Headteacher's Welcome
I am delighted to welcome you to Honywood School.
I believe nobody’s future should be decided by where they start. Too often in our society, those with advantages find success comes easily, and those without find doors closed. I don’t accept that. The future is a story yet to be written, and my job, and the job of everyone at Honywood, is to make sure every young person gets to write it.
That belief drives our vision for Honywood: a school that is the beating heart of the communities it serves, and one that is truly unmissable. By that I mean a place where every learner finds:
- Purpose: they know why what they learn matters.
- Belonging: they are known, valued and part of something.
- Success: they achieve highly, and we help them reach further than they thought possible.
- Empowerment: they become independent, resilient and able to make good decisions about their lives.
- Adventure: they have experiences that stretch them well beyond the classroom.
Everything we do rests on four values: trust, respect, equity and excellence. We trust our pupils, our staff and our families. We treat each other with respect. We work for equity, which means giving every young person what they need to succeed, not simply the same as everyone else. And we expect excellence of ourselves and of our learners.
An education at Honywood is about far more than lessons and exams. Exams matter, and we want our pupils to achieve as highly as they can. But we also want them to leave with what I call the five capitals, which are the things that help people get on in life and stay there - think of it as providing leverage to access opportunities in life:
- Moral capital: integrity, respect and the courage to do the right thing
- Social capital: strong relationships, confidence and networks
- Cultural capital: curiosity about the world, and experiences that open it up
- Knowledge capital: the subject knowledge and vocabulary to compete with anyone, backed by a strong grounding in reading and oracy
- Professional capital: the habits, skills and aspirations that prepare them for work and for adult life.
Our curriculum is ambitious, broad and balanced for every learner, and our teachers expect a great deal of every pupil. That ambition goes together with support. We are proud of the way we include learners with additional needs, including our autism hub, and we work every day to make sure strong attendance, high-quality teaching and a rich offer of enrichment and adventure are available to all.
None of this works without partnership. We rely on our families, our staff and our community, and we are always willing to listen and to improve.
Please explore the site to see what life at Honywood is like. I would be delighted to meet you.
James Saunders
Headteacher