Wikipedia lists well over forty different ‘new year’ celebrations as they occur in different cultures across the world, from the Gregorian calendar incarnation on 1st January, through the Iranian new year that starts with the vernal equinox, the Coptic new year Neyrouz, which coincides with the ancient Egyptian date of 1 Thoth (sometime in late August), to the Pawl Kut straw harvest festival on 1st December. Some dates are fixed and some vary; in any event, they are scattered liberally across 2019. For those in the world of education, however, the start of September is immutably when the calendar rolls

My last big community event was Lytham Club Day. Whilst our Swing Band, on the float, created wonderful sounds throughout the morning, I was grateful for the fantastic support from students, staff and parents of our Preparatory School and Nursery. Full of smiles and good humour, proud of their school and their community. We enjoyed carrying our banner bearing the name of our school through the streets (pictured) and engaging with onlookers. When I arrived 5 years ago, our full name was ArnoldKEQMS, closely reflecting the legacy schools that had come together to give birth to AKS. Historically informative but,

In school it is report writing time, when a summary of a student’s efforts and achievement are sent to parents. Comments on examination results and wider school participation, an opportunity for us to be accountable for how our teaching has led to their learning. We hope these reports are informative and useful, giving insight into how students can achieve even more. And so to the traditional end of year prize-giving events. Some prizes are academic in nature, some performing in other fields, sporting, creative, leadership, teamwork, social responsibility and overcoming individual challenges. There are so many ways that students need

There are so many events and projects at AKS that feel uplifting, often involving collaboration between students, colleagues and community partners. There is real innovation and energy in hatching ideas together that can grow and evolve into the future. The planting of our peace pole was one such occasion. Our great friend, Councillor Karen Henshaw, came up with the idea; and sourced the beautiful piece of Scottish larch with ‘peace be with you’ written in various world languages. We were delighted to welcome representatives of many faiths to come and share their own messages of peace. Our multi-lingual students said

In the final assembly before Easter the winners of the school table tennis tournament were announced. Predictably the champion was Taran, as he has been for five years running. Jasper, for the fifth year in a row, was runner up. That Taran, he doesn’t like to share his crown. I felt it was time he met his match; I threw down the gauntlet there and then. I am partly to blame for his domination of the sport. I played him a few years ago, letting him win of course, it’s the sort of thing caring adults do. I’m sure that

In schools we talk about our USPs. If some are unfamiliar with yet another acronym (there are so many in education), a Google search suggests that USPS stands for ‘United States Postal Service’, which is self-explanatory, or ‘United States Power Squadrons’ which is something to do with boats. Clearly this does not help much. As I’m sure many of you will know, USPs in our context stands for Unique Selling Points (or Proposition). This term was originally used in the 1940s to explain a pattern of successful advertising that might convince customers to switch brands. In other words, a definition