Deputy’s Blog: The Respect Agenda

Ensuring a safe and respectful community for all.

As always, it’s been a busy week at Fearnhill. Year 11s entered their final week of mock exams and Mrs Martin and I have been impressed with the determination and resilience they have shown. Teachers will now be busily marking papers and giving the students feedback before their results assembly on 17th December. Meanwhile, the rest of the school has been focused on building a safe and respectful community for all. Following last week’s ‘Respect’ assemblies, students were given the opportunity to write their own Respect Agenda in an extended form time with their form group.

Students were surveyed to ask if they have experienced disrespect at school and asked to reflect on how it made them feel. The results of this survey will be shared with students next week in assembly and parents and carers can see the results, along with the finalised Respect Agenda, in the next edition of Fearnfile.

During last Tuesday’s extended form time, students discussed the different types of conduct that can be disrespectful and explored ways of ‘respectfully disagreeing’. Our Sixth Form students did us proud by supporting form tutors in leading this session and proving themselves to be the perfect role models for our younger students. It was a pleasure to see students actively engaging in the resources and discussions with teachers and 6th formers and being honest about their own experiences.

At the end of the session, each form group wrote their own Respect Agenda and I am now collating all of this into one Fearnhill Respect Agenda. Common themes included respecting the learning environment, respectful interactions with each other and respecting the school site and resources. The finalised Respect Agenda will be shared with students during next week’s assemblies.

Finally, I noticed this week that the government has brought ‘respect orders’ back into the news; maybe they heard about the work our students had been doing!

Mrs Sonja Nunneley, Deputy Headteacher