16th May 2023
Dear Parents and Carers,
I extend you all a warm greeting that is perhaps beginning to be matched by the Manx weather. Isn’t the Isle of Man a wonderful place when the sun comes out and personally, I always think that the gorse at this time of year is just beautiful.
There’s been a lot going on over the past few weeks. Just before the Easter break, students from our Specialist Provision Centre (SPC) treated a parent audience to a fabulous Easter Show. This was an outstanding celebration of the relationships that endure between the staff, students and families involved with the SPC.
A second ski trip went to Madonna, Italy over Easter. This was very successful with many beginners making excellent progress. I thank the staff who gave up their holiday to take responsibility for the safety of the participants and I also recognise the outstanding behaviour of the students who represented our school excellently. Thanks particularly to Mrs Evans who led the trip.
Mr Karran took 12 students to Magdalene College, Cambridge, during the holiday for what was a fabulous and varied educational itinerary giving a real flavour of the college and the area.
We were grateful to recently welcome Minister Edge to BHS. We appreciated the time taken to have a tour led by brilliant Y12 students followed by a discussion about our ambitions for the school and some of the challenges and barriers that need to be overcome.
I previously mentioned the success of ‘Apollo’ who seized 2nd place overall and best promotional video at the Junior Achievement Companies Programme Awards. A big well done should also go to Tommy Elliot who received the Lloyds Bank International special recognition award for ploughing on when all his team left the company! In a linked initiative, the inaugural Junior Achievement Leader for a Day Award was scooped by Danielle Wilkinson, from Year 12 in recognition of her contribution to her JA company. She started her day with breakfast with Sir John Lorimer, the Lieutenant Governor, and his wife at Government House before spending the rest of her day shadowing the Minister for Environment, Food and Agriculture Clare Barber, MHK for Douglas East.
The BHSA Bingo event at the Palace was a brilliant way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I thank the BHSA committee for their organisation and those attendees who hopefully had fun and certainly supported the association in raising funds that will go directly towards our students. If you want to find out more about the BHSA, perhaps get involved or attend the upcoming Quiz Night, please take a look at the information on our website: link.
We are now deep into the external exam season. I feel that I should offer, not only good luck, but also my appreciation of the positive attitude shown by all of our candidates so far in what we acknowledge can be a stressful and certainly highly regulated experience. We have high hopes and great confidence in all our students and both Year 11 and Year 13 have their Proms to look forward to later in the year. Whilst we look forward to saying a final celebratory farewell, both year groups have recently had lovely school leaving days which once again highlighted the warm and positive relationships that exist between staff and students here at Ballakermeen.
I feel that I should address some of our shared challenges. Our local community is important to us. You will have seen my communication about the designation of the lanes around school as ‘out of bounds’. I am pleased that the clear message has been taken on board by almost all of our students but we must all continue to reinforce our school value of ‘Respect’. We have also had some concerns expressed about the capacity of some of the bus routes. Our relationship with Bus Vannin is very positive and they always listen and act on concerns that we raise. I believe that the issues have been recognised and a solution implemented. Thanks to Bus Vannin for their support.
Finally, I would like to briefly return to the subject of respect that we began with in September. Respect is one of our core values and in sustaining our ‘Reset on Respect’ throughout the year we have made a commitment to creating a safe and ordered environment in which students and staff can enjoy positive norms that are defined by behaviour and relationships at Ballakermeen. The commitment continues and we all have a part to play. None of us should make any apology for maintaining high expectations and standards. Our challenge is working together to support our youngsters to reach these high expectations in their work, attitude and behaviour every day. In recognition of this, it is pleasing to note that our e-Praise system shows that an incredible 401,078 positive points have been awarded this year – that is an average of over 200 points per student in recognition of great work, of living of our school values and demonstrating the BHS learner attributes!
I offer my personal thanks, and that of all of us at Ballakermeen, for your support which is vital if we are to help all students to reach their potential. I should point out that if you do contact your child’s form tutor or teacher, they are likely to be teaching so a response may not be immediate, but we try to respond within 48 hours.
I wish you good health and happiness.
Yours faithfully,
G M Corrin, Headteacher