Prev
Next
End of Term & Farewells
Heading into Summer
A message from Richard Clutterbuck, Headteacher
As the academic year draws to a close on Friday 19 July 2024, we can all take a well-earned rest from the last 190 days of school and look forward to a British summer, which might finally have arrived. Innumerable thanks must go to the staff, members of the Local Governing Body and all members of the school for helping our community navigate the last year and well done to pupils for ending the year so positively.
In just this last week of term, we have had a robotic dog on site, an Expressive Arts Summer Showcase, pupils at the Royal International Air Tattoo, writing competition winners and the fabulous annual Party in the Park! What a week!
We celebrated the end of GCSEs with the Class of 2024 this term at their Leavers' Ball, and look forward to welcoming them back to school at 9.15am on Thursday 22 August for their results; we will see them again in November at their Celebration of Achievement Evening (details TBC). We also said a first welcome to our new Year 7s who will, in time, be the Class of 2029!
To our Classes of 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028, also known as (new) Years 8, 9, 10 and 11 respectively, you have all extolled the values of Trust, Kindness and Determination, helping to make Deer Park a better place to be.
There are three members of staff leaving this term: I am leaving teaching to take up a role in EdTech; Science teacher Mr David is heading to another secondary school as their Head of Science; and last, but very much not least, Mrs Crew, our SENDCO, has decided after 30+ years at Deer Park that it is time for a change! For those parents and pupils for whom Mrs Crew has been a vital link, Mrs Stockwell, who will be our SENDCO from September, would like to reassure you that as a current member of the teaching staff she is very much looking forward to this new challenge.
Miss Charlesworth, member of our Strategic Leadership Team, says: 'Mrs Crew leaves us after 31 years at Deer Park. She has been a great Science teacher and SENDCO. There are many families that Mrs Crew has supported over the years and her calm, empathetic manner has ensured that pupils have flourished. We wish her well for the future and know that Cirencester College are lucky to be gaining such a wonderful colleague.'
My personal journey at Deer Park began in 2017 as a parent, when my daughter joined in Year 7; it shifted in 2019 when my son joined in Year 7; and then changed irrevocably when I joined as a member of staff in 2020. Now in July 2024, this particular journey ends as I move out of teaching and into EdTech.
And what of my time here? To paraphrase a seminal cinematic work, “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Learning on fire off the shoulder of Languages. I watched teaching glitter in the dark near the front field gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain of a British Summer.”
Deer Park has been so much more than my place of work or the school of my children. More than I can possibly put into words, which is why I am mugging the quotes of others. I am leaving a place full of people which means more to me than its phenomenological parts (the philosophy degree was good for something?).
As I start my new journey away from Deer Park, I feel lucky, rather than sad, as I have gained far more over the past 7 years than I ever could have lost. From September, Deer Park will be in the very capable hands of Co-Heads Miss Charlesworth and Mrs Lang.
"It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end." Ursula K Le Guin
Goodbye!
Richard Clutterbuck