Teach Secondary 13.5

PUPILS ON PARADE By the time prom rolls around, you’ll have not long delivered the leavers’ assembly and told them that they’re now ready to live their lives as adults. You should trust the personal development curriculumyou’ve planned and implemented for them in school. You’ve given them the skills they need tomake the right choices as advance into adulthood, so now it’s time to trust them. Formany, this maywell be their first experience of a late night party atmosphere – so consider what you and your staff can do to ensure that everyone has a good time and gets to feel safe throughout. One potential barrier to that could be acquiring appropriate outfits that they feel comfortable and confident wearing, and which they can afford. Consider flagging up second hand prom apparel services that could help some pupils avail themselves of rented clothes or transport within their budget. If you have any practical concerns regarding students’ behaviour at the event, consider doing the following: • Printing a concise ‘code of conduct’ on the back of event tickets • Informing parents that they’ll be contacted immediately if anyone’s behaviour fails tomeet an agreed standard (while obviously ensuring that you’ll have all relevant contact details to hand on the evening) • Barring students who have consistently engaged in antisocial behaviour at school fromattending • Putting in place a good level of staffing and supervision My final piece of advice would be to risk assess the event as thoroughly as you would for a residential trip, being mindful of everything down to allergy medication and ensuring that qualified First Aiders will be present.As a final step, have your planning okayed by SLT or other senior staff. Kit Betts-Masters is a lead practitioner for science and produces physics, education and technology videos for YouTube under the username @KitBetts-Masters. For more information, visit evaluateeverything.co.uk span of time. When the day itself finally arrives, virtually everyone will have a great time from the moment the first limo or Hell’s Angels motorcycle escort pulls up outside. The students are always enormously grateful for the event, and effusive in their thanks on the night for their teachers’ efforts and support over the preceding five years. Rewardvisits As previously mentioned, my school runs an annual reward scheme for the 250 best students in Y7 to Y10, who get to go on a fun outing on the penultimate day of the school year. The problem is that many other schools in the Birmingham area organise something similar. As a result, it’s not unheard of for multiple school cohorts to arrive at the same attractions on the same day. Once staff have sent the students off to enjoy themselves, that’s when the queues for the features and rides will begin. I’m always amazed when I see staff who proceed to spend the next few hours solely sitting in an on-site café, though, working away at their laptops. For me, such days mark a welcome change from the regular routine, and afford an opportunity to sit with colleagues and discuss at length the year just gone. That said, I’ll typically be the day’s on-duty staff member, and thus have to accompany the students on the attraction’s biggest and scariest rides as the ‘responsible adult’ – sometimes as often as five or six times over the course of the afternoon... This is the end…? Is the end of Y11 or Y13 really the end ? Will we ever see these students, who have been the focus of our professional lives for so long, again? Secondary schools will, of course, see nearly all of their outgoing Y11 and Y13 cohorts again soon enough, once their exam results come out in August, with a good proportion of staff on hand to provide support and reassurance on that momentous day. But still, life inevitably moves on. I don’t doubt that there are many readers who have great stories of random encounters with former students, which vividly show how our memories of certain individuals never quite leave us (even when, from time to time, we’d perhaps prefer to forget). Quite by chance, I’ve previously purchased two cars from ex-students working at local dealerships over the last decade. Whenmy wife was admitted to hospital, an ex-student was one of the nurses assigned to care for her. I recently fell into a chance Twitter conversation an ex-student from over 20 years ago, who’s now a Cambridge don advising sixth form students applying to study there, with some success. More poignantly, I’ve lately completed several transition visits to feeder primary schools where several Y6 teachers are ex-students of mine. One of the heads was a student inmy very first GCSE class over 30 years ago. (Oh, and for younger colleagues who may be reading, know that nothing can fully prepare you for the day when you see former students return to your school as parents to that year’s new intake). So with that said, I wish you all a peaceful and restful summer holiday. Daniel Harvey is a GCSE and A Level science teacher and lead on behaviour, pastoral and school culture at an inner city academy 68 teachwire.net/secondary