The School Year

THE SCHOOL YEAR Amy Thompson

Review of 2020-21 by LAS Head Prefect

Iam lucky enough to have both a historical and a present connection at Loughborough Amherst School as my Mum, Aunties and Uncles attended the schools within the Foundation and now my brothers, cousins and I are following in their footsteps- making it a very cherished place for my family.

However, the beginning of my journey at Loughborough Amherst School was different to most. I started at the end of Year 8 just two days after my family and I had moved here from Australia.

Unfortunately, the change in climate was not all I had to get used to. Academically, I was a year and a half behind my peers, I had to break into established social groups and the netball team was full - so not the easiest of starts. However, the small class sizes and the dedicated teachers suited me perfectly and although the climate was a little chilly, a warm welcome was given to me by students and staff and I definitely knew that my journey ahead would not be a lonely one.

2020-2021, a year where face to face learning was replaced with Teams meetings and Zoom calls, whole school assemblies replaced with year group bubbles and smiling faces were covered by masks. But regardless, Amherst was doing what it has always done. Amherst was continuing to teach us how to live, learn and grow. Every day, students at Amherst are supported, encouraged, challenged, praised, corrected, enlightened, celebrated. This didn’t change – these acts continued because we are Amherst.

Every student should be extremely proud for not just surviving the past 15 months, but for smashing it out of the park as it has been a collective effort of hearts and minds that has meant Amherst remains a place of learning, growth and enrichment.

This year has been full of some amazing activities and events including our very successful HelloYellow day (showing our support for young people dealing with mental health challenges), reopening of sports clubs, lunchtime dance competitions, staff /student Christmas nativity, lockdown challenges, World Book Day, the Easter Lockdown Live concert, our annual Burton Services, sports days and many more. One of my personal favourites was our Year 13 Leavers’ Week - from jumping off inflatable obstacles at Rutland water, to our school sleepover and singing in the Chapel at 12am, to the unforgettable leavers’ meal.

I would like thank Dr Murphy for how he has steered Amherst over the past few months. He set our course and helped us believe we could continue to succeed. We really couldn’t have asked more of our Headmaster in such unprecedented times. And a massive thank you to all the teachers - this year we have truly learnt the importance of their guidance and support, perhaps before too easily taken for granted and undervalued.

I hope I speak for all students at Amherst, when I say that, in a year where many of our plans have been replaced with uncertainty, the spirit we have learned at Amherst offers us reassurance in knowing that despite even the greatest challenges, we can go on to achieve great things and carve out our own path in an everchanging world. I will be forever grateful to Amherst for shaping me into the confident, ambitious and resilient person I am becoming. I will miss the undeniable community spirit that radiates from our students, teachers and the Sisters and I am extremely grateful for my time spent at Amherst with an amazing group of friends and teachers.

HEADLINES

Dr Julian Murphy, LAS Headmaster This year has seen us make some changes to our morning rota to create more time for the celebration of spiritual life and the promotion of a healthy reading culture. Friday The summer of 2021 saw the completion of the first phase of our plan to turn Loughborough Amherst School into one of the finest and most sought-after independent schools in the Midlands. mornings are now devoted to weekly spiritual life meetings within year groups, with the whole school gathering every third or fourth Friday for an act of worship led by the pupils from a particular year. Staying on the theme of spiritual life, one of the greatest The aims of this first phase were to establish a strong and growing word-of mouth reputation for the school as a place of outstanding pupil care and great academic results; to grow the school above 300 on roll so as to make it much more financially secure for the future; to overhaul the teaching staff and create an unusually effective and tight-knit body of teachers; and, finally, to achieve a strong ‘value-added’ measure in public examination results. All four of these targets have now been achieved. In particular, we have achieved continuous and impressive growth in numbers on roll for several years in a row, and an overall growth of 60% during the last five years. pleasures of emerging from lockdown has been the return of School Mass. My particular thanks to our celebrant, Fr David from St Mary’s in Loughborough, who is working with such enthusiasm and such a great instinctive feel for how to help non-Catholic pupils feel both informed and comfortable in Mass. Thursday mornings see us splitting into year groups for Book Club, in which students select a book from a shortlist of choices presented every eight weeks and then gather in small discussion groups with those who have selected the same choice of book. I am enjoying working with Year 13 in their Book Club, where the choices so far have been The Road by Cormac McCarthy; Girl, This summer’s results were 35% A*-A and 42% A*-B at A Level, which was 28% above the national average. At GCSE our pupils Woman, Other O’Farrell. by Bernadine Evaristo; and Hamnet by Maggie achieved 22% grades 9-8 and 42% grades 9-7, which was 14% above the national average. Although the actual grades for results in 2020 and 2021 should be taken with a slight pinch of salt, it is nonetheless pleasing to see that our position in regard to national average results continues to rise year-on-year. This September saw the launch of the second phase of Amherst’s development plan, in which we are turning our focus to the ongoing improvement of the learning culture within the School. The aim here is not just to continue raising examination results, but – perhaps more importantly – to This success is the result of having a firm, ambitious and unwavering vision, and a team of staff with the enthusiasm, skill, and work ethic necessary to make that vision a reality. It has also been greatly helped by the very vocal support and ambassadorship of our parents, to whom we are - as ever - very grateful. provide our pupils with a solid bedrock of growth mindset and work and emotional skills that they can take with them into their adult life. The name we give to this overall learning culture is our Minerva programme, and it is broken down into four main areas of focus, each of which can be expressed as a question or questions, as follows: As we have gradually emerged from lockdown, we have taken the opportunity to review and improve many aspects of our community and extra-curricular life. Following parent and pupil surveys, our extra-curricular offering has been thoroughly overhauled, and we are now offering a much The learning environment – are our expectations of behaviour, dress, and academic focus such that they guarantee a calm and purposeful atmosphere and greatly increase the chances of producing strong yet empathetic leaders of the future? wider range of clubs and activities. It is particularly pleasing Knowledge and confidence – do we take every step we can to me to see the successful launch of our eco-gardening club to minimise extrinsic cognitive load and maximise intrinsic and our debating society. The restructuring of sports staffing cognitive load for our learners? Do we take every step we across the Foundation has also enabled us to further improve can to ensure the successful transference of information from our PE and games curriculum. We remain very grateful to short to long-term memory? Loughborough Grammar School for opening access to their afternoon games programme as an option for those of our Learner mindset – do our habitual ways of working and boys who prefer rugby to football. speaking really nurture resilient, creative learners who can enjoy their work? The expansion of the school has necessitated the creation of a completely new classroom in the area where my office used to be, along with the creation of a new computing room. We have also created a new Sixth Form Art room, extended the facilities in the Food room and (finally) created a proper department area for Religious Education. Articulation – do we force our learners to articulate their thoughts and defend their ideas? If you are interested in learning more about how our Minerva programme works, please contact the Development Office, who will be delighted to email you a copy of our Minerva booklet.

We would like to congratulate LHS alum Grace Davies (Class of 1999), Senior Deputy Head at Amherst, on the birth of Rory on 3 May 2021. She is on maternity leave at the moment and describes having Rory as the best thing she has ever done – despite the current lack of sleep!