Welcome back! We hope you have enjoyed the half term break with time spent with family and friends to relax, enjoy and recuperate ready for the next half term. The key message for this half term is: Attendance, Attendance, Attendance.    Attendance 1- to achieve well you need to attend well We would like to congratulate all our learners with 98%+ attendance in half term 1. That is absolutely brilliant - well done to you all. Special rewards and certificates are on their way to each of you. However, the biggest reward is identified from research which proves those learners who attend well, achieve well! With 98%+ attendance those learners are already well on their way to high achievement this year - really well done and keep up the great work!    Attendance 2 - when you attend well, there are so many exciting events to take part in In Batley, we are incredibly fortunate to have so many great events and activities taking place across our Trust family of schools. Forest School is one of those events. Tragically in August the Forest School and outdoor classroom were burned down by vandals. However, from the ashes rises Project Phoenix and the UBHS team are building back their Forest School to be even bigger and better than ever. They have set up a Go Fund Me page to help us raise the money we need to rebuild our Forest School so even more learners can enjoy it. Please make a donation if you can. We have over 4700 learners and over 700 staff - if everyone donated just £1 we would have £5400 to help us get started - and that's before any other friends, local residents or businesses helped us out. Please give what you can - every £1 matters. Last half term a bake sale made over £400 towards this good cause -thank you to all the parents/carers who supported that event. Forest School is one of the enrichment activities our learners love. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-rebuild-our-forest-school   Attendance 3 - it's not too late For any learners who didn't quite reach 98% it isn't too late. Try for this half term to achieve at least 98% (or why not go for 100%? That's even better still!) and earn rewards in December. You can do this! Every Day Matters. 

Saturday was our Annual Trust Governance Conference 2025 and the turnout was superb. We are incredibly fortunate in our Trust family of schools to have over 80 volunteers in various governance roles. These roles include Members, Trustees and Governors and is the highest tier of leadership across the Trust. This team of highly skilled, highly committed individuals have joined our Trust family to give something back to the community and to ensure every young person receives a high-quality education, coupled with great care, guidance and support. These individuals give their time generously, and offer support and professional challenge to Trust and school leaders to ensure a cycle of continuous improvement in every school. Every year our schools just get better and better.   The conference opened with two of our confident and articulate year 10 learners outlining why education matters to them, and why young people in Batley should never be underestimated. It is important to us to open such events with our learners, as they are our customers and are the reason why leaders and staff at all levels do what we do-for the benefit of our children and our community.   The conference then gave all delegates the time to consider our collective objectives for the year, how we build even stronger collaborations across our schools for collective efficacy. We are stronger together when schools work in partnership with children and their families, and local employers, businesses and services. There are no limits to what we can achieve together. Our Alumni (many of whom do come back as school governors, or to support careers guidance in our schools) are testament to that.   2025/2026 is going to be another year filled with high achievements and success in Batley. Exciting times ahead!