11th
September 2017
Dear Parents
Dear Parents
It is with great pleasure we write
this introductory letter to you as the new leaders of Saint George. We have had a really positive start to the
new College year with another record breaking set of GCSE results, the best
ever for the college at 76% 4-9 (A*-C) in Maths & English and on the new
measure of 51% 5-9 (A*-B). An indication of the positive impact we have on our
students is the stunning predicted Progress 8 score of +0.3 which in essence
means on average every child did better by a third of a grade than they should
have done in eight of their subjects.
The last three years have seen our results improve year on year and we
continue to rank amongst the best schools nationally for progress and
attainment as one of the top two performing schools in Southampton. We would like to thank all our students,
staff, parents and governors for all the hard work they put into realising this
achievement against increasingly challenging criteria being set by the
government each year. Our challenge for
the year ahead is to keep this positive momentum going.
This outstanding achievement is only
part of our success story. The College is now oversubscribed in a number of
year groups and we start the year with 800 students on roll, mixed in every
year group. Two new classrooms for Geography and Languages have been built to
accommodate the expansion of the College. The next phase of development will be
the long awaited new Science and Technology block. We are now in the final stages
of the design phase with building works due to start in January 2018.
The College has a spring in it its
step as it continues to move forward from the two “Outstanding” judgements
achieved in the Local Authority inspection last year and the recent Diocesan
inspection in the summer term. We have a great deal to celebrate and we are
determined to continue to build on this success; a message we have given to all
of our students in their first assemblies of the new school year.
We look forward to working together
to encourage our students to strive to make the most of every opportunity and
achieve the very best standard possible.
Please can we ask that you help by
making sure that the students have their planners signed weekly, and that the
whole school agreements are also signed on page 14 & 15. The planner has information about the topic
students are studying in each lesson so that hopefully you can keep up with
their lessons and have conversations at home about their learning journey. Thanks in anticipation for your help with
this initiative.
Hopefully your child will have
informed you about our forthcoming Open Evening at the College on Thursday 5th
October 2017. As usual the College
will close at 12.20 pm to prepare for the evening. A large number of students will be asked to
stay through to the evening to help with the event. The bus companies have been informed of the
changes and will be available at 12.20 pm.
We would also like to take this
opportunity to remind you of a number of forthcoming events:
1. Thursday
21st September 2017 6:30pm–Year 11 Core Intervention Evening (English, Maths, Science & Religious
Studies)
2. Thursday
28th September 2017 5:30pm – Year 7 Settling in Evening
3. Thursday
5th October 2017 12:20pm – Early Closure – Open Evening
4.
Thursday 19th October 2017 6:30pm–Year 10
Core Information Evening & Year 10 Work
Experience
Evening. (English, Maths, Science & Religious Studies)
5.
Friday 20th October 2017 Half term
6.
Monday 30th October 2017 – College Re-Opens
Finally, we would like to thank you
and our students for their excellent start to the term. The uniform is the best that we can remember,
the attitude and atmosphere around the College is terrific, making it a real
pleasure to be part of the Saint George Catholic College Community.
Best wishes for another successful
year!
Yours faithfully
Mr J Habberley
Head of School
Miss Lyn Bourne
Executive Head Teacher