Posted Nov 15 - 2024Headteacher's Newsletter
what's happening at Chesham Grammar
Posted on: December 11th 2020
Head's Blog
Dear parent,
I am not going to make any mention of the C word in this parentmail - there has been enough of that - but I would like to say a huge thank you for your support over the last term and in particular during the last week and for all the positive messages we have received following my earlier communication about arrangements for next week.
It was an absolute delight to see the students in their Christmas jumpers today and to hear Christmas tunes blaring out across the school. It was also fantastic to receive so many pictures of students who were learning at home wearing their Christmas jumper in lessons today. This brightened up the day for the staff teaching them! Thank you to Kate, Alfie, Gaby and Sam, Shakespeare House Captains and Vice Captains, for all the hard work they put into this and for their own festive outfits! As you know, we are delivering hampers to the elderly of Chesham who would in any other year be joining us this weekend for our Christmas party. We invited Year 7s to submit a design of a Christmas card for us to send with the hampers and well done to all those who did so. We chose four of the cards which a team of Year 13s have written this week. You can see the four beautiful designs on our main school Twitter account @cgsbucks. I have also tweeted some pictures of the superb models of food items I saw on my visit to the Art Department this week. They were so realistic that they made my mouth water! We will be delivering the Christmas hampers to the elderly next week and we know they will be most welcome, with one of our elderly guests telling us this will be the only gift she will receive which was a reminder of just how important this event is for many of the elderly residents of our town.
Last night, we held our Year 13 Parents' Evening and, due to current circumstances, this was a virtual event. The feedback we have received has been really positive so far, both from parents and staff and we would like to invite Year 13 parents to let us have their thoughts which can be shared with us here: Year 13 Feedback form
In amongst everything else going on today, it was great to get outside with Mrs Ware and Mrs Harvell and finalise our plans for our 'CGS Outdoors' project which has been helped enormously by your generosity. We have already been able to increase the number of picnic benches on the new block paved area by maths and we are going to install a canopy over the whole of this area, along with two others around the site which will significantly enhance the facilities our students can use both this year and in the long term. We are really excited about this project. Outdoor facilities have long been something our students have identified as a project of choice but with school budgets as they are, there has always been a more pressing need so if there are any positives to come out of the particular circumstances of this year, this will be top of my list. Thank you so much for your support and if anyone else would like to donate, you can do so here: https://localgiving.org/appeal/CGS_Outside/
Although students are at home next week, the school is open and the Year 9 immunisations will go ahead on Thursday. The immunisations team have asked that these take place and having held some during lockdown, we know that they can and will be done safely. As the immunisations team said when we spoke today, they expect to be quite busy over the next few months given the vaccine news this week so it will be good to undertake this programme for Year 9s. Further details of how these will work will follow.
Well done to Olivia in Year 7 who wrote a fabulous short story recently as a competition entry. Mr Wescomb, her English teacher, was very impressed. You may remember mention of Grace in Year 8 who was due to appear on The One Show reading her poem, 'My 2020'. Sadly, due to her being at home this week, the filming could not take place at CGS and while we were really disappointed for her, we were pleased to hear that she featured on BBC Three Counties Radio, talking about her poem and explaining the inspiration behind it. I would also like to congratulate Grace as another of her poems has won a 'Spirited Arts' Competition recently. This poem, entitled 'The Rug' is wonderful and I will ask her permission to share it with our school community. Very well done, Grace. We are really proud of you. Well done also to Oscar who passed his Grade 5 ABRSM Theory of Music exam today! He had to sit the exam online and film himself throughout!
I am afraid that, very sadly, we have had to cancel our virtual Christmas in Words and Music event as the end of term has not quite gone to plan! We do have some of the recordings and will make these available to you and will also feature some of the music and readings in my end of term assembly which will be broadcast on Friday. All of this has made me determined to ensure that Christmas 2021 at CGS will be twice as good...to make up for all we have missed out on this year!
With best wishes for a relaxing weekend,
Annmarie McNaney
Headteacher
