Dear ALS Community,
Another busy week at ALS (as you’d expect!). After the focus of last week on a number of parent events across both Juniors and Seniors, this week, for staff, our attention has turned to preparations for Open Day on Saturday. In this spirit, I want to say that I am very grateful to our pupils, parents and staff who will be in tomorrow supporting ALS. For prospective pupils and parents, your time and stories of being part of ALS (obviously good ones!) help to show what a brilliant place ALS is. I could never take a tour with anywhere near the impact for prospective pupils quite as well as our own pupils do and the same goes for the referrals that come from parent to parent. Thank you.
For Open Day, just a reminder that pupils should be dropped off at school from 9.45am and then picked up again at 1.00pm when the Open Day finishes. We have just sold out on EventBrite for tours (you can imagine my joy in writing those words!) and so it will be very busy from the first tour time to the last. Whether we have good weather for tomorrow or not, I know the day will be a fantastic success thanks to the support of our school community who make ALS such a special place to be part of.
Our mantra for this week comes from Amicus: Forgive mistakes; we all make them. Each week, I’ll continue to share the mantra and whilst I’ll sometimes have some prattle to go with it (as I did last week), I do think the best way of using our community values is to discuss them together at home and to use them as a talking point as a family. What does your child think this week’s mantra means? How might it help them be a better person, friend or family member? Amicus mantras, in particular, are good ones to use for reflection with children of all ages due to the clarity of the message. Whilst I’m neutral to the house themselves, of course, to my mind kindness matters above all.
Rolling on from last week, our U15 netballers remain undefeated with an 18-6 victory and an 11-11 draw at Aylesford on Wednesday. Similarly, congratulations must go to our U11 hockey team with an 8-0 victory over Bowbrook House and, keeping the hockey clean sheets going, our U9 hockey team who were victorious today 9-0 and 6-0 against St Johns. Those new sports kits for this school year are proving quite the charm!
By this point in the term, I hope you will have logged into the Parent Portal so you can keep appraised of how your child is getting on in school, particularly in terms of rewards (house points) and any behaviour that has been picked up (M1-M3) by teachers. I am always proud to hear pupils in the corridor talking about picking up points for their achievements and approach to learning and seeing these house points go on the portal will give you a good talking point at home. On the ‘M’ side of our system, please remember that they are designed to help young people understand when they have made a poor choice and then how they can be better next time. We work with restorative practice principles and the time spent away from the playground will be about the growth of the young person so they can be better tomorrow. We log these, just like house points, so you can support us with conversations at home to help your child be their very best and I would like the system to be framed in that way.
For next week, if you haven’t booked your tickets for the Parent Information Evening on Self-Harm Awareness on Monday 3rd October, please do so here to reserve your space. Here is more information on the evening. On Wednesday it’s our first whole school photograph - all pupils must wear their full school winter uniform. If they have PE on Wednesday, pupils should bring their PE Kit in their sports bag. Following this on Friday 7th October we will be hosting the Regional ISA Head’s meeting which is an opportunity for us to showcase the school to local Heads. On Monday 10th October & Tuesday 11th October will be our first Juniors Parents’ Evenings swiftly followed by our Year 11 & Year 13 Parents’ Evening on Thursday 13th October and finally half term on Friday 14th October. We will be running an October Half Term Holiday Club from Monday 24th October - Thursday 27th October. More information will follow on this next week.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Best wishes,
David Preston | Headteacher |
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