22 January 2025
Dear Parent/Carer
This week’s celebrated value in school is Dedication. It’s quite pertinent at this time of year too. January can be a long month. Dark evenings and cold days can make us feel a bit fed up from time to time. Those of us who made New Year resolutions are potentially finding it hard to keep on top of a new commitment as well as managing the ordinary day-to-day. It’s human nature. We are still in the depths of Winter and Spring feels a way off yet. We crave warmth, comfort and routine, which can make us sluggish and lazy at times!
Regardless of whether we had intentions to start afresh, sometimes it is challenging to just keep going with what we need to do. As soon as we lift our foot off the gas, we can so easily revert to the path of least resistance, instead of challenging ourselves to persevere, dedicating time and space to what is important. The value of Dedication always puts me in mind of Roy Castle OBE, who presented a TV programme in the 1980s with the theme tune ‘Dedication’!
The lyrics were:
“If you want to be the best and it you want to beat the rest, dedication’s what you need.”
I’m showing my age for sure, but the essence of these lyrics is still applicable today. We know at Erdington Academy, that students who commit to being here on time and have attendance greater than 90%, increase their chances of being successful, just by being present. They are motivated to be here because they know and appreciate the impact that strong teaching and pastoral care, will have on their attainment. They will be highly likely to achieve at least 3 grades more than their peers who demonstrate less commitment or dedication to hard work.
Recently, I have witnessed dedication in a variety of different guises around the school:
- Students completing the subject colours activities and earning half-colour awards
- Students challenging one-another to meet the Reading Canon targets.
- Staff committing to be here despite their challenging journeys over distance in the snow, so that lessons could run as normal for our students at the start of term.
- Pastoral staff challenging behaviour that falls short of our expectations, so that our learning environment is maximised for the benefit of all.
- Students attending intervention, because they know they have gaps in their learning that they need to close to be successful, and
- Student leaders demonstrating this core value, not only through assemblies
last week, but also in their interactions with staff, students, parents and visitors.
Dedication is as much about habits as it is hard work and effort. We all like to reflect on success as an ‘event’ in time, where in fact it is instead, the sum of all the moments that we chose to do things better (rather than not). There is significant power in small improvements and slow gains.
What are the 1% improvements in your life, or your child’s life that could become habits and part of continuous improvement? If you look at the information available to you on MCAS MyChildAtSchool – Login (please create an account, if you haven’t already), then you can start to create opportunities to support your child to improve over time.
Perhaps they might:
- Get up 5 minutes earlier so that they have a better chance of being in school on time?
- Take part in one of the many extra-curricular activities on offer in school and try something new to expand their comfort zone?
- Challenge themselves to complete a subject-colour activity every half term and improve their understanding of subject content?
- Make the effort to come into school when they feel a bit under the weather. Students often start to feel better before mid-day and are glad they persevered?
- Aim for as many 100% weeks as possible, with the potential of winning the prize draw and benefitting from staying on top of learning and progress?
- Remember all our values and try to fill the positive record on their Ethos Card by demonstrating them everywhere, every day?
The possibilities are endless. Tiny changes consistently applied over time and the effort it takes to make them can result in immeasurable impact. Dedication is an important value for us all and a vital skill from an employer perspective. Those seeking to fill job vacancies are usually looking for candidates with some ‘stand-out’ qualities (as well as a strong portfolio of exam results), something that highlights a person as being more valuable to the organisation. These sorts of skills, sometimes referred to as soft skills are also values-linked.
Dedication – the belief that there is dignity in hard work and effort, almost regardless of success, is just one of these skills. I sincerely hope that many students will be able to add examples of this value to their Personal Statement when the time comes; proving that the many tiny things they applied themselves to during their time at Erdington Academy have contributed enormously to their overall successes. If they want to be the best and they want to beat the rest, dedication’s what they need!
Yours faithfully,
Mrs K Wright
Vice Principal | Behaviour & Ethos