Dear parent,

I have just come from the final event of our Careers Week, a webinar with CGS alumnus Mark Sanger.  Mark is now a film editor and won an Oscar for his work on the 2013 film Gravity.  He is currently working on the next film in the Jurassic Park series and it was fascinating to hear about his work and his down to earth advice for any of our students interested in a career in this field.  He mentioned how CGS (or Chesham High as it then was) helped him on his way by organising work experience for him with the BBC, which was nice to hear.  There were some superb questions asked by our students and I know Mrs Ware and Mrs Lovelace have received lots of follow-up emails containing further questions as well as very positive feedback.  For our students, it is so valuable to hear from people who sat in the same classrooms and walked the same corridors they will return to next week and it has been excellent to see a number of our alumni inspiring our students across the week.  We have been trying to organise a visit from Mark Sanger for some time now but his work means he is always incredibly busy and as I listened to him this evening, I reflected on the fact that I would not have been doing so without the events of the last year, given they necessitated the rapid growth and change in our use of technology.  Indeed many of the events we have held this week, which I hope your children have found interesting, informative and useful, would probably not have happened had we not been forced into such changes to our working practices.  Huge thanks to Mrs Lovelace who organised the whole Careers Week programme.  I am sure the format this year will serve as a useful blueprint for similar events in future.

While I am saying thank you, I want to express my gratitude to parents who have been with us this week helping with the Covid testing we have been undertaking.  If I am honest, I still cannot quite believe what has been expected of us!  Those of you who have been helping will attest to the fact that our hall currently resembles a field hospital and this will have been replicated in secondary schools up and down the country.  The process, organised magnificently and with military precision by Mrs Harvell, has run like clockwork and this would not have been possible without so much parental support.  Thank you also to all of you who have ensured that your child was at school at their allocated testing time.  We look forward to seeing students in Years 7 and 8 who will be in for testing on Monday, ahead of their return on Tuesday.  

Today, we said goodbye to Miss Aimee Gibson who has been our Pastoral Administrator for the last couple of years.  While this role has been an administrative one, it has brought her into contact with many of our students of whom she has always been very supportive.  We thank her for what she has given to the school and wish her all the very best in the future.

We held our Year 10 Parents' Evening last night and now have just two further parents' evenings this academic year.  Year 8 parents will meet with staff next week with the Year 7 event later this half term.  There have been a few technical issues with these online events, but overwhelmingly, the feedback has been positive.  'Not only did every teacher keep exactly to time [to be fair, there is no choice with the system], we didn't have to rush to get to school after a day at work, stress about finding somewhere to park or navigate a busy school site and we were done in 45 minutes flat' was how one parent summed it up.  One of the evaluative pieces of work we will need to do next term is to look at how we have worked this past year and to see what it would make sense to retain in the long term.  We will, of course, involve parents, students and staff in this evaluation and it will be really useful to hear the views of the different groups in our school community.

Well done to Lucas in Year 7 who passed his grade 2 piano exam with Merit recently. 

All that remains is for me to say, once again, just how much I am looking forward to seeing our students again next week.  We are ready!  It has been interesting to see the students who have been in this week and to marvel at how much some of them have grown since we last saw them.  I made a mental note to get my sons to check over the weekend that their trousers are still long enough, given they have not worn their school clothes for almost three months!  We have sent home the key information parents and students need to know ahead of the return to school, which I do hope you will find time to read.  Next week, I will be writing to parents of those with a child in Year 11 and/or 13 with some information about the awarding of exam grades; I know you are all keen to know how this will work. 

With best wishes for a relaxing weekend,

Annmarie McNaney
Headteacher