Choosing a secondary school is an incredibly important and difficult decision as a parent and pupil and not one we should take lightly. I would like to introduce myself as Mrs Burnside, and at Thomas Keble I am the Head of Year 7. I have been working at Thomas Keble for a number of years now and I passionately believe it is a great school. Both of my own children have experienced the journey here and I have a wealth of knowledge about the journey your child will take both as a teacher and parent! In Year 7 there are often between 130 and 140 pupils in the year and my job starts in April before the children arrive, when I have exact names of the pupils joining Thomas Keble.
My hope is that all the pupils in my care have as smooth a transition from primary as possible and that they make an excellent start to secondary education. I visit every child in their primary school and gather information from teachers on my visit as well as afterwards before the pupils start with us. For those children who are joining Thomas Keble alone from their primary school, we invite you and your parents to attend a “social mixer” afternoon at the school in June so that you can get to know some of your future classmates before the induction days in July.
In July we hold two school ‘induction days’ where all of the Year 6 joining us have two special days experiencing some of our lessons and meeting important people at the school. On these two days the pupils find out who is in their tutor group, which House they are in and who their tutor is. These are really special days where we hope to remove any fears the children may have before the summer holiday. In Year 7 there are five tutor groups and, with myself, the tutors help everyone to settle and gain the most from school.
Thomas Keble is a fantastic school and a place where we strive to make all pupils achieve more than they could ever have imagined irrelevant to their ability level on entry. There are a huge range of clubs and activities for pupils to be involved in and I want all children to make the most of their time here with us. We are a relatively small secondary school which means we know the children really well and our pastoral care is excellent.
When the children start in September I cannot emphasize how important first impressions are. Pupils immediately become part of the Thomas Keble community and I insist on smart uniform, polite and responsible attitude to others and work. Our aim is that pupils become valued members of our wonderful school.
My thoughts, children need to have fun, work hard and enjoy the journey!
I look forward to meeting you all!