Headteacher Update

Dear parents and carers,

I am pleased to say that the second week of the new term has been another successful one. We are continuing to effectively manage the demand of Covid-19 and are seeing reduced numbers of staff and students needing to isolate which is really pleasing. Staff who are at home but feel well enough to work have continued to teach live lessons or send in narrated resources whilst I know students have really appreciated. As you will be aware the length of self isolation has been cut to five days, hopefully the graphic below will be helpful in explaining how this works.

We are looking forward to the update from the government on January 26th which will review the ongoing wearing of face coverings in lessons. We are looking forward to the point where this will no longer be necessary but in the meantime students continue to respond exceptionally well to the current circumstances.

School Uniform
Most of our students have always followed the school uniform rules, looking smart and ready to learn. However where needed there has been a noticeable improvement over the last two weeks, thank you for your continued support with this. We will continue to challenge those students who do not meet our expectations in uniform standards, but we will also support them by providing the appropriate uniform to wear – we have invested heavily in buying large stocks of brand new uniform. We understand that the current climate is putting significant financial pressures on families and school will continue to provide support in any way we can. Please contact your child’s Head of Year if you would like further information regarding this. All enquiries will of course be done on a confidential basis.

The focus in the coming weeks will be around the length of skirts and the type of trousers students are choosing to wear. Students should be wearing skirts just above the knee, and leggings and jeans are not allowed to be worn in place of school trousers. Again should you have any concerns regarding this, please contact your child’s Head of Year.

Year 11 Parents Evening – Wednesday 19th January
A reminder that Parents Evening is virtual. We are looking forward to seeing as many families as possible for this important evening. If you need any help at all in terms of technology or making appointments please do not hesitate to contact school.

Form time PSHCE
In September, we launched half termly form time PSHCE sessions for all students in Year 7-13. This is to ensure students have ample opportunity to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to thrive as individuals, family members and members of society throughout their school experience. We also felt it was crucial to allow students time to revisit key content at different times to ensure the messages are age appropriate and provide them with chances to question and discuss a variety of topics with their form tutor and peers. The third form time session will take place on Wednesday 19th January for all students during their Period 1 lesson. Each half term we cover different topics, and this half term each key stage will partake in a session that looks at health and wellbeing. Year 7 and 8 will focus on ‘Recognising and managing emotions’, Year 9, 10 and 11 will explore the ‘Impact of social media’ whilst Year 12 and 13 will look at ‘Managing our emotional and physical health’. The students have engaged in these sessions fantastically so far and we look forward to the next session on Wednesday.

Head of Year Awards

Head of Year Updates
Year 7 – Miss Kincell, Miss Powell and Miss Cooper
We spoke in assembly this week about how impressed we have been with Year 7’s start to their second term. Students have managed excellently with the Five Fundamentals and the new uniform focus. Remember our Five fundamentals are:

1. We turn up to school and to every lesson
2. We speak kindly and appropriately to people
3. We wear the correct uniform
4. We work hard to meet the deadlines we are given
5. We care for our school and the people in it

We have two exciting guests in our assembly tomorrow, we have Thomas Lynne from the local council coming to discuss our ‘Bikeability’ scheme where students will receive safety training on riding their bikes. We will also be joined by Mr Lever who will be announcing the winners of The Bright Sparks Challenge and presenting the next set for this half term. Please remember the competition can also be found on Google Classroom.

Well done to our Students of the Week:
ANn: Olivia Mackay – For living out our school values each day and for being a polite and helpful member of 7ANN.
ASu: Toby Greenfield – for excellent contributions to extra-curricular clubs!
Bl: Pearl Cotton – Engaging in form discussions with mature and interesting ideas.
Cy: Zach Maxton – For showing kindness to others and being a great example of our school values
Gr: Harriet Flear -For showing kindness to others and being a great example of our school values
Hf: James Mellows – For always being cheerful and polite in form time.
Hv: Ellie Kirkham – being a polite and hardworking member of the form.
MLn: Sewnaz Timur – For always being considerate to others and for your nice contributions in form discussions.
MPe: Lois Webb – For always being pleasant in form time and getting involved
Mr: Alfie Sawdon – for living the school values and always working hard! Well Done!
SMf: Olivia Doney – For being very personable, kind and hard-working in all aspects of school life.

Well done to our Head of Year Award Winners this week:
Allen Alex 7SMf – For being a fantastic student, always getting involved with extracurricular activities and being compassionate to others.
Kaydee Roberts 7CY – For picking up litter on the field and caring for our school community! Well Done!

Library Newsletter:
January 18th is National Thesaurus Day! “What is a thesaurus?” I hear you cry. Well, I asked the same question when I was about twelve, and was told, “It’s a book you use to cheat at crosswords.” Not a bad analogy, however a thesaurus is so much more than that, it is a big (colossal, considerable, enormous, fat, gigantic hefty, huge) book full of valuable words. The name comes from the Greek word, visavros, which translates as treasure (riches, valuables, gems, jewels) Basically a thesaurus is a storage place for valuable words. So, in celebration we will be creating our own thesaurus rex’ in the library, along with word ladder bookmarks.

Shona, Word Detective – Shona Word Detective (Quiz 233476. Level 5.1. Colour Green)
Shona has always loved words. She even has her very own strange (unusual, odd, curious, peculiar, bizarre) word thesaurus! When her and her classmates learn that some languages are dying out (decrease, dwindle, ebb, extinction) Miss Bates tasks them with becoming top-class word detectives, proving to themselves and their families that there are many beautiful (dazzling, appealing, resplendent, divine) languages still thriving, even within their own classroom. You can read the first chapter by clicking on the following link. https://www.barringtonstoke.co.uk/books/shona-word-detective/

Word Nerd – Word Nerd by Susan Nielsen (Quiz 232456. Level 4.8. Purple)
Ambrose is home schooled and spends a lot of time lonely (by oneself, companionless, solitary, alone) and bored. He strikes up an unlikely friendship with his neighbour and find that they have a common interest, scrabble, which leads to deception (betrayal, falsehood, lying, pretence) and adventure (escapade, caper, feat, occurrence) Ambrose Bukowski is a twelve-year-old with a talent for mismatching his clothes, for saying the wrong thing at the worst possible time, and for words. In short, he’s a self-described nerd. Making friends is especially hard because he and his overprotective mother, Irene, have had to move so often… You can read the first nine chapters by clicking on the following link.

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Word_Nerd/vzStDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover

About Black Buck
Darren is an unambitious twenty-two-year-old living with his mother and working at Starbucks. All that changes when a chance encounter results in Darren joining the elite sales team of NYC’s hottest tech start-ups.

Free online Thesaurus!
If you would like to impress your friends/teachers with a plethora (plenty, wealth, glut, myriad) of interesting words, open the following link, scroll down to the alphabet at the bottom of the page to search (seek, hunt, delve, scour) for words… https://www.thesaurus.com/

Competition Corner
If anyone received a book token for Christmas, click on the link below, enter the last digits on your card and you will have the chance (possibility, prospect) for your balance to be topped up with £500! If you haven’t got a book token but would like (delight in, enjoy, fancy, relish) the chance of winning one, use the same link, but click on the arrow on the top right of the page once you have opened it. Good luck everyone!

https://www.nationalbooktokens.com/spend-and-win?utm_source=caboodle&utm_medium=email&utm_content=spend-and-win&utm_campaign=20220112_costa-book-awards

Most of you are getting really good at returning your books on time. However, we still have 500 books that are outstanding. This isn’t the amount that are on loan, it is just the amount that are overdue. Please have a good look at home, your classroom, your locker or anywhere a book might be hiding. You will not be in trouble for bringing back an overdue book.

Year 8 – Mrs Avey, Mrs Mennell and Mr Handley
As things continue on through this half term, Year 8 continue to show why they are very well respected across the school. They have had another very positive week and continue to show that they are a hard working and dedicated group of students.

Last week in the whole Year group Act of Collective Worship we talked about all the positives of Year 8 and all they should be proud of as well as some little things to think about that will allow us to improve further. The Year 8s have responded very well to this but there are still areas in which we can improve further. The Year 8 pastoral team will be keeping a close eye on the Year 8 social areas and reminding students that they have a responsibility to tidy up after themselves in order to keep our social areas a pleasant place to be.

This week’s Act of Collective worship looked LGBTQIA+ rights. The main focus of this was the problems of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. We learned what these really mean and why we all have a responsibility to not accept any behavior that is intolerant of another person. As a school we are inclusive to all of our students and we expect everyone in our year group to support one another. This links in with our school values of compassion of compassion and justice and the half termly British value focus on ‘Tolerance’.

In form time this week students have looked at another part of our school’s five fundamentals – the importance of wearing school uniform. Whilst observing some of these form times it is clear that our Year 8 students understand why we wear our school uniform with many stating safeguarding and poverty proofing as key factors. Year 8 uniform overall has been excellent but as we have said previously if you have any questions about uniform, or need any help please do get in touch with the Year Team.

On Wednesday during period 1 students will be taking part in an extended form time to complete their third PSHCE session. This helps to supplement the PSHCE lesson students access more regularly through the school year. This session will focus on recognising and managing emotions. This is an important skill that students need to learn when growing up and is an important part of improving their own self-awareness and in turn helping them to manage their own mental and physical wellbeing more effectively.

Next week also brings the very first meeting for the Year 8 Wellbeing Ambassadors run by Miss Stocks. We are incredibly proud to see how many year 8s have wanted to get involved in this. The Wellbeing Ambassadors will be working hard to role model Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health and facilitate access to support and signposting. They will follow a training programme, once a half term, to support the following:

• Reducing stress levels, especially around exam times and transition
• The development of self-help skills and building resilience
• Prevention of the escalation of emotional issues
• Improving communication, interpersonal skills and relationships
• Showing support in engagement and attitude to learning
• Increasing confidence
• Decreasing absences and improving attendance
• Increasing a sense of belonging

The students involved in this will be no doubt keen to support where they can within the year group and we should feel proud for giving up their time to get involved.

As ever, thank you for your continued support. If you have any issues regarding your child in Year 8, please contact school reception to get in touch with Mrs Avey (Head of Year 8), Mr Handley (Assistant Head of Year 8) or Mrs Mennell (Year 8 Pastoral Support Worker).

Year 9 – Mr Arthur, Mr Deamer and Mrs Deacon
It has been a pleasure to see Year 9 settling back into school for the new term and new year, Mr Arthur, Mr Deamer and I have been proud of how our students have listened and actioned the focus on fundamentals of school. After two weeks it is clear to see they have taken them on board. A reminder that our fundamentals are:

1. We turn up on time to school and to every lesson
2. We speak kindly and appropriately to people
3. We wear the correct uniform
4. We work hard to meet the deadlines we are given
5. We care for our school and the people in it

This week in form time students have been focusing on our uniform fundamental and Year 9 have shown significant improvement and we have been impressed with how they have responded to making sure their uniform is of a high standard. Uniform is a key part of life at Archbishop Holgate’s School, it helps create a sense of identity and belonging to the school community as well as setting the appropriate tone for students to be in the mindset of learning. A uniform also helps prepare for the outside world as in a large range of jobs people are required to wear either a uniform or a certain type of outfit in their work environment. Please do let us know if you need any assistance in acquiring uniform, we are more than happy to help.

Just a reminder that Year 9s Roller Skating Reward activity is on Friday 21st January (and is now fast approaching) and requires parental consent for students to attend. If you have already completed this before Christmas, there is no need to do so again. However, if you are yet to do so, please click the link below to make sure you have given consent..

https://forms.gle/UBZDRTcZspFAVezf8

We can’t wait to see all the students enjoying their well deserved reward!

Also a well done to Alisha Plummer and Reuben Stockdale for both winning the Head of Year award this week, they have both shown an outstanding positive attitude to school, we are proud of them both.

Thank you for taking the time to read this parent bulletin. If you have any issues regarding your child in Year 9, then please do get in touch by emailing aarthur@ahs.pmat.academy (Head of Year), mdeacon@ahs.pmat.academy (Assistant Head of Year) and/or rdeamer@ahs.pmat.academy (Pastoral Support Worker); or alternatively, you can call Main School Reception and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Thank you!

Year 10 – Mr Avery, Miss Johstone and Miss Montagu
The second week in January is always tough, especially with the dark mornings and Christmas holidays seeming like a distant memory. However I have to say Year 10 have been in good spirits this week, continuing the excellent start they have made to the spring term.
The students have responded really well to the ‘5 fundamentals’ we have been promoting since the start of the new term, and I have noticed a significant improvement in uniform, timekeeping and conduct across school. This week SLT have been completing regular ‘learning walks’ into different lessons, and I have lost count of the amount of times I have been approached with positive feedback on the conduct of Year 10. I made a point of praising this in the Act of Collective Worship this week and long may it continue.

I have had a few students approach me this week concerned with their work experience placement, having missed Monday’s deadline. I have re-assured them that we understand that it is challenging to find placements this year, as many businesses do not want to take on work experience students, and many people are working from home! However I take heart in the fact that we have 170 students placed and ready to go for May, so there are opportunities out there if the students stick to it and show resilience in the face of disappointment. If your child is still unable to find a work experience placement, please feel free to contact the school for assistance. We cannot call/email or arrange a placement for every student, but we can try and point you in the right direction. For example, I know for a fact the designer outlet is often a good place to find work experience, with students in the past going from shop to shop until they found a placement. Some students ended up getting a part time job out of this when they turned 16!

The Act of Collective Worship this week focused on the topic of ‘power’. Students were encouraged to think about the power they possessed as a teenager, and the positive influences they can have on each other and their community. We talked about who their local MP was and how they represent them in Parliament. Influential stories of people their age were shared, and hopefully they will have been inspired by this. I know it can be difficult at their age to feel like they have a voice or to change something they feel is not right, but hopefully following the assembly they have more confidence in their power to bring about change.

As always, the Year 10 pastoral team are here to support parents and students. Should you have any concerns or queries, please feel free to contact us and we will be happy to help in any way we can.

Year 11 – Miss Turvey, Miss Reeder and Miss Chambers
Thank you for your continued support through a successful first full week. As always, the vast majority of our students demonstrate exemplary conduct around school, and we would like to say a particular well done to the following students who have been commended by their Form tutors for standing out above the rest:

Maya Hood, Freya Brumby, Oliver Lynch, Tyler Bedford, Sebi Ackerley, Gracie Turner, Noah Dunn, Charlie Clennan, Emine Babucheva and Aiden Sadd.

Important Information on Mocks
Our most important upcoming event this week is Year 11 mock results day taking place on Monday 17th January. Students will receive their mock results during an Assembly with Mr Daly, Miss McDermott and Miss Turvey. This will take place during Period 5 (14:10-15:10) after which students will leave to go home. The Year 11 team will be available to students immediately after the assembly to hold conversations with anyone who needs to have a chat or has any questions about their individual results.

During the Assembly, students will be given two separate envelopes containing their results. The first letter will be addressed to students which they may choose to open during the Assembly. (Students are, of course, entitled to open this privately at home instead if they prefer.) Class teachers will hand these out and will be on hand throughout to answer questions and offer support. The second envelope is addressed to parents and will contain the same overview of results for students to take home. Your child should hand the letter containing their results to you when they arrive home on Monday. Students who are not in school on Monday will have their results posted home.

When studying your child’s results, you should be aware that the grades presented are the raw grades from the mock papers sat in December; they are not teacher predictions and they have not been adjusted. Please be aware that if students missed an exam due to an authorised absence and were unavailable during the catch-up period, their marks may be recorded as a 0. If students did not pass the exam, this will be recorded as a U grade. Your child’s teachers will also provide the ordinary overview of your child’s effort, behaviour and homework alongside the results. If there are any uncertainties around results, Parents Evening will hopefully provide a forum to make queries.

Important Information on Parents Evening
Following Mock Results Day, Parents Evening will take place on the evening of Wednesday 19th January. This is an extremely important evening in our school calendar as it sets the tone for the upcoming months in which students are able to make their final leap of progress ahead of their GCSE exams. These meetings will provide families with the opportunity to gain meaningful feedback from the mocks and engage in a dialogue about your child’s outcomes with individual teachers. As always, we recommend that your child attends the appointment alongside you. If parents are unable to attend parents evening, we would politely ask that you contact school so that we are aware.

The parents evening will be held virtually on Google Meet. This was a difficult decision but it is the correct one in light of the national circumstances. Students have been responsible for making appointments with their teachers which they have been recording on an overview sheet (or in their planners) for parents to oversee. The electronic appointments themselves are set up over your child’s Google Classroom account. On the evening, your child should log into their account and open Google Meet where they will be able to click on each individual appointment to start the meetings. Please do contact school via email, phone call or by writing a note in your child’s planner if you require support in accessing the appointments.

We are very much looking forward to what will be a productive and insightful evening.

Thank you for your continued support. If you have any issues regarding your child in Year 11, please do contact school reception to get in touch with Miss Turvey (Head of Year 11), Miss Chambers (Assistant Head of Year 11) or Mrs Reeder (Year 11 Pastoral Support Worker).

Post 16 – Mrs De Lashley, Mrs Walton, Miss Balmer and Mr Charlton
Y13 Lunchtime and Period 6 sessions – Y13 subject support continues. Students should be attending any session that is available for the subjects they study. Some subjects are spending time in the Sixth Form Library getting into good study habits when they do not have a subject session to attend. Should you have any Year 13 queries please do not hesitate to get in touch with Mr Charlton mcharlton@ahs.pmat.academy or Mrs De Lashley fde.lashley@ahs.pmat.academy

Y12 Mock Exams
These commence this week within timetabled lessons.

BTEC External Assessments
External BTEC assessments will continue over the next three weeks. Below is this week’s timetable. Students must be prompt and have the required equipment/notes with them.

Collective Worship
This week the theme of our Form Tutor Collective Worship is inspired by lessons we can learn from the writings of J. R. R. Tolkein, born 130 years ago this month. Each of our daily quotes is inspired by thinking about how we can live together well.

Monday – “It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.” Irish proverb
Tuesday – “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main, any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” John Donne 16th century English poet and Church of England vicar
Wednesday – “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” Mother Teresa of Calcutta, 20th century Christian missionary in India
Thursday – “Differences can be wonderful in adding colour and spice to our lives…. the more colour there is, the more beautiful the world becomes.” Holocaust survivor Ernest Levy
Friday – “In the face of evil, we must summon our capacity for good. In the face of hate, we must love.” Barack Obama, 44th US President

The Wellbeing Newsletter Issue 39