would be there too to watch it with me. 

*** 

So last Friday was one of those days where I woke up to blue skies and a neatly planned day ahead of me; there were no real issues on the horizon, and I had every reason to look forward to the weekend.  

And then our daughter woke up with stomach cramps.  A doctor’s appointment was hastily made which only I could get out of school to take her to.  A nurse and a doctor agreed that it ‘probably’ wasn’t appendicitis; but ‘it might be best to take her in and get it checked’.  Which meant seven hours in Hull Royal Infirmary as we were passed from room to room, and she was inspected by multiple people before they concluded that it was ‘probably something viral’.  All of which was a relief but had turned my day inside out and meant most of Saturday was spent clearing emails and catching up.  Such is life as a parent – I am sure you have all experienced days like that. 

Finally, as we reach the Easter break, I would like to thank you all for your continued support of our school.  It is greatly appreciated and makes our job infinitely easier. 

Enjoy the Easter weekend when it arrives. 

Mr Groak

Headteacher

I have spent a good deal of time thinking about Parents Evenings in recent weeks.   

The Spring term brings a succession of these, and we believe that this is the best time of the year for teachers to be feeding back progress to parents and carers.  It was a few years ago when we changed the title of these events to Progress evenings, firstly to make clear that academic progress is the key focus for the meetings, but also to recognise that not all students are supported in their schooling by their parents.  It may be step-parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts or carers.  That would be too long to fit on the booking form so, instead, we opted for Progress Evening. 

Any of you that have attended these know that there are inherent logistical challenges with scheduling and sticking to appointments.  We – and you – do our very best to make it work and mostly it does.  The feedback is good, and you provide us with helpful ideas on how to continue to improve it. 

If attendance is anything to go by, you certainly value them.  Last night's Year 10 event attracted 80% of the year group, up from 65% at the same time last year (Y9).  This shows a remarkable level of support for our teachers and is crucial to improving their chances of success in the summer of 2026.   

At the same time, after starting the night at Hessle, I travelled over to Wolfreton for my own son’s Parents Evening.  Here I experienced the event from your perspective – hearing from teachers and asking questions about his effort and potential.   Afterwards my wife and I tried to instigate a conversation about it – with little success.  He had done well with only minor things for him to work on but, rather than tell him how to fix those things, we hoped he would have his own ideas.  He didn’t.  He’s fourteen now and has become monosyllabic unless he is talking about food or football!   We persevered and eventually got a promise to spend a bit more time looking at books and less time on his phone.  If any of that resonates with you - believe me - I empathise. 

The attendance last night has been a continuation of a wider trend of engagement with our school, which manifests in parent events as well as student attendance, both of which continue to rise.  Current school attendance is now 2.3% ahead of last year at the same time and whole-school attendance now outstrips both the regional and national average.  This is crucial to achieving success for our students and we thank you for your support in driving this up.  Nationally, and at school level, we are still around 2% below pre-Covid levels and there remain genuine challenges for young people, families and schools but we will persevere and keep striving for our goal of 96% attendance across the school. 

And so, after a chilly and wet week, we look forward to another dry spell coming up next week.  During the week, we will also be able to update you on our lunch plans which will change after Easter to enable Year 11 students to move to an early lunch period as they approach their exams. 

In the meantime, enjoy the weekend and thanks again for your support.  

Mr Groak

Headteacher

It was the writer and football fan, Nick Hornby, who wrote that ‘the natural state of the football fan is bitter disappointment’.  And it was the comedian Jack Dee who admitted that his own ‘natural state’ was grumpy. 

Others, with maybe more intellectual insight than those two, have agreed that the natural state of the human mind is to be dissatisfied or, at best, to be as happy as the human condition allows us to be. 

As I get older, I do find myself more inclined to be grumpy, like most people of my age and generation, I guess.  But I have also identified a trait which may be more in tune with my job role, that of being ‘restlessly dissatisfied’.  I run a terrific school, with marvellous people working in it, fantastic students and great parents.  And yet, it is never enough. 

As I walk the school site, I always come across something that isn’t quite as it should be - a student who isn’t where they’re meant to be, a display that has become tatty or unsightly, a poster on a wall with a spelling mistake.  I carry my phone with me (it ought to be a note pad) and will quickly note it down, or take a picture of it, so I can address it later.  As I do this, I sometimes wonder whether other people notice what I have seen.  I ask them but invariably they haven’t - they’re simply too busy, or they’re doing something else and don’t have the luxury that I have perhaps to walk the site without singular purpose, with my head up.  Basically, looking for things that aren’t as they should be. 

The challenge for me – in grumpy middle age – is not to overreact to what I have seen.  I must put right whatever the problem is and try, as far as we can, to prevent it from happening again.  But not to blame, not to show too much dissatisfaction.  My leadership philosophy has always been to communicate my expectations, based on our Trust and school values and vision, and then to empower my staff to deliver to the best of their ability.  This carries an inherent risk that they will make mistakes.  But the pay off in terms of their motivation and creativity and discretionary effort is more than worth it.  Which is why, when mistakes are made, I mustn’t overreact or attach too much blame. 

But it does getter harder as I get older.  Being aware of it, I suppose, is part of the remedy.  As is having other senior leaders who will point it out when I get things wrong, as they do.  

***  

This week we have been putting our finishing touches to the Third Edition of The Eagle, which will be emailed to you shortly.  Reading these before they go out definitely moves the dial in the positive direction on the ‘grumpometer’.  Seeing the range of activities that our students are engaged in, across sports, arts, charity work, as well as in their classrooms, fills me with pride.  Whilst we send out The Eagle edition which corresponds with the year group your child is in, you can read all five of them on our website.  It will give you a strong sense of the full breadth of activity taking place in our school. 

Thank you also to everyone that has completed the Edurio Parent Survey.  This is still open until the 10 March and can be found here if you have not yet completed it. 

***  

There are now just 38 school days until our Year 11 students sit down in the hall for their first external GCSE exam.  They have acquitted themselves admirably this year, especially during recent mock exam weeks, which they have mostly taken in their stride. 

There is a huge amount of activity taking place to support our Year 11 student, with lots of information being communicated to them, and home.  To help organise this, next week we are launching a dedicated area on our website which will enable students and parents/carers to find things such as exam timetables, revision schedules, tips on studying at home and so on.  We will share more information with you next week on this. 

***  

On the subject of Nick Hornby’s ‘bitter disappointment’, Hull FC have begun their season in typical fashion – a good win which promises hope, followed by crushing defeat.   By the time you read this, they may well be back in action again on Friday night against Huddersfield.  My son and I will be watching on TV, prepared for whatever happens, knowing that the downsides, just make the upsides even better.  Just like life really. 

However you are spending the weekend, I hope you can spend some time outdoors enjoying the spring sunshine.  Thank you for your support. 

Mr Groak

Headteacher

You would think it would be impossible to make Ofsted's system for reporting on schools any worse than the single phrase judgement system. And yet, according to Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of ASCL, that is precisely what they have done. The proposed report cards, he said, were “worse than single-word judgements”. 

These were introduced on Monday at the start of a twelve-week consultation period which, in theory, should lead to them being used in inspections from November. This is a timeframe which is extremely short and has already led to whistleblowers from within Ofsted reporting that the whole process has been too quick and lacking proper scrutiny.  Alongside the report card is a proposed monitoring system, the detail of which I have read three times, and still don't quite understand.  

Schools will be placed in ‘special measures’ if any area (except leadership) or safeguarding is a concern, and leadership is also a concern. Those schools will get six monitoring inspections over 24 months. A school will ‘require significant improvement’ if any area (except leadership) or safeguarding is a concern, but leadership is not. These schools will get five over 18 months. Clear?  

It remains to be seen how 'high stakes' this becomes and what the consequences will be if a school gets an 'attention needed' judgement. That will depend on the perception of parents, local media and the rest of the system as to how they respond and whether schools will also get support from inspectors before, during and after each inspection. We can only hope that this will not be the 'cliff edge' judgement that has led to such perverse incentives in our schools for the past few decades.  

The consultation is open now and runs until end of April.  It is open to parents to please consider taking part.   

***  

This week’s lunch trial has been a qualified success.  Successful in the sense that the plans we had in place were effective; but this was qualified by the fact that it didn’t rain or snow! 

When choosing early February to run a trial, we anticipated that we would get some wet weather which would enable us to see how our plans would cope with high numbers of students wanting to remain indoors.  That didn’t happen and, for most of the week, students have preferred to socialise outside once they had grabbed their food.  Nevertheless, the queues were managed well, adapted space was used well and, as ever, our students coped admirably with the change.  We will have another attempt at trialling this further later in the term. 

On Monday, Year 11 students begin their last round of Mock Exams before the real ones take place in the summer.  The importance of mocks cannot be overstated.  They are useful for teachers in determining what a student still needs to work on and can also influence the tier of entry that a student goes.  For students, they have a big influence on confidence, good or bad.  We urge all students, and families, to treat these as if they were the real thing and prepare accordingly, which means getting plenty of sleep and exercise, but also doing independent revision at home, as well as in school.  This ‘balanced’ approach is always more effective than relying on revision sessions with teachers, or last-minute cramming.  If there is still any doubt about the pitfalls of ‘cramming’ then please look up the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve to see what I mean. 

***  

I always think (optimistically) that February half term marks the beginning of the end of winter and the start of Spring.  That may not be meteorologically correct but it often feels that way as nights grow longer and the chances of snow and slush recede.  Tomorrow the rugby league season starts and we are just one week from half term.  I hope you have nice plans over the next couple of weeks to spend more time outdoors and with family over the half term break. 

It has been another calm and purposeful week at school and we know that cannot happen without your support so thank you.  And have a lovely weekend. 

Mr Groak

Headteacher

The True Cost of Education 

School leaders’ and teachers’ unions have for years talked about the lack of funding directed to schools.  So, in 2018, the Government challenged the Headteachers’ Union, ASCL, to come up with a figure which would represent what schools actually need to do their job to the standard we might all expect.   

ASCL took that challenge and produced a report ‘The True Cost of Education’ which was published in March 2019.  The report concluded that primary and secondary schools in England required £40.2 billion of funding in 2019-20.  In that year, they had actually been allocated £34.5 billion. 

ASCL calculated the figure by working out how many teachers and support staff were needed to support the number of pupils in the system that year.  They based this on all staff having sufficient preparation time, leaders having time to quality assure provision, a maximum secondary class size of 30, a broad and diverse curriculum and all students being taught by a qualified teacher. 

That £5.7 billion gap represented underfunding of 16.5%.   In simple terms, in 2019, it meant that each and every student was being short-change by around £800.  And that was before Covid and the impact this had on children’s health, wellbeing, behaviour and attendance which has probably made that gap even greater. 

For a school the size of Hessle High, this represents around a million pounds of ‘lost’ funding.  Just to give a sense of the difference that could make, with one million pounds, we could: 

• Employ around 15-20 extra teachers (taking all employer costs into account) which would reduce class sizes significantly, or 

• Employ around 30 teaching assistants to provide more targeted support, or 

• Equip every student with a digital learning device and equip a raft of rooms with upgraded ICT  

• Provide all students with an overseas educational visit (and a domestic one) each year or 

• Much else besides..... 

Most people have little interest in Government Bonds and Gilt Yields.  However, since 2021 following Liz Truss’ budget and recently since the Rachel Reeves budget, these have increased.  Which essentially means the Government has to pay more interest on the money it borrows.  The extra cost of borrowing money has more than wiped out the £5.7bn that could have been given to schools.   

Children’s education isn’t just essential to their lives, it is crucial to all our futures, especially when we are ‘going for growth’ in our economy.  And yet, we still have not made the argument that schools need to be funded fully.  In 2010, 5.7% of our GDP was spent on education; it is now only 4.1%.   

The public, and media, seldom talk about a crisis in schools, or that education is broken, in the same way that we talk about the situation in the NHS.  I’m not sure why that is the case; maybe we are too good at ‘making do’ with what we’ve got?  

*** 

Another reminder that we will be trialing a potential new lunch format during the w/c 3 February.  In the longer term, it is our desire to have all students taking break and lunch at the same time.  For the most up to date information, please see the letter attached here. 

***  

As we approach the fifteenth week of January, I would like to praise all of our students for how they have conducted themselves during some cold, wet and windy weather.  Attendance continues to rise and behaviour is improving even more, term on term.  Your support with this is invaluable and greatly appreciated.  Thank you. 

***  

Weather permitting, tonight I am driving to Sheffield to see Hull City.  My son is a passholder at Hull City and goes to the games with his friends.  They are all too young to go to an away game on their own, so it falls to the parents to take turns to take them on roadtrips.  Tonight it is my turn.  The last time I stepped foot in the Bramall Lane ground was in 1988 to see Bruce Springsteen on his Tunnel of Love tour.  I suspect much has changed since then and I will not be hearing the music I love but instead the many chants sung by the City fans, most of which my son knows by heart and sings all over the house.  I’m looking forward to it.  It is the passing of the sporting baton from one generation to the next. 

Meanwhile, my wife and daughter have invited my mum over for a ‘Girls’ Night’, which I’m told involves Prosecco, Cheesecake, a Bridget Jones film and a pedicure.  I’m definitely glad I’m going to Sheffield. 

Have a lovely weekend and thank you as always for your support.  

Mr Groak

Headteacher

Firstly, let me take this opportunity to wish you and your family a very Happy New Year and a healthy and prosperous 2025. 

It has been a decidedly chilly first week of the new term and, whilst it took a few hours for the school to warm up on Monday, it reminded me just how bad it used to be before our new school was built.  I remember the old site when it would be either sub zero for months in the winter and tropical for the same time in the summer.  There would be about two weeks in April and two weeks in October when the temperature in the buildings was ‘just right’. 

I appreciate that it isn’t easy for students in these conditions.  Unlike primary schools and in most modern schools, students are not provided with lockers or ‘pegs’ on which to store their outdoor wear or bags and they have to cope with carrying them with them each day.  Lockers were not built into our school design and there simply is not the space to install them in the current building design.  Nor do students have a base room where they could safely leave their bags, coats and equipment as all rooms are used constantly throughout the day.  I wish it were different or had money to change this but neither is possible. 

As a result, we ask students to bring outdoor wear to keep warm and ask that they bring a bag in which to store it during the day.  Where this becomes wet, we are soon to give them a suitable plastic bag to put their coat into which can then go into their school bag.  In cold weather such as this week, we are also allowing students to keep their outerwear on when in the canteen as they come and go from here during lunch.  I have to say that students cope very well with this in general and we have few problems with these measures in place.   

Next week, the temperature ticks up a little so we will not have ‘cold weather’ day in place and students will be expected to remove outer wear in the canteen at unstructured times.   

Thank you for your ongoing support with uniform standards which remain exceptionally high. 

***  

A new year is always a great opportunity for a fresh start.  I spoke to all our students in successive assemblies on Monday and praised their resilience for being in school, on time, on such a dreadful cold and wet morning.  I also praised their attendance which, at that point, was 100% for the year!  Maintaining high levels of attendance through the winter is not easy for young people; nevertheless, the benefits of being in school, socially and academically, are proven beyond doubt so we continue to celebrate high levels of attendance and the resilience shown by our students. 

***  

Last night we held our latest Parent First event which focused on how parents can support Year 11 students with their studies in English.  We had over 60 families present who heard tips and advice from Mr Burnett, Mr Kay and Head of Department, Mrs O’Loughlin.  Between them they have decades of experience of preparing students for success in their exams and I am delighted that they willing to give up their evening to share it with parents and students.  I hope that those in attendance found it useful.  Watch this space for more information on these events for other subjects and year groups. 

***  

Finally, it is a quiet weekend in the Groak household over the next few days as we rest and recuperate after the first week of term. Thankfully, the weather is improving slightly and the winter sunshine always invites me to put on my running shoes and get out for some exercise.  Whatever you may be doing, stay warm and safe and thank you for your ongoing support. 

Mr Groak

Headteacher