Parent Bulletin

Dear parents and carers,

We have had another fantastic week in school culminating in all of our Year 9 students attending cultural trips to the Media Museum in Bradford, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Wakefield and the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

We start off this week, with our Year 11 students having their mock assembly on Monday morning. As part of the assembly students will receive the grades for the mock examinations that they sat prior to the Christmas break. This is a key opportunity for students to reflect on their progress and celebrate their achievements. As part of this reflection students will identify areas that they wish to develop. These will be then discussed in the Year 11 Progress Evening in which colleagues will talk through how working collectively we can help to support every child achieve their aspirations and fulfil their potential. The evening takes place on Wednesday and we very much look forward to seeing you there. Finally, in the lead up to the Year 11 additional mock examinations in Maths, English and Science (which take place in the final week of this half term) our staff are running P6 sessions as further support for our Year 11 students.

Again this week, our students in Year 10 – 13 continue their vocational examinations or controlled assessments. Whilst our Year 12 students sit their subject assessments this week having spent the past fortnight preparing for these.

On Tuesday we have the Year 9 taster day where our students will experience a selection of KS4 lessons they are interested in finding out more about prior to studying the courses at GCSE. Within these lessons students will also find out about the course content and the assessment structure.

Finally, in other news, it is York Residents’ Festival 2023 on Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 January 2023. To find out more, please click here.

Year 9 Pathway Process Update

Year 9 parents and families are invited to the Year 9 Pathway Evening on Thursday 26th February at 6.30pm. Families will be directed to different locations depending upon the time of arrival. All families will have the opportunity to hear a presentation linked to their child’s pathway and speak to the Curriculum Leaders across our options subjects about the courses on offer. We’re really excited to welcome parents and students into school and know that we have a brilliant range of courses available for our young people to select from.

The table below summarises the steps that are in place to provide support to parents, carers and students through the option process.

Wellbeing

Health and wellbeing is an important part of life at Archbishop Holgate’s School, in order to read the wellbeing newsletter for this week – please click here.

As part of our ongoing commitment to support student’s wellbeing across the school, we are continuing to develop the programme of activities that contribute to their physical and social wellbeing at lunchtimes.

The latest addition is the two new basketball hoops on black square for the year 9 & 10 students to use at lunchtime. The 3 v 3 games have proved very popular so far. This, along with the outdoor table tennis tables, give students options if they don’t wish to go on the field. There are still footballs, cricket sets and frisbees available for use on the back field.

The Year 7 & 8 students are making great use of the climbing wall as well as their footballs, cricket sets and frisbees. There are also skipping ropes available for groups to use on the concrete to build their aerobic fitness, as well as teamwork and cooperation with the long rope activities.

The wide variety of equipment available to them allows them to add vital minutes to their recommended 60 minutes a day of moderate physical activity. There are also a huge number of extra-curricular PE clubs on offer this half term, so make sure you check the google classroom for the timetable.

Head of Year Awards

Year team messages to parents and carers

Each week, the pastoral year teams will communicate any key messages, successes and upcoming dates to be aware of in this section of the parent bulletin.

A message from the Sixth Form pastoral team

REMINDER: Year 12 Mock Exams
These will take place this week for our A Level students. It is a rigorous process but one which will work to establish what support is needed and to commend the hard work that has been demonstrated over the Winter term. When results are released they will be followed by parents evening in March (further information to follow).

REMINDER: BTEC January External Assessments
These take place for our Year 13 students and some of our Year 12 students across January. Students have examinations at 9am and 1pm each day.

A message from the Year 11 pastoral team

It’s a busy period for the Year 11 students as we enter the third week of the Spring term. On Monday the students will be called into the hall during period one for a special mock results assembly. The aim of the assembly is to congratulate the students who worked hard toward their mocks exams, and to encourage them to keep going until the summer. A message will also be given to those students who will feel that they have not reached their full potential in the mock exams, and how important it is between now and the summer to up their effort levels across their subjects and access the additional support on offer to them. The students will then receive their mock results in a brown envelope from a member of the teaching staff, in an attempt to replicate the feeling of the results day in the summer. Following the results being given out the students will return to lessons period two. Members of SLT will then meet with individual students throughout the day to offer further advice and guidance to them.

The students results day will be followed by a parents evening on Wednesday 18th January. The evening will run between 3:45pm and 7:15pm and attendance is strongly recommended following your child’s examination results. Your child should be making appointments with their teachers in preparation for this. Should you require any further information or assistance regarding parents evening, please feel free to contact a member of the Year 11 team.

Over the next three weeks the students of Year 11 will be working hard in preparation for their additional mock exams between the 5th- 10th of February. The exams will cover the core subjects of English,Maths and Science and will give a good indication of progress prior to the summer examinations. In addition to this I am also pleased to announce that period 6 will be up and running again for the students this week in all of the Core subjects. English will run on Monday, Science on Tuesday and Maths on Thursday. This will be open to all students, and I highly recommend they take full advantage of the additional support on offer. Period 6 in previous years has been one of the major reasons for significant student progress before their summer GCSE’s.

As always thank you for your support in the busy but crucial period for Year 11 students. Should you have any questions or require further information, please feel free to contact a member of the Year 11 team.

A message from the Year 10 pastoral team

Another fantastic week in Year 10 with some great work going on in classrooms, I love walking round Y10 classrooms (and with my own Y10 classes I teach) and seeing the commitment to studies, it is clear students are focusing and I would encourage our young people to ask ‘is this my best work’ when studying in lessons and so many of our young people are already doing that.

I love to start with positivity and as a year group last week Year 10 got a staggering 3994 merits – well done!

Our top 5 students for merits:

5th – Harry Speak (10ABt) – 34
2nd – Jimmy Hendon (10KGn) – 36
2nd – Finley Evans (10ABt) – 36
2nd – Joseph Coyle (10ABt) – 36
1st – Oliver Bell (10KGn) – 39

Congratulations to them all. You can track your young person’s individual progress on ClassCharts, please do contact us if you haven’t downloaded the app to do so.

It is clear Year 10 are focusing on their GCSEs, through learning new knowledge and developing new skills and our students are doing well at this, we will continue to encourage them to do so and it has been great to see the positive start they have made and I look forward to seeing this continue. Students recently got their latest academic reports home, there were some fantastic results and some students will be receiving further recognition, well done to them. I am very proud of how many students are succeeding. If you do have any queries in regards to your young persons report please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We would encourage families at home to talk through their reports with their young person and understand how they are feeling/progressing with their academic journeys so you and they are aware of where they feel they need to focus on and what they are doing well at.

Just a reminder that students will also be completing work experience, in May, which will bring breadth and diversity to their curriculum as they work to learn exam skills and new knowledge, as previously mentioned students should be trying to arrange their work experience placements now for one week commencing on Monday 15th May and will run until Friday 19th May. Please can you make sure you are arranging this with your young person at home and they must log all their details on the work experience website of GroFar.

Any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch with myself or Mr Arthur (who is organising the work experience), I know a number of students have approached me and asked questions about it which is great to see.

I just wanted to remind our Year 10 families about the importance of attendance and how even being 5 minutes late every day equates to 3 days of school missed. Thank you for the ongoing commitment to good attendance, such as arranging appointments outside of school time. We are aiming for 96% as a year group, to put this into further context, if your child has lower than 95% attendance, this means that they are attending school less than the average child across the country. We would very much appreciate your support to ensure your young person is in school as much as possible to give them the best chance of success in the future. We know that all the students in the year group have so much potential so anything we can do to ensure this we certainly strive towards.

If you have any queries regarding your young person in Year 10, then please do get in touch by emailing myself (mdeacon@ahs.pmat.academy), Mr McPaul (cmcpaul@ahs.pmat.academy) and/or Mrs Robinson (jrobinson@ahs.pmat.academy) or calling main school reception and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Thank you – Miss Deacon

A message from the Year 9 pastoral team

Once again a fantastic week in Year 9, Students have conducted themselves well throughout the whole week and it is a pleasure to be part of the year group. Friday saw the first of three Cultural Visits taking place this year. Each student will get the chance to visit the Media Museum in Bradford, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Wakefield and the Royal Armouries in Leeds throughout the course of the year.

Overall the conduct of students was excellent and they represented the school superbly.

9Ap, 9CBe and 9ECe visited the Royal Armouries. Whilst there they had the chance to visit all four areas of the museum. Students learnt about various periods of warfare, weapons and armour through history, from historical warfare such as Vikings, Anglo Saxons through to the mediaeval period, the weapons used in hunting, oriental weapons and armour, and the armour and weapons used in jousting tournaments.

9Cr, 9DBs, 9Ev and 9JDl visited the National Science and Media Museum. Whilst there students were able to think like a Scientist in Wonderlab, learn about the history of photography in the Kodiak gallery and experience some retro games. Students also had a chance to experience the 60 ft tall IMAX cinema learning about the importance of water to African wildlife.

9Lp, 9KCe, 9NTh and 9WNo visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park where they, against all the elements, had a chance to experience works by Damien Hirst, Robert Indiana, Alex Clegg and Annie Montgomerie amongst many others.

As mentioned before, GCSE taster day will be happening on Tuesday. Students have already made the four choices of what they would like to try during these taster sessions and timetable for the day will be handed out on Monday in form. This is a day for students to be able to get a taste of a subject they may not have studied before to further guide them in choosing what they would like to study for GCSEs.

This will then be followed by the options parent evening on Thursday 26th January. This is an opportunity to be able to talk to teachers more about the subjects that your child might be interested in to further inform any decisions going forward.

As always, please contact the year team with any questions you may have.

A message from the Year 8 pastoral team

Year 8 have had another fantastic week as they settle down into the routines of school after the Christmas holidays.

On Tuesday, our Act of Collective Worship focused on the damaging and long-lasting impact of derogatory language on those who experience it; particularly homophobic language. The aim was to educate where negative stereotypes may have come from and how we can overcome them in our school. We have a zero tolerance approach to such language in our school and we appreciate you having an open dialogue about topics like this with your child at home.

It has been really enjoyable for us as a team to walk around lessons and see what students are learning as we enter the new Spring term. It has been fantastic to see students in science conducting practicals, problem solving in maths and there were some pretty delicious looking cookies being carried round this week! It is great to see students engaging in their subjects and making the most of the opportunities and time they have here. On this note, please do also check the extra-curricular timetable found on the school website and encourage your child to take part in some.

We experienced some pretty wet and windy weather at the beginning of this week. A polite reminder that students should be coming to school with a warm and waterproof coat to keep them dry in the inclement weather. Please get in touch if you are struggling to source a suitable coat and we will do our best to sort something out. We are all looking forward to the lighter nights and hopefully better weather in the coming months!

If you have any questions or queries, as always please do get in touch with the school or email us directly at y8team@ahs.pmat.academy.

A message from the Year 7 pastoral team

Please congratulate your child on their excellent start to the New Year. Year 7 have been continuing to shine and are exemplary in terms of attitude in school and uniform.

As part of a whole school campaign, this week we have had an assembly from Mr Furniss about bullying; what it is and how we can all help to combat this in school. He also talked about friendship issues and how they are different from bullying. Students know that they can always speak to a member of staff if they think they are being bullied or can complete a ‘Report it’ form via the link on our website. There are posters around school which highlight this.

Next week sees the start of the new extra curricular activity timetable so please look out for this, talk to your child about their interests and look at which clubs they want to continue or join. it really does make a difference to their journey in school. If you need any support please do not hesitate to get in touch with the year 7 team by contacting reception.

Well done to our Students of the Week:
7ASu – Douglas Tasker – for being the form encyclopaedia!
7CMm – Oliver Stewart Stevens- For a huge improvement in attendance and being such a positive influence to the school
7Pi – Harley Pedley – for being consistently polite and hardworking since the beginning of September
7Hv- Hugh Jones – For living our school values and for always being a polite and delightful member of the form.
7MPe – Verity Kerns – For giving fantastic answers during form time and always volunteering to read.
7CSt – Charlotte Brannan- You have settled really well into school and have joined lots of sports clubs which is lovely to see. You are always so kind in form and work really well with the people around you, encouraging and supporting them. Well done Charlotte!
7MLn – Leila Gell – For always being hardworking, patient and polite in form and in lessons.
7JHe – Bethany Snowball – for always trying her best and living out our school values
7Bl – Caitlyn Plummer – Being a polite and helpful person in form and in lessons. Keep it up!
7ZBl – Louie Hawksby for working hard to ensure he is living the school values each and every day!
7Cy – Rocco Dunne for improved punctuality this week, keep it up please

Well done to our Head of Year awards:
Abbie Preece 7MLN – for living our school values in all she does and quiet resilience since the start of the year. Well done!Frances Lilley 7Cy – for an amazing performance in the Minster singing the solo verse of Once in Royal David’s City. We are so proud of you!
Savannah Seymour – for living our school values and including everyone during lunch time. Well Done!

Word of the week
The word of the week for week commencing 16 January is:

Assure

Verb: tell someone something positively

Tony assured me that there was a good chance they would win.

Collective Worship

Theme
Our form tutor collective worship this week is entitled The Hunt for Happiness. It explores general ideas about this theme, as well as what the bible has to say, in particular how happiness can come from serving others. Because Monday is Martin Luther King Day in the US, our quotes are all by him.

Quotes
Monday “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?” – Dr Martin Luther King Jnr

Tuesday “Everybody can be great…because everybody can serve. You don’t have to be highly educated to serve.” – Dr Martin Luther King Jnr

Wednesday “We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do what is right.” – Dr Martin Luther King Jnr

Thursday “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” – Dr Martin Luther King Jnr

Friday “Not everybody can be famous, but everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service.” – Dr Martin Luther King Jnr