Dear ALS Community,
It’s the final weekly email of this term! Whilst there’s still quite a few events to come, we’re just a few days away from the break for the holidays. Of all the school holidays, this one is the best one, I think, for focusing time on family and friends and I hope that the whole school community has a wonderful festive time (unless we’re talking about Year 11 or Year 13…they have mocks in January to revise for!).
On Thursday, we had the most wonderful day of the school calendar - Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas Lunch. It was my privilege (with the rest of the leadership team) to serve Christmas Lunch to all pupils. It might have taken a little longer than usual as pupils took time to enjoy in the Dining Room with friends, but it was certainly fun to get to chat to each pupil as they came through the lunch queue. The most uttered phrase of the day was “everything, please…except for sprouts”. Regardless of how much he tried, Mr Owen simply couldn’t upsell the sprouts. Thursday also saw our Juniors' Celebration Assembly, where we celebrated the achievements of our youngest pupils in school. We're very proud of the efforts of all of our children this term and I look forward to seeing the wonderful things they will achieve next term.
This afternoon, we have had the delight of ALPA’s Christmas Fayre. As it always is, the event was a wonderful success for pupils and parents and I am grateful ALPA for their hard work in pulling together such a fantastic event. Whilst he’s obviously very busy at this time of year, there was also much happiness when younger pupils found out that Santa Claus had managed to find time to visit ALS for the Christmas Fayre. Henry and Mrs Preston managed to join us for the Christmas Fayre today as well and it was the first time that Henry has had the chance to meet Santa Claus…my first draft of the weekly email had an assumption that it wouldn't go well...but it did! Henry loved meeting Santa Claus and cuddled his Arnold Lodge cuddly dog all the way home.
On the sports front, congratulations go to our outstanding swimmers Erik, Isla, Dhiran and Jemima who competed at the ISA National Finals last weekend. Having competed for the school at a regional level, our four swimmers were then selected for the Midlands Team which is an outstanding feat in itself. To then go on and take medals at a national level is exceptional. Keeping with sport, congratulations to our U15 hockey team who took a 5 - 0 victory over at King Henry VIII on Tuesday.
This week, Senior Phase reports have been sent out and can be found on the iSams Parent Portal. This is the first introduction of the new assessment framework and there’s a lot more data to digest. If you’re finding the numbers, grades and scoring is a little confusing, Mrs Smart’s excellent help guide can be found here (KS3 / KS4 / KS5). On this topic, we have now also launched our Parent App. The guide for this can be found here. Whilst the setup is a little fiddly, once it’s ready you’ll be able to receive push notification about how your child is getting on in school covering key announcements through to house points and any Ms. If you do not have access to the parent portal, please contact Dan ([email protected]) who can provide you with support to reset your account.
At Year 8 Parents’ Evening, a parent asked for advice on how best to celebrate and reward the success of a child in their learning (and then joked it would make a good topic for the weekly email). In the hope that it might be useful, I thought I would share the advice here. In celebrating a child, I would encourage us to celebrate the choice they make on their road to success. If we focus on outcomes, children come to fixate on ‘grades’ rather than the effort to achieve those grades. Instead, focus on what they have done to get there. Focus on attitude to learning scores. This, over time, can build resilience in young people that their choices are what matter most and not the outcome (which, by extension, improves outcomes). Win win.
Next week, a reminder that there will be no ExEn and Arnies will not run on the last day of term. We also still have our evening Carol Service at Holy Trinity Church to look forward to on Tuesday 13th December at 7.00pm. I am very much looking forward to this musical celebration and the chance to see the musical talent of our pupils. The heating will very much be on in the Church to provide you with a relatively warm welcome - don’t believe everything Mr James says!
Best wishes,
David Preston | Headteacher
December 9th 2022
