Headteacher Update

Dear Parents and Carers,

As we begin another busy week at school I would like to take a moment to congratulate all those students who were either completing or preparing for examinations/assessments last week. Their mature and dedicated approach has been really good to see, ranging from students in Year 8 completing their assessments to some young people in Year 11 who had no fewer than three GCSE examinations on Friday. Well done to everyone and we look forward to more of the same this week.

Pre-loved uniform shop
We have been really encouraged by the response to both our new ‘UNIFORMD’ store and the new Unity Fund Hub. A reminder that the pre loved uniform shop can be accessed via the link below and if your family requires support from the Unity Fund please email either gstainsby@ahs.pmat.academy or krobinson@ahs.pmat.academy for more information:

https://app.uniformd.co.uk/items/172

Wanted – Uniform donations
A reminder that the shop stocks a large range of good quality second hand items, starting from 50p, ranging from PE kit to School Bags to ties. To continue supporting as many children as possible we kindly ask that if families have uniform that children, particularly Year 11 leavers, no longer need that it be donated to school at reception. In the few short weeks of the shop being open we have already supplied a large number of families with shirts, school jumpers and trousers.

AHS SEND Coffee morning!
We are delighted to invite our SEND parents to our very first SEND coffee morning, for both parents/carers and students to be held in our brand-new Library and Resource Centre on Saturday 2nd July from 10am-12.00pm.

During the morning, you will get a chance to:

• Meet with many of the staff who are part of our inclusion and intervention team
• Network with other parents of SEND students
• Play games, explore the library and inclusion centre, do quizzes and have fun!
• Access important resources about our SEND offer at AHS and find out how you can support students outside of school too
• Enjoy refreshments
• Ask any questions you might have about SEND at AHS

We would love to see as many of you there as possible!

Y10 Mocks
Between Monday 13th June up to your mock exams on Monday 27th June, there will be the opportunity to revise after school in preparation for your mock exams. The ‘Revision Room’ will be in Hi6 and run between 3:10pm and 5pm Monday-Thursday. We hope that some students will find this helpful.

ClassCharts
Thank you to everyone who has signed up and who are using the ClassCharts App. If there is anyone who requires support in setting up the App and how to use it, please contact your childs Head of Year. Remember, ClassCharts allows parents to access the following via the App:

• Merits and certificates to celebrate the successes of your child
• Behaviours
• Detentions
• If your child is on report
• Attendance (including allowing you to report an absence)
• Your child’s timetable
• Your child’s classes
• Any ‘Announcements’ from the school (ie messages)

Please visit: https://archbishopholgates.academy/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/ClassCharts_-A-guide-for-parents_carers.pdf for a full guide on how to download and use the App.

Reporting Absences
Please report every absence to school via ether:

• The absence line 01904 411341 Option 1
• Send a message using the ClassCharts App
• Email reception@ahs.pmat.academy.

If an absence is not reported and is unexplained, parents/carers will be contacted, as it is our duty to Safeguard. We ask that school is kept up to date with changes to contact details.

Holidays
Please do not take holidays during term time. Any request from parents will be recorded as unauthorised unless in very exceptional circumstances (unfortunately previously cancelled holidays due to COVID is not an exceptional circumstance). All holidays taken during term time will be referred to City of York Council who will likely issue with a Fixed Penalty Notice to each parent. School is only 190 days a year, this leaves 175 non-school days a year to go on holiday in. We appreciate the ongoing support.

Head of Year Awards
Please find below the Head of Year Awards for the Parent Bulletin. Year 11 and 13 won’t now feature until September.

Head of Year Updates
Year 7 – Miss Kincell, Miss Powell and Miss Cooper
We have had a very exciting first week back this week- Year 7 have been introduced to what their first ever Enrichment Week will look like. We were lucky to have been visited in assembly by Mr Gladstone who talked us through all of the exciting activities in the last week of term. We want our last week to be a reward and celebration and will include everything from curriculum enrichment to a day out a flamingo land and a full day of one-off fun sessions with teachers. Soon students will receive a booklet with all of this key information and the different options for their Friday fun sessions. The sessions are a true variety with everything from Karaoke and war hammer to mindful colouring and nail art!

We are excited to see you all at our Parent’s evening on Wednesday 29th June. Please know, we appreciate that making appointments is new to Year 7, rest assured they will have lots of support from their teachers and be guided with their timings. If you have any concerns about this, please contact the Year 7 team and we will be more than happy to support.

Well done to our Students of the Week:
ANn: Oli Dilsworth – Fantastic first week back. Well done Oli!
ASU: Dylan Connolly – For being a fantastic presenter of the news this week and guiding thoughtful discussions.
Bl: Hannah Shaw – taking part in the cricket tournament at Ampleforth College.
Cy: Kaydee Roberts for her fantastic show and share this week
Gr: Bryanna Martyn- Thank you for all your hard work in lessons and during form time. You are a great role model.
Hf: Alexander Wilson for consistent excellence in form time discussions. Well done.
Hv: Amira Benchouir- A fantastic attitude to learning
MLn: Bobbie Taylor – For being such a great member of the form: polite, kind, helpful and compassionate!
MPe: Nicola Ciachla for living the school values and being a wonderful member of MPE.
Mr: Isla Hanlon for being such a positive role model
SMf: Will Godbold – Joining our form so late in the year but immediately becoming a part of our character and form journey. Well done on such an enthusiastic and open start.

Well done to our Head of Year Awards:
Ellie Murphy 7HF – for consistently living the school values. Well Done!
Finlay McIntyre 7HV – for consistently living the school values. Well Done!

The Library Newsletter
I hope you all had a lovely half term break. Y7 have had their end of year assessments and can now enjoy the final weeks of a full school year in secondary school. It goes very quickly, but no doubt you have all achieved great things. However, school is not all about lessons. School is a place where you make lifelong friends. Two of my best friends are people I met in Y7 over 45 years ago! This week is National Friendship Week, so why don’t you think about all the fantastic people you have met this term. If you would like to send your friends a card/post card to tell them how much you value their friendship, call into the library to make one and I will make sure they receive it.

Best Friends by Jacqueline Wilson (Quiz 207233. Level 4.5. Colour Purple) tells the tale of Gemma and Alice who have known each other all their lives, but when Gemma reads Alice’s diary at a sleepover, it eventually leads her to discover Alice is moving away. Because of their distance, will Gemma and Alice struggle to stay friends, when they have to make new friends. The story’s theme throughout the whole story is that true friends will be together until the end.

Alice and I are best friends. I’ve known her all my life. That is absolutely true. Our mums were in hospital at the same time when they were having us. At night time we were tucked up next to each other in weeny little cots. You can read over 20 pages by opening the link. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Best_Friends/43EsiVMSbIMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover

About a Boy by Nick Hornby (Quiz 222622. Level 5.5. Colour Green) is about finding friendship in unlikely places. The book is both happy and sad, but a good friend can help make things better. He got to school early, went to form and sat at his desk. The kids who had given him a hard time yesterday were probably not the sort to arrive at school first thing. There were a couple of girls in the room, but they ignored him, unless the snort of laughter he heard had anything to do with him. You can read the first six chapters by opening the link. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/About_a_Boy/vBtXDIPDQaUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover

My friend Walter by Michael Morpurgo (Quiz 204087. Level 4.8. Colour Purple). Remember Sir Walter Raleigh who laid his cloak in a puddle so Queen Elizabeth 1 could walk across? Well, Bess meets his ghost and finds out that he is her ancestor! Living with a ghost has its difficulties, I discovered, even if he is your friend. If he appeared too long he would become hazy at the edges. Ghosts need time to recharge themselves. Listen to the beginning of the book by clicking on the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Xud_jC2rY

Refugee Week
This week and next we will be writing messages to welcome refugees to York. Lots of people have left their friends in foreign lands and moved to York, so our messages will be written on paper and made into York Roses and hand cut-outs. We are hoping to have some visitors to the library during refugee week, who are currently studying at York College. More details to follow next week, but please come to the library to write a welcome message, the more the better…

Poetry Competition
The Jubilee poetry competition is still open. We have lists of rhyming words available in the library. I know some of you are coming to the library as part of your English lesson to finish off your poems and enter them into the competition. The one we wrote between is in the library is;

My mum worships the queen devotedly, and so to celebrate the jubilee,
she’s dressed me up like the queen, in pearls and a dress of velveteen.
At first I didn’t want to take part, but now the party is about to start,
by mum opening all the tinfoil, uncovering cakes fit for a royal.
I look at the food hungrily, and decide I like this jubilee!
I can’t wait to see what you have written.

Unfortunately, we now have over 500 overdue books. The cost of these books will be over £3,500, so as you can imagine we really would like these back. Strangely, books that are part of a series usually have book two missing. This is very frustrating for students who want to read a whole series in order. Please have a good root around at home to see what you can find. Please don’t worry about bringing back a late return.

Year 8 – Mrs Avey, Mrs Mennell and Mr Handley
We’d like to congratulate Year 8 for all the effort and hard work through Assessment Week. Although it has been busy, the Year 8 students have conducted themselves excellently this week and we have been really proud of them. Students will begin to get feedback on their assessments which will include a review lesson on what they have done well and how they can improve on areas they have found more challenging. This will give students a good idea on how to progress further moving forwards into Year 9. If any students were absent and missed an assessment their teachers will attempt to get them caught up this week. If you have any questions please get in touch with the year team.

Attendance last week was yet again the best in the main school but still below what we’d like to see. As ever we are grateful for your support in ensuring students are attending school and making the most of the opportunities on offer to them.

This week in our whole year Act of Collective Worship, the students were given more details about enrichment week (Monday-Friday 18-22nd July). There will be more to follow about this soon as students will be given a booklet of exactly what they will be doing and a more in-depth timetable will follow in this week’s Newsletter article for Year 8 – sent out on Thursday 16th June. Students will be doing a theatre themed activity day called ‘The Haunted House’, a trip to Flamingo Land, a day dedicated towards the Young Leaders Award and a day of sport and activities. Enrichment week takes place at the same time as the MFL trips to Spain, France and Germany which will be a really enriching experience for the students attending those.

The Flamingo Land Reward trip (Tuesday 19th July) is fast approaching and we’d like to encourage parents/carers to complete and return the electronic reply slips to the school reception (reception@ahs.pmat.academy). The cost of the trip covers entry to the theme park but the school is covering the cost of transport to and from. If you need another copy of the letter or are concerned about the cost please get in touch and we will be able to help. We appreciate students going on the MFL trips will not be taking part but they will be accessing rewarding activities on their trips abroad and there will be future reward theme park trips in Year 9 and 10.

On Friday 14th July all of Year 8 will be taking part in ‘The Trading Game’. This is an additional careers enrichment activity for all of Year 8 and letters should have already been received about this. We also need reply slips for this day returning to the school reception so please can these be returned as soon as possible to aid the organization of the day. If you need another letter about this please do get in touch and ask.

The year group section on week’s school Newsletter is Year 8 and there will be more detailed information about Enrichment Week and others Year 8 relevant topics so please do look out for that on Thursday.

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

Year 9 – Mr Arthur, Mr Deamer and Mrs Deacon
Just like that we are already one week down in the final summer term with six weeks to go! It is great to see Year 9 keeping the standards high and I look forward to seeing this continuing over the last few weeks.

ClassCharts seems to be working really well in school and it is great to see that so many households and our young people are engaging with it. I would encourage you if you haven’t already to make sure you’ve downloaded the ClassCharts app and also encourage your young person to download one too, there is one for parents/carers and one for students. This helps encourage students to take ownership for their progress which is a great life skill and we’ve also seen ClassCharts facilitating a range of positive conversations at home. If you have any issues downloading the app and getting logged in please get in touch with the year team and we can resolve this, additionally we’ve helped students get sorted with the app also, please just ask them to come and see us if they are unable to logon.

End of Year Assessments are taking place this week in school across most subjects for Year 9. Students have been given revision guides in Maths for what they need to revise as well as completing revision in lessons. This is a great opportunity for our students to show off what they have learnt this year as well as prepare for their GCSE work in Year 10, any queries please get in touch, so far when talking to students they seemed prepared with positive attitudes which is great to see. Students will then get results and detailed feedback in lessons with their teachers.

For the last week of this half term (week commencing 18th July) it is enrichment week. Students received information on it in assembly this week and it was great to hear their excitement about activities which are as follows:

• Monday – sports activities (sports day is seperate).
• Tuesday – English activities around the play An Inspector Calls.
• Wednesday – Flamingo Land trip, please return permission as soon as possible. If your young person has lost their slip or you have not received it, please ask them to come and see us in the Year 9 office and we will give them another one.
• Thursday – Industry Day, external business experts come into school to work with students in teams to produce a range of things such as products. Students are asked to come into school in smart business wear to get them in the right frame of mind for the business world!
• Friday – Activity day, students will be given the opportunity in advance to choose a number of different activities to complete with students, these range from tag rugby, quiz of the year to bingo!

Any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch with the year team.

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 Mr Arthur aarthur@ahs.pmat.academy (Head of Year), myself (Miss Deacon); mdeacon@ahs.pmat.academy (Assistant Head of Year) and/or Mr Deamer rdeamer@ahs.pmat.academy (Pastoral Support Worker) and/or Miss Clark sclark@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 – Miss Deacon.

Year 10 – Mr Avery, Miss Johstone and Miss Montagu
Well done to all our students who have jumped straight back into good habits of study. Everyone looks refreshed and ready to complete the final term before the summer holidays. Many Yr 10s have been outside trying to make the most of the sunshine when it’s there.

In our Act of Collective Worship this week we shared some exciting plans for ‘Enrichment Week’, the final week of term. Because of the pandemic, our Yr 10s will not have experienced this properly since Yr 7. We want this week to be a rewarding time after the completion of mock exams and something enjoyable to look forward to. The highlight will be a trip to Alton Towers on Thursday 21st July. During the week there will be fun sporting activities with two Olympian athletes to help, and other special events delivered by members of staff.

In form time this week we looked at the importance of not just standing by if we witness racism. We considered the story of Moses Ingram who is starring in the new Disney franchise, Obi-Wan Kanobi, and has faced online abuse for being a black actor. If we say nothing when we see or hear racist acts or speech, we are normalising it and letting the person responsible think it is OK. So it is really important that we STAND UP to racism – we should be sure to tell that person that it is not OK, and, if we are students, to speak to a trusted adult about what happened.

Finally, congratulations to Ruby Holland and Verity McDonald for excellence in upholding our school values and successful work experience placements. They receive our Head of Year awards this week. Well done! Should you have any concerns please feel free to contact the Yr 10 team.

Year 11 – Miss Turvey, Miss Reeder and Miss Chambers
A huge well done to Year 11 for a fantastic performance in their exams last week. Last week was the busiest section of the exam period with lots of high-profile exams taking place and Year 11 definitely rose to the challenge. We are so proud of the consistently excellent conduct we have seen so far – well done Year 11.

This week, Year 11 will be expected to be in school as normal on Monday and Tuesday due to the revision sessions taking place between exams on these days. This will also provide a final opportunity for students to check in with their teachers, friends and Year 11 team as well as being given important information about Prom and final farewells next week.

By Wednesday 15th June, students will have completed the majority of their full-cohort exams and, from the end of Period 2, we will recommend students go home to revise for their remaining exams. This date has been chosen as it marks the point where all students have completed the majority of their exams and their school timetable can no longer be tailored to the revision individuals most need. There are a small number of teacher-led revision sessions remaining as the exception to this which students will be informed about in advance. For the small number of students who are unable to revise at home, we will continue to provide a quiet working space for them (likely in the Resource Centre) for private revision.

We will continue to offer breakfast for Year 11 in the Courtyard Café on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week when full cohort exams are taking place. The Year 11 team will continue to be on hand at the start of each day from 8:15am and at the start and end of exams to offer support. Students will be able to find a member of the Y11 team in the Year 11 office from 8am each day until the exam period ends.

On Thursday 23rd June, there will be an ice-cream van and celebrations on the front field during Period 3 after the exam ends where students will be invited to sign shirts and say goodbye to their Form tutors and teachers. The Prom will take place on the same day at the York Racecourse, with students invited to arrive from 6:30pm for a 7pm start. The evening will end around 10:30pm. Thank you to parents and students for your support in returning medical forms for Prom. Please remind your child to return their photograph permission slip for the professional photographer if they haven’t already.

As a charitable endeavour in school, we have opened a “pre-loved” school uniform service for our remaining students to access. If your child in Year 11 would like to donate items of their school uniform, they should speak to their Form tutor and can bring this to school reception. Thank you for your support with this.

Please find this week’s timetable overview below. Where students are in “normal lessons”, these largely correlate to an upcoming exam:

Thank you for your continued support. If you have any issues regarding your child in Year 11, please contact school reception who will alert the Year 11 team: Miss Turvey (Head of Year 11), Miss Chambers (Assistant Head of Year 11) Mrs Reeder (Year 11 Pastoral Support Worker) or Miss Short (SLT). Thank you.

The Year 11 Team

Post 16 – Mrs De Lashley, Mrs Walton, Miss Balmer and Mr Charlton
Y12 Mock Exams – Year 12 will sit their mock exams wc 4th July. They have been issued timetables. There are some clashes between subjects which also happens in the real thing. Those students with a clash will sit their papers consecutively across the two exam sittings within the day and be supervised in-between. They will be told in which order they will sit the papers. There is a provisional visit to Cambridge that we are waiting to be confirmed due to covid restrictions. If the trips goes ahead for our potential Cambridge students, they will be issued a personalised timetable in due course. They should prepare to sit their exams in the days prior to the visit (the visit is anticipated to be the Tues and Thurs of mock week).

REMINDER reply slips:
Please return reply slips for the events below if you have not done so already:
– Y12 Admissions Test tuition for BMAT, MAT, UCAT
– Y12 HE Visit Tuesday 21st June
– Y12 Introduction to UCAS Evening Tuesday 12th July

Exams this week

Sixth Form Rewards

Collective Worship
This week our Form Tutor Collective Worship is inspired by events in the world of international football and looks at whether sport can make the world a fairer place. Our daily quotes are all on the theme of equality.

Monday – “I believe in unconditional love and equality. Jesus Christ exemplified these qualities.” – Jack Canfield, American author and motivational speaker
Tuesday – “We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back” – Malala Yousafzai, Nobel prize winner
Wednesday – “Happiness comes to those who are fair to others and are always just and good.” – The Bible, the books Psalms, 106:3
Thursday – “Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.” – Hilary Clinton, former US presidential candidate
Friday – “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, civil rights activist

The Wellbeing Newsletter Issue 55