Dear ALS Community,
Whilst every week in a school is a busy one, there’s lots to run through this week! Of particular note is the wonderful week that Years 5 and 6 pupils have had as they’ve spent the week on a residential trip in Newquay learning to surf. Learning in the classroom is obviously important but I think that residential trips and experiences of that nature are just as important for children as they move through their education.
Next Saturday (21st May) is our Summer Open Day. We have a large number of families booked to come and visit us with a particular view to joining for Reception in September 2023 and Year 7 in September 2023 which is excellent. I would like to thank all pupils, staff and parents who are joining us on the day for the time and support. Our School community is the single most wonderful thing about ALS and I know that prospective parents will love getting to have a chance to see that. If you’ve any questions about Open Day, please contact your child’s class teacher or form mentor.
This week, our safeguarding knowledge for our community is “What Parents Need to Know about Facebook”. With 2.9 billion users, Facebook, owned by the recently rebranded Meta, is the world’s most popular social media platform. It encourages interaction with other people by (among other things) adding them as friends, reacting to or commenting on their content, sharing images and videos, posting status updates, joining groups and playing games. Facebook is free, and anyone over 13 can join – but with no age verification, younger children can easily create an account: it’s likely your child is already familiar with the platform, even if they don’t yet use it themselves. In this guide, you'll find tips on a number of potential risks such as cyberbullying, strangers and the addictive nature of Facebook.
Our weekly mantra from Veritas: ‘Embrace, don't resent, other opinions.’ Mr Hawkins writes “the world is constantly full of differing opinions. Whether that be in politics, sport, social changes and day to day life. Opinions are what can cause most arguments and issues in peoples lives. Trying to think that you're the one in the right and only your point of view matters is narrow-minded and obtuse. Instead of trying to dominate the other person with your opinion and dismiss their opinion in the process, try to understand their perspective on the matter. You don't develop and evolve by arguing with others. You grow and evolve by gaining new insights, perspectives and opinions.
Next week, we begin our selection process for the new Head Prefect and Deputy Head Prefect. As in previous years, Year 10 Prefects have had to write a letter of application before they move on to the selection process which includes a presentation to all staff (next Friday during the staff briefing at 8am), an interview with members of the Senior Leadership Team, a Prefect vote and a whole staff vote. The selection of the Head Prefect is always very challenging and I wish luck to all of the candidates in advance of next week.
On the topic of Prefects, I also want to share that this will be the last year at ALS where our Head Prefect is selected from Year 11, from September 2023, the Head Prefect will be selected from our Sixth Form as will the broader set of Prefects. Whilst I know this will be disappointing for pupils currently in Year 9 who would have wanted the opportunity sooner, it is appropriate that the Head Prefect, who represents the best of our school values, comes from the eldest pupils in school. We will be reviewing our pupil leadership opportunities through the Seniors to ensure that pupils in their GCSE years continue to have the chance to gain experience of pupil leadership before becoming a Prefect (or even Head Prefect!) in Sixth Form.
Earlier this term, Mr James launched our Everest Programme for High Performing pupils in the Juniors and Mrs Bottrill has now done the same in Seniors. Everest learners are pupils that are excelling in certain sports, creative pursuits, academic subjects or performing to a high musical standard. Each Everest pupil will have a mentor from our staff team who share a common interest and this will help to support the Evert learner to continue to thrive in their area of High Performance. Congratulations to all pupils who have been invited onto the Everest programme!
When we return from our half-term break at the end of May, we will be celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee on Monday 6th June. To mark the day, we’ll have a non-uniform day (themed around red, white and blue) and there’ll be history themed lessons around the Queen’s reign as well as our lunch that day will be themed around high tea which will be a lovely treat for our pupils and staff. As we get closer to the day, we will send another reminder out but there’s nothing to organise at home other than the theme of red, white and blue. We’ll sort the rest.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Best wishes,
David Preston | Headteacher |
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