Red Hot Chile Blog

Just back from my trip to Chile on Sunday. I was one of 19 principals from Great Britain and N Ireland to be chosen to take part in a leadership project linking with Latin American and Carribean countries. The trip was really amazing. I visited 5 post primary schools in two days, one in Santiago, the capital, two in Linares which is a four hour drive from Santiago, and two in Talca, a large town athree and a half hour drive away from the capital. After the visits, all the principals of the schools came to Santiago where there was a three-day conference on leadership, delivered by me and a primary school principal from England who had linked with 5 pjrimary schools and whose principals also attended the conference.

Visiting the schools was truly an eye-opener, with 45 students per class and buildings in a serious state of disrepair. However, the principals and staff were amazing, showing great dedication and determination despite conditions, as were the students who were really open, friendly and interested. The plan is to link my five schools with schools in N Ireland, with the principals visiting the schools next Spring. There is a huge discrepency between private education for those who can afford to pay for it and public education for everyone else. The day before General Pinochet, the military dictator, left power, he brought in a law which effectively enshrined the privileged place of the private schools and disadvantaged public schools. There is currently legislation going through parliament which will attempt to redress this imbalance.

While I know that I will get little sympathy, the schedule was extremely tight and the travelling exhausting, but it was totally worthwhile. Highlights included the people, who were wonderful, the scenery, and in particular the Andes, the food, with meat and fish to die for, and the visit to the house of Pablo Neruda in Isla Negra. Neruda was a Nobel Prize-winning poet who is still adored by Chilenos, which says a lot about Chile's culture. Evidence of Chile's bloody recent history is everywhere and on one evening I witnessed a demonstration outside a former torture house of the Pinochet regime, during which the disappeared "los desaparecidos" were again remembered.

I am looking forward to the visit of the principals next year and to developing links with our new-found friends and colleagues in Chile.

Languages Classes

Our programme of language teaching has begun, with French and Spanish underway. There will be English classes for Polish people, and Polish classes for the rest of us. Later in the year, there will also be outreach language classes for the parents and local communities of the many primary schools in our Sharing Education Programme.

European Day of Languages

I was so sorry to miss European Day of Languages, and loved seeing the picture show on the modern languages webpage. The salsa dancing looked terrific.

While I was gone

I was away from college for sad reasons for the last few weeks. Thank you to everyone for the comfort and support of cards and flowers and licquorice and chocolate and lasagne and soup and home made bread and toffee and emails and texts and phonecalls. I felt very hugged and am profoundly grateful. Since I have been back, I have found so many things that students and colleagues have just stepped in and done for me.

Farewell Minibus

This week you will see in the newspapers that our college minibus has gone to join all the other local minibuses in the ACTS pool. This means that our minibus will be better cared for, and hired out by us when we need transport. It also means that the bus will be available to other local users within the ACTS partnership. Our bus was a contribution to integration donated by Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union. It is a real step forward to have the bus involved full time in cross community work. Brendan Downey of ACTS was presented with the keys today.

Welcome Friederike and welcome back Charlotte

We are particularly pleased to welcome Friederike from Germany for a year in sixth form. It is also great to have Charlotte back from her sixth form year out in Germany. The A level German class will be particularly glad to see them both, and they may well find themselves out teaching our in our primary partner schools.

Special French Success

We celebrate our first year as a Specialist Languages School with fabulous additional results achieved by students across the age range in French: Perrine carried off a GCSE grade A in year 10; our three independent French learners, Tanya, Helen and Niamh all achieved A or A*; Max achieved a grade B in his A level French while still in year 11.