Summer breeze

11th July 2025

I hope that you have had a good week and today has been a good day. For many today has been the day of goodbye, farewell, adios. It has felt very much like the end of the school/college year for us all this week.

For those who study, teach and work at Thomas Rotherham College it is the end of a very long academic year. Staff will have returned to work around the 22 August 24 and so this mid-July departure date will fill very well earned. I wish you all a fantastic break and I hope that you have got amazing things planned. Soon enough you’ll be starting to think about the next academic year. Don’t do that now. Don’t do that for a few weeks. Make the most of the time that you’ve got available. And, this is very rare, it looks like the weather is going to be pretty good for those of you who are not in college. You’ve earned it: enjoy!

And for the rest of us, there is a sense of the goodbyes, although it isn’t quite the end of the academic year just yet. We’ve had, across all of our institutions: graduation, leaving and celebration events; there have been awards assemblies and evenings; there have been thanks and goodbyes; there have been, in some cases, tears.

It was absolutely wonderful to be in Sitwell Junior School a couple of times this week. Firstly to be able watch the Year 6 leavers’ assembly. That assembly was totally managed and led by the children themselves. With the help of their Year 6 teachers and TAs they were able to produce an amazing and emotional afternoon. The hundreds of parents who are in the hall on a very warm Wednesday afternoon were overwhelmed with emotion – and rightly so. On Friday, those children received a very special guard of honour and goodbye from the whole of the school; including all of the children in Years 3, 4 and 5, as they left Sitwell Junior School for the very last time. All of those children will be going onto Year 7. Most will be coming through to Oakwood and will be starting the new school year on Monday morning.

Both Oakwood and Winterhill will receive the new Year 7s on Monday. This transition period is incredibly important. We forget at our peril what it means to make that enormous step to ‘big’ school. Our transition programmes are designed to allow children to become familiar with their new school and its routines, and just start to taste a little of the learning and teaching experience. We know that all of our children will then be going into the summer holiday feeling infinitely more relaxed about what September will bring. The fear and sometimes the horror of secondary school is diminished and often rejected. I know that the learning and teaching will not be exactly as it will be in September and October, but it’s as close as dammit. And I know that all of the teachers and other colleagues will do their very best to ensure that all of our children, coming to their new secondary school, will have the very best experience over the next week or so.

And for all the other children, there’s the sense of moving on. Seven into eight, eight into nine and so on. A fresh start. A chance to reset the dial and become that new you. Many children will be determined to do that. And, because we have the ethos and principles we do, within Inspire Learning Trust, we will give those children the opportunity to reshape their educational experience and how they present to us, within that context. Everybody deserves a second chance. Everyone gets that chance within our schools and college (many even get a third, even a fourth).

‘Transitions are a time for reflection, and a time for looking forward.’ Roy Cooper

‘Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.’ Henry James

So, whether you’re heading off for a lovely summer break or looking into the new school year through the prism of transition, I wish you all the very best. Stay safe this weekend (and beyond). Wear that sunscreen, enjoy the weekend and your holiday (when it comes).