Charlton School

4^th December 2020

Dear Parents/Carers,

Building Knowledge. Developing Character. Inspiring Futures.

Again, please may I start by offering my thanks for your ongoing support, and the many positive messages and telephone calls we have received, they have been very much appreciated.  Through adversity, there can often be a galvanising of strength and positivity and this appears to have been the case with our school community during what has been a difficult time.

I want to assure you that my own personal values I talked about on my appointment to Charlton have not changed, these are largely built around mutual respect.  I have a deep-rooted passion for education, no other job allows us to shape the lives and future of so many people.

Our vision is to nurture happy, healthy young people who have the knowledge, academic achievement and strength of character to lead safe and successful lives in modern Britain, preparing them for their next steps in education or employment, with a thirst for lifelong learning.

Our ethos is built around three core values: Respect, Responsibility and Resilience. We always expect all members of the Charlton community to exhibit these values.  Underpinning our vision and values are our shared character virtues:

• Gratitude: feeling and expressing thanks
• Compassion: exhibiting care and concern for others        
• Humility: estimating oneself within reasonable limits
• Justice: acting with fairness towards others by honouring rights and responsibilities
• Courage: acting with bravery in fearful situations
• Integrity: having strong moral principles and standing up for what you believe in
• Honesty: being truthful and sincere

Charlton School is dedicated to preparing students for their adult life beyond the formal, examined curriculum and ensuring that it promotes and reinforces British values to all its students.   As a school we stand firm that any form of bullying or peer on peer abuse, will not be tolerated and that action will always be taken against any students engaging in these activities.

It is with great sadness that the actions of some of our community have brought the vision, values and ethos of the school into question. The incident that caused this challenge, from people outside of our school community, was dealt with robustly at the time and it was a shock to all when it was shared more widely through social media and everything that followed.

Charlton School is committed to serving its community. It recognises the multi-cultural, multi-faith and ever-changing nature of the United Kingdom. It understands the vital role it has in ensuring that groups or individuals within the school are not subjected to peer on peer abuse.  We follow equality guidelines to ensure that there will be no discrimination against any individual or group, regardless of faith, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, political, financial or any other status.

Your own children will be able to talk to you about the whole school assemblies that we hold, now virtually, and the strong stance we take on equality.  The words of Mr Pickering from one of these assemblies will stay with me throughout my time at Charlton.  He said, “There is more that unites us than divides us, we are one school, one community”.

Never more have these words been more important than now.  We are expecting to see a positive reaction from our students and school to the undeserved adverse publicity we have faced.  We will continue to challenge inequality at every available opportunity.

Yours sincerely

Mr A McNaughton

Principal