The day is here!

Thursday, May 27, 2021

Dear families of Year 11 students,

The day is here! The day that your special young person/people have their last day of secondary school and begin the next part of their life. 

This day is always a day of reflection for staff in schools and yields some very mixed emotions. The overriding emotion is how proud of your children we are. Working with most of them for 5 years now has been a real pleasure and a privilege and the bonds made during that time, with both the students and you as families, are tight. I hope that those tight bonds gave your child(ren) security and helped them belong in our school community and I am personally very proud of them as a cohort, and particularly those who embody the phrase ‘Work Hard, Be Kind’ so well, of which there are many. Of course the pride that we feel in them makes it harder to say goodbye and wish them well for the future. Despite being used to doing this each year, it is always challenging to lose students and groups that we have built up great bonds with. 

This year sees a heightening in both of those emotions of pride and sadness, for the students and staff and I am sure for you as families as well. That our fantastic young people, and many hundreds of thousands more across the country, were robbed of some of the opportunities that they should have had across the last 16 months brings me no pleasure at all. However, as an optimist and champion of young people I prefer to focus on the positives that they have gained from their unpredictable last couple of school years. Whilst they may not recognise, appreciate or value yet the skills and personal attributes that they have learnt and developed during the pandemic, they will be stronger people for it. We unashamedly talk to the students for 5 years about resilience being the quality most needed to succeed in adult life and our Year 11 students have shown it in bucket-loads. That makes me even prouder of them. 

I would also like to thank you for your support of your child and us as a school, during their time with us. The success of a young person only ever comes about as a result of great partnership working so thank you so much for everything that you have done, and will continue to do, for your special young people. I know that many of you have been kind enough to recognise the crucial role that the staff at Preston School have played in your child’s success and I would thank you for that. Whatever the emotions of your child and yourself today, I would ask you to drop the staff who have made an impact on your child a quick email to say thank you. It makes a massive difference to staff to receive something like that, especially after everything we have been through together recently. 

I hope that you and your child(ren) have been able to look at the fantastic opportunities available to them after half-term. There are some great things to do on there and I would encourage all students to take part in at least one activity. We will be in touch with regards results day on Thursday 12th August 2021. 

Once again thank you for all of your support of your child and Preston School. My message to the students in the Leavers Assembly today will be simple: continue to follow the BASICS, Work Hard and Be Kind. 

Best wishes

Gregg Morrison

Principal 

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