Dear ALS Community,
After rain washed us out a few weeks ago, our much anticipated Welcome Back BBQ took place this evening. It was wonderful to see so many parents (old and new!) join us for the get together. When we delayed the BBQ a few weeks back, I must admit to being somewhat nervous on the Friday about whether or not it did rain…luckily enough we had a downpour that justified the decision! Whilst much credit must go to Marcin, our Chef, who was fantastic on the BBQ tonight, I felt for Mr Smart who has been knocked off his throne. I’m sure the ‘Mr Smart BBQ King’ apron won’t gather dust for too long.
This week has seen a number of events for parents to attend with Junior School ‘Open Classrooms’ taking place, an event for our new Y7 & New Starters into Seniors as well as a welcome event for our Sixth Formers. It is important that we provide an open, communicative culture and I hope that, if you attended these events, that you came away with any questions you had answered as well as a chance to connect with other members of our parent community.
Looking to next week, the big event is our Autumn Open Day taking place on Saturday 1st October. Such is the popularity of our Open Day events, we have had to instigate a ticketing system to keep control of the numbers attending and we are more or less sold out for the day. Across the Juniors and up to Year 9, we expect pupils to come to school to support on the day. Attendance is then optional (except for Prefects and Scholars) for pupils in Years 10-13. Pupils coming to Open Day must be in full school uniform and can be dropped off at the school gates from 9.45am and picked up at 1.00pm when the Open Day finishes. Following this on Monday 3rd October we will be joined by Satveer Nijjar, an external speaker who will be speaking to pupils in the Senior phase over the course of the day about self-harm awareness. We would like to invite parents and guardians to join us at 6.00pm that evening for a Parent Information Evening on self-harm awareness. To book your tickets and to find out more click here.
Our mantra for this week comes from Dedicas: Only expect from others what you are willing to put in. Whether in sport, extra-curricular or in study, this is an important tenant of our school. Though it’s a Dedicas mantra, there’s quite a lot of ‘Veritas’ in living the value you want to see in others yourself. In school, this is the adults being well prepared for lessons, marking books in a timely fashion and investing time to be prepared for things like Parents’ Evenings. In doing so, we show the pupils that we, too, put effort in to secure their best learning. From here, when we have shown our very best, we can then lead pupils towards putting in their best work, too.
The Dedicas mantra gives a neat segue into an important point for this week. As we move through the term, homework for pupils will begin to mount up if they are not organised and ‘on top’ now, especially for those in examination years. As parents, you can support by using your log on for SatchelOne which will give you access to all of the homework given to your child and then helping them to plan out a weekly calendar of what homework to complete and when. By logging into SatchelOne, you’ll have total access to the work set, the deadline and the ability to ask that all important question “do you have homework tonight?” but do so already armed with the answer! If you do not have access to SatchelOne, please email Dan Watson ([email protected]). If your child is struggling to complete homework, has found a homework tough or has a packed schedule for a particular reason and needs some adjustment, please reach out to your child’s mentor and let us know. We will always support in these circumstances. Otherwise, not completing homework will be followed by an M2 which will be 10 minutes of restorative time.
On the sport front, our U15 netballers have had a fantastic set of results. Wearing our new netball kit (there’s also a new hockey kit waiting to be donned…), our U15 teams played two fantastic matches against King Henry VIII. Our A team were victorious 16-6 with Claudia being the player of the match and our B team were victorious 9-1 with Amy being the player of the match. Not a bad way to begin the netball season! Congratulations to Miss Cooper on her coaching debut for ALS and all the girls who took part. The full match report can be found on the parent portal.
I hope you have a fantastic weekend.
Best wishes,
David Preston | Headteacher |
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