This week, students received an assembly from Ms Brown about this year's Character Passports and forms made preparations to elect their House Captain. Students were asked to put together a 30- second speech about why they would be an excellent representative for their class. We look forward to announcing the results next week.

We welcomed our school photographer on Monday to take photographs of all students in Years 7 and 11. Your child will have received a card from Kittle with details on how to order copies of their photo.

On Wednesday, we hosted the first of four open mornings for prospective families to see the school during the day. All our open mornings are now fully booked and by the end of next week we will have welcomed 60 further families (on top of our estimated 1200 visitors at Open Evening) to see our morning routines, roll calls, tutor reading programme, SEND interventions, KS4 period 0 and the first lesson of the day. We are thrilled to be so popular. I am very grateful to all of our student guides who were excellent ambassadors for the school: they received many compliments!

We also welcomed two visitors from the Department of Education on Wednesday who wanted to learn more about the successes of Orchard Park. They visited many lessons and we received very positive feedback about the behaviour of the pupils during line-ups, transitioning into the building after break time and conduct in lessons. They were also keen to understand more about the operations and culture behind our impactful work on attendance.

Thursday welcomed visitors from Greenshaw Learning Trust for our annual Self Evaluation Review. Thank you to the staff and students for showing them the very best of the school.

Ms C Moran, Headteacher