Parental Update 18

Dear Parent / Carer,

Parental Update 18

This week I was trying to remember if it was Supertramp or ELO who sang “It’s Raining Again”, but never has a song been more apt. As we swam our way through the final week of this half term – and what a busy one it has been. It was a formation week – where we prioritised formation for our often overlooked and wonderful support staff. We also had three educational visits out – Discovering ChemEng Live (Year 8), Imperial War Museum (Year 9) and Construction Work Experience (Year 9). As well as these, we had the Box House Theatre Company working with our students on Wednesday, Year 11 Mock Interviews Wednesday and Thursday, Governors Catholic Life and Culture Committee, and finished the week today with the Year 11 Retreat Day.

Next week is half term, then we return on Monday 23^rd Feb for our Lenten journey to Easter (a reminder that Ash Wednesday is on Wednesday of half term).

Whole School Focus – School Improvement Work

Schools are large organisations and a bit like the Forth Bridge in that you never stop working to improve them. I am very conscious that parents will be very up to date with our various improvements on behaviour and culture, so thought it would be helpful to share some of our work on improving Learning and Teaching.

This is our core priority area for improvement in the school this year and we are working hard across a range of fronts to improve our teaching and learning – hopefully leading to improved outcomes for our students. Below are just some of the examples of work we have been doing so far.

Strong Foundations: last year and this year, we traded our INSET days for Twilights – this means staff committed to fortnightly twilight training sessions. These sessions focussed upon skilling staff up on the foundations and latest theory behind educational practice and pedagogy (the art of teaching).

These are planned in 3-week cycles: with staff completing their own learning journey, reading and then applying their learning. The cycle consisted of Whole School sessions, then Departmental Sessions and finally individual learning and reflection. This has been very successful and feedback from staff shows a much higher than national average level of engagement and usefulness for this work.

Watching ourselves: after 5 minutes of watching the curling at the Olympics, I’m sure most of us in theory are experts – and the same applies with education – the theory is good but we need to put it into practice, and for staff to be able to see themselves teaching. To do this, we use IRIS Connect. This is a really useful package that uses tablets in the classroom to film lessons in a GDPR compliant way.

Of course, staff (and students) took a little getting used to this, but very quickly people forget the lesson is being filmed. The footage is then held securely and only accessed by the individual teacher. Then they can see themselves trying new techniques and make a judgement as to how they could improve. Staff can then also share with colleagues or their coach.

Use of AI: If 5 people watch something – you will have 5 versions of what happened – this can also be the case when observing lessons – the risk of imposing your own preferred techniques rather than being objective. We have been able to tackle this issue, and ensure high quality analysis by using in-built AI which is available within IRIS Connect. We were all very sceptical about this at first, but it has proven to be incredibly accurate and specific in providing individual staff with feedback which can then be acted upon.

Walkthrus: one of the most respected voices in school improvement is Tom Sherrington who has forensically unpicked the most successful elements of teaching and broken them down into steps – called Walkthrus. This allows staff to easily understand and then apply these techniques – step by step until they become a natural element of the lesson. These have been used alongside IRIS Connect to support staff to try new approaches.

There are many other elements to our school improvement work, but I thought the above would be a useful update for now.

Year 7 Reading Intervention Impact

This morning I had a celebration breakfast with some of our Year 7 students who had been identified as needing intervention when they arrived at DLS and we have recently retested the reading ages of. These are young people who arrived at the school with readings ages significantly below their actual age. The impact of our interventions has been fantastic with most of the improving to beyond their chronological age and several even reaching reading ages of 16+. A real credit to the students’ hard work and the great interventions led by Mrs Wilcock.

Merchant of Venice

Well done to our Key Stage 3 dramatists who performed in the annual Shakespeare Schools’ Festival. This is an annual programme that sees our students allocated a Shakespeare text that they have to abridge, rehearse and perform. Along the way they get some professional input from a visiting actor before finally taking to the stage – and where better than the Shakespeare North Playhouse.

Ours students were brilliant, with a very challenging text – The Merchant of Venice – performing with confidence, clarity and commitment to their characters. A big thank you to the parents and families who came along to join us.

1719 Society (for Year 10 parents)

We are excited to announce the launch of the 1719 Society application window. This year we want to see student creativity as we task them with creating a 1-2-minute application video clip! We are confident that with the fantastic work Year 10 students have been doing around school this year, we're going to have another strong cohort of leaders.

We're asking that any students interested, express their interest to Mrs Jess or Sam, they will then be added to a 1719 application TEAMs group where they will receive updates along the process.

There is an attachment in this update with more information on the stages of the application process. We welcome and encourage applications from the year group and look forward to receiving their applications.

Year 11 Mock Interviews

Last night was the second night of our annual Year 11 Mock Interviews. These are such an important and developmental experience for our students. Almost all of the students are nervous ahead of the interviews – having worked on their CVs and practicing their skills. They are then interviewed by one of the many professional volunteers who come in and interview the students.

Afterwards we capture the reflections of the students as well as feedback from the interviewers. It is a joy to watch the sense of relief and pride from the students when they come out afterwards. A big thank you to all our volunteers and Mrs Scully and Mrs Moran for running the event so efficiently and effectively.

Sporting Updates

Sporting activity since last week’s update has included:

Key Stage 2 festival: well-done to 16 of our Year 10 sports coaches who led a fantastic primary school Key Stage 2 Festival of Sport. This involved dozens of primary schools competing in a range of sports – the current generation teaching the next generation.
Football: well done to our Year 9 boys who progress to the semi-finals of the Town Cup after a cracking game against Rainford. Debutant Boardman shared PoM alongside White. The goals came from Fyles (2) and Leyland. DLS winning 3-0.
County Representation: congratulations to Phoebe who was selected to represent our school in the County Squad. The girls were dominant in a 5-1 win against Northumberland in the U14 Northern Counties League.
Dodgeball: a huge well done to our amazing Year 7 and 8 Dodegball teams. They finished 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd and 5^th in the District Dodgeball competition. Well done also to our 4 Year 10 Sports Leaders who led the event as part of their coaching course.

Half Term Activities (St Helens Council Family Hubs)

For families looking for activities over half term, please visit the St Helens Family Hub’s website page for half term - Half Term Offer February 2026

Ladies Night Invitation (repeated item)

Calling all the ladies in our school community, you are all invited to celebrate International Women’s Day here at De La Salle with an evening of entertainment, beauty stalls, pop-up shop and a fashion show. The event takes place on Friday 6^th March and tickets are available for £7 including a glass of fizz on entry. Further information and booking details can be found here.

Check out our Socials (repeated item)

We have recently been putting some time into stepping up our social media presence and output for families to access. As well as the many Twitter accounts, we have re-invigorated our Facebook output and Instagram (a big thank you to Mr Metcalf for his work on this):

Facebook: we are De La Salle School (@DLS_St_Helens)
Instagram: @DLS_St_Helens
Twitter: @DLS_St_Helens

Term dates for 2026/27 (repeated)

Autumn Term 2026

INSET Day: Tuesday 1^st September 2026
Wednesday 2^nd: School Opens for students
INSET Day: Fri 23^rd October (Laetare Whole Trust INSET Day)
Half term: School closes for pupils - Thursday 22^nd October
Re-opens - Monday 2^nd November
INSET Day: Friday 4^th December
School closes - Friday 18th December

Spring Term 2027

INSET Day: Monday 4^th January
Students return – Tuesday 5^th January
Half term: School closes for pupils - Friday 12th February
Re-opens - Monday 22^nd February
School closes – Thursday 25^th March

Summer Term 2027

Re-opens - Monday 12th April
Bank Holiday - Monday 3^rd May
School closes - Friday 28^th May
Re-opens - Monday 7^th June
INSET Day: Fri 25^th June
School closes for pupils - Friday 16th July

Reporting Absences (repeated)

A reminder to please report any student absences by using the email: dlsabsence@delasalleschool.org.uk

The absence will then be triaged by our attendance team and may be followed up with a phone call or home visit. Any medical evidence can also be attached to the email.

Attached Information

Alongside this week’s update there is also:

Forthcoming Events (dates in bold indicate a change to normal finish times / EV is Educational Visit)

Half term

Mon 23^rd: School reopens (normal time)
Thu 26^th – Fri 27^th: Cronton and Riverside College Year 11 Interviews
Thu 26^th: Year 9 Options Evening
Thu 26^th – Mon 2^nd: Year 9 Iceland Trip (40 students)
Mon 2^nd – Fri 13^th: Year 8 Assessments
Tue 3^rd: EV Healthcare and STEM Roadshow (Year 10)
Wed 4^th: Immunisation Catch Ups
Thu 5^th: Year 11 Parental Information evening
Fri 6^th: EV Creative Careers Experience (Year 9)
Fri 6^th: Ladies Night (see article earlier for ticket details)
Sat 6^th: Mock Magistrates Competition
Mon 9^th – Tue 10^th: Year 10 EV to Cambridge University
Mon 9^th: DofE practice Day (Year 10)
Thu 12^th: Cronton and Riverside Interviews (Year 11 mop up)
Thu 12^th: Year 9 Parents’ Evening
Sat 14^th – Sun 15^th: DofE Expedition (Year 10)

And finally… Hotel Echo Lima Papa

I’m now coming to the end of my pilot training (have I mentioned I’m training to be a pilot? I feel like I probably have…) and one of the final hurdles is the exam for my Flight Radiotelephony Operator’s Licence - the FRTOL.

This is widely regarded as one of the hardest parts of the course. Marvellous.

For someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy speaking on the telephone at the best of times, the prospect of being examined on speaking clearly, calmly and coherently over a radio, while pretending to fly a small aircraft, is not exactly my idea of fun.

I now have enormous sympathy for our students. I did do some revision. A little bit. Not a lot. This became abundantly clear last Sunday during my mock exam with the flight school examiner.

The format is simple enough: you’re given a flight scenario, a map, some basic flight details, and then you sit with your back to the examiner and “fly” the route, making all the required radio calls as if you’re in the air and they act as air traffic control.

Except I was so nervous that, rather than sounding like a reassuring British Airways captain, all smooth vowels and calm authority, I resembled a mildly panicked Alexei Sayle performing improvised word salad at 2,000 feet. At one point, I’m fairly sure I changed aircraft registration mid-flight. We departed as G-BXAB and, somewhere over the Midlands, apparently became G-LACB. A miraculous feat of aviation engineering.

The examiner was very gracious. The word “characterful” may have been implied. So, this week, I shall be taking my own advice: revising properly, practising diligently, and ensuring that in the real exam next weekend I at least remain in the same aircraft throughout.

Have a good weekend,

Andrew Rannard (Headteacher)