That Was The Week, That Was - 20th October 2025
We are a bit behind this week as it has been such a busy week (our usual communication on a Friday is not out til Monday). But, that is a sign of how exciting the week has been too…
On Tuesday Evening, we hosted one of our Parent Support Evenings. These evenings are designed to be open access for parents to have real advice and guidance around a particular need or topic. This one was the dreaded "Homework"! It was great to be able to help so many tackle what can be a rather confusing and concerning landscape, so that, hopefully, our guests are now more able to help their children navigate their way through their homework task. With homework accounting for possibly an extra 6-12 months of education per student, it is an important layer of support and challenge to be embraced.
On Thursday, our Year 7 students had a whole day with their tutor group undertaking the Business Enterprise Challenge. This is a project based activity where students are challenged to come up with a business idea, based around a new board game, and see it through to design, branding and costings. It was a wonderful chance to see our students working together and creating some excellent projects. From each tutor group, one team was selected as the victorious team who will now go on to the Final presentations next month. Throughout the day, students were able to call upon the advice and wisdom of some of our Business mentors and Key Stage 4 Business Studies students to help them with their projects. We look forward now to the final presentations.
That evening, we ran a Year 11 Parents’ Evening that was brilliantly attended. It was great to be able to have such important conversations with our students and their parents/guardians ahead of their upcoming PPEs after the half-term. Throughout this past week, we have been running “How to Revise” sessions in form time for Year 11 students, so having this opportunity to work with parents was also very useful. As a year group, they have shown an exemplary attitude towards their studies and we look ahead to the next set of mock examinations with such excitement. You can do this!
On Friday, we had some special visitors from Essex County Council - As part of the Local Authority’s development plans for SEND students in the county, we volunteered to be one of the first schools in the county to have a full “Inclusion Review”. This involved a team of visitors reviewing our provisions, speaking to students, parents, governors and staff about how we ensure that every child has the best possible access to their education at The Stanway School. It was quite an intense day, but really rewarding to have the Local Authority be so impressed with what we have to offer here.
As we move in to the last week of this half term, we have meetings for the 2026 Ski Trip, lots of Rewards Activities for students, Celebration Assemblies another Parent Support Evening on Thursday 23rd October at 6pm (Helping your child with SEN) and many more interesting things going on.
Such a busy school, but busy in a good way!
John Player
Head of School