BUH Bulletin – October 2025

Open Evening was a success and well-attended. We hope to attract a record number of first choice families next year.

As always and thanks to the commitment of our staff team, there have been opportunities for our students to experience learning outside their classrooms. Year 7 enjoyed a day at Nell Bank Outdoor Education Centre in Ilkley and all year groups have been participating in a wide variety of after-school clubs; football, singing club, girls’ netball, rackets, drama, chess and book clubs, just to name just a few! These opportunities are provided free of charge to all students.

In 2026 there will be a trip to Paris for those who have signed up and Cricket Masterclass with top names such as Adil Rashid, Ajmal Shahzad, Moen Ashraf and more – full details to follow in the New Year.

Coming up before the end of term, selected students will have the exciting opportunity to attend the Bradford Schools’ Extravaganza. Students will be collaborating with schools across Bradford to attempt two Guinness Book of World Records for: World’s Largest Air Drumming and World’s Largest Body Percussion Lesson. The extravaganza is in association with the BBC, and there will be a live performance from Bantam of the Opera amongst others. BBC Children in Need will also be shining a light on the fundraising efforts in Bradford, during the UK City of Culture year.

Finally, our other great news is that we have been successful in our bid for £4000 funding for a community wellbeing garden which will be located onsite at BUH! We have begun partnership work with Beckfoot Heaton Primary school in this project. So, watch this space!

We continue to work hard developing our quality of education through staff, student and voice of our families. Our overall student attendance in the first half-term is 90%. This is good and we need every child to show resilience by attending school every day (like we do in our jobs!). Well done to those students who have managed to keep their 100% attendance! Please check your child’s overall attendance on Class Charts. Is it at least at or over 97%?

Behaviour remains one of our key whole-school priorities. All staff work hard to find something good in all our students and they acknowledge this through Class Charts positive points. Mobile phone and social media related behaviour issues have reduced significantly. Thank you for having conversations at home and monitoring your child’s phones (photos and videos apps). We will maintain our current policy around mobile phones as long as we do not see a spike in mobile phone misuse in schools or social media related incidents.

We must celebrate our Year 11 mock exam success. Every Year 11 student attended their mock exams in school. After-school revision is going from strength to strength with Year 10 also attending revision with Year 11. There is such a wonderful buzz in school. We have also had Year 7, 8 and 9 asking if they could attend after-school homework clubs. We are looking into this.

In maths, we are changing our home learning platform from Mathswatch to Sparx for all students. Sparx allows students to compete with other schools in the country. This online maths platform is proven to improve students’ academic outcomes by at least two GCSE grades! This online platform will replace Mathswatch in the next few weeks and we will provide full details of this exciting development shortly.

Yours sincerely,

Mr B K Dey, Headteacher

At BUH we  put every effort into supporting our wonderful year 11 students in succeeding in their exams.Let us show you some of the things we currently have in place:

Every morning begins with a morning meeting during which subject leaders deliver a short and focused revision session in English Language and Literature, Maths and Science.

Every year 11 student is placed in a small group with a specialist teacher from a subject they need further support or challenge in.

Intervention runs every day except Wednesday including our Tuesday ‘Big Revision’ session for Maths run in the canteen.  Students receive free snacks and work on a Maths past paper with the support of our dedicated Maths team. This is so popular we are almost running out of room! Please see the next page for the timings of all the interventions we run.

Sessions run from 3.05 until 4pm. Our Study Club is a quiet place to revise or complete homework in the library, this runs every afternoon except for Wednesdays.

It was fantastic to witness such great family attendance during our year 7 settling evening. Tutors and families were able to hold valuable conversations about how to best support students in their start to life in secondary school. It was a really positive experience for all involved. Families even got to sample our delicious canteen food! Thank you to all who attended, our partnership work with families really is key to success.

Mrs Ali took a group of our students to an Aspirational Day at Vanquis Banking. Students got a taste of what working life is like in the corporate sector.

We are delighted to be able to offer the extra-curricular activities shown below. If student want to get involved, they will need to come to the school office to collect a parental consent form. For Safeguarding reasons, no students will be allowed to join a club without a signed form.

Remember to indicate the club or clubs your child wishes to join. Clubs run from 3.05pm to 4.05pm (2:35pm to 3:35pm Wednesday) 

• Singing Club, G16
• Netball Club, Sports Hall
• STEM Club, S14
• Football Training, MUGA or Sports Hall
• Music – instruments, G16