December 2019 As We Approach the Christmas Break, Students Are Continuing to Work Hard in Lessons

December 2019 As we approach the Christmas break, students are continuing to work hard in lessons. Year 11 students have just completed their first round of mock exams and will receive their results on their Mock Results Day on Tuesday 7th January 2020. In addition, we look forward to discussing their results with parents on Monday 13th January 2020 at the Year 11 Parents’ Evening. Our Year 13 students have also completed their mock exams and will receive their results in one to one interviews with Miss Murray (Head of Post-16). Many Year 13 students are currently in the process of applying for University and are anxiously waiting for their offers to come in. I have been very impressed with how well our Year 7 students have settled in to life at Aldercar High School. They have quite clearly risen to the many challenges that their first term at Secondary School has thrown at them. To celebrate the end of the Autumn Term, on Friday 20th December we will be: having Christmas dinner (at a cost of £2.40); giving students the opportunity to wear Christmas colours or a Christmas jumper for non-uniform day (for a donation of £1); finishing the term at 1.45pm (if your child needs to stay on the school site until 2.45pm, please contact pupil reception by Thursday 19th December and we will arrange for them to be supervised). We look forward to welcoming all students back to school on Monday 6th January, at 8:20am. With regards to staffing, we are saying farewell to Mrs Wolverson who is our Catering Manager. Mrs Wolverson is retiring after completing just over 18 years at the school. In addition, Mr Travell will be leaving us to embark on a new career path and Mr Tempest–Mitchell is taking up a new teaching post at another school. We wish all of them luck for their future. In January we will be welcoming five new members of staff: Miss Cousins (Teacher of Maths), Miss Tyrrell (Teacher of Physical Education), Ms Lee (Teacher of Law and Criminology), Mrs Ward (Teaching Assistant) and Ms Johnson (Catering Manager). I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your invaluable support over this term and to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Mrs Hatto Head Teacher The Effect of Absence on School Progress A whole year has 365 days. A school year has only 190 days. This leaves 175 days to spend on other appointments No absence 10 days absence 12 days absence 19 days absence 29 days absence 38 days absence 190 days 180 days 178 days 171 days 161 days 152 days 100% 95% 94% 90% 85% 80% Very Good Worrying Serious Concern Early Help Offer At Aldercar High School, we understand that every family can have ups and downs and sometimes you or your children may need some extra support. There is nothing to be ashamed of in asking for help. The Early Help offer can help you and school recognise what is going well for you and where you may benefit from some extra support. Early Help Assessment To access this support, a conversation with Miss Peplow, our Family Support Worker, will help to identify what is going well and what is not going well for you and your family. This conversation may lead to an Early Help Assessment (EHA) being completed, so a full picture of the family’s circumstances can be created. This will then be used to see where some extra support could be useful. It is your choice to take part in this assessment and you can choose who else should be involved. The EHA will require your consent for other organisations to be contacted or information to be shared, so the correct help and support is put in place for you and your children. This could be school staff, mentors, health workers, etc. Once a picture of your circumstances is completed, giving your permission for this to be shared, means you do not have to repeat yourself to different workers. Team around the family meeting This is where the family, school staff and other workers involved meet to discuss and create a plan to support you and your family. The plan will be reviewed at set times to ensure progress is being made for you and your family and the correct support is in place. A ‘lead worker’ will be chosen at this meeting. This will be the worker that you see the most of or the person you find most approachable. Students from Year 5 and Year 6 and their parents came to have a look around Aldercar High School’s Open Evening in October, and everyone had a great time. The hall was full for the presentation and all the subject areas put on a great show of what our school has to offer. Lots of fun was had by all. Don’t worry if you missed it: you can arrange a visit whenever it suits you. Just give the school a call on 01773 712477. Here at Aldercar High School, we understand the importance of reading to enable success, which is why, in every newsletter, we will be updating you on all the reading activities and achievements that have taken place during the term. All of Years 7, 8 and 9, are again participating in the Accelerated Reader programme this year. This is a programme that encourages targeted individual progress for every student through computer based quizzes and assessments. Also this term, we are introducing the ‘Home Connect’ facility which enables parents/carers to sign up to receive email notifications on their child’s progress. Letters about this have been sent out to all Year 7 students and will be given out to Year 8 and Year 9 students in the coming terms. Please email Mrs Cleese at [email protected] if you would like more information on this or the Accelerated Reader programme. We are also continuing to have our Drop Everything And Read (DEAR) time in Years 7 and 8 to support the Accelerated Reader programme. This works on the statistic that 20 minutes of engaging reading time a day is the amount of time needed to allow progress. Therefore, it is vital that every student has their Accelerated Reader book and log book with them in school every day. Encouragement to read at home would be much appreciated – please feel free to write in your child’s log book if they read; there are competitions to win and rewards up for grabs! Students at Aldercar High School have been delighted to see their creative writing chosen for publication. During their English lessons, pupils were given an opportunity to compose a poem and a short story. These were then entered into national competitions with 24 being chosen from the school for print! Special mention should go to Isabel who managed to get both her poem and short story published. Mr Garratt said, "all the students chosen should be very proud of themselves. Hopefully this might be the start of some glittering writing careers! Aldercar High School library will be stocking copies of both books on their shelves so hopefully this will inspire other pupils.” The books are called Poetry Escape: Poets from the East Midlands and Mission Contamination: It’s gone viral. Both books will be available from the school library. At the start of the year, we teamed up with BookTrust and participated in their Bookbuzz programme to inspire a love of reading in all of our Year 7 students. They had the opportunity to look at a selection of different books and pick one they liked. We then ordered that book for them and they got to keep it for free! Our students have really enjoyed these books and it certainly has created a buzz around reading. We have launched some exciting reading competitions this year. Firstly, our ‘Wall of Fame’ competition, which rewards monthly effort and participation in Accelerated Reader, has seen a number of winners so far. For September, the winners were: Joshua Lewis, Benjamin Swift and Dylan Goulding in Year 7, Chelci-Mai Thomas-Hart, Celsey Hall and James Goulding in Year 8 and Kayleigh Ellis, Kieran Bacchus and Jack Bott in Year 9. For October, the winners were: Summer Fretwell, Archie Whelan, Claribel Abernethy and Benjamin Riordan in Year 7, Sophie Leder, Cainan Marshall, Thomas Davies and Ellen Moore in Year 8 and Stephanie Wall, Millie Simpson, Harrison Pearson and Heather Whittall in Year 9. Congratulations to all these students - they won a queue jump pass for a week! More winners to be announced in the next newsletter, so keep reading for a chance to be one of them! We also launched the ‘Millionaires’ competition in September to find students who can read over a million words by the end of the year and become ‘Millionaires’! There are already a number of students who are coming close to achieving this status and, I am pleased to announce, that we have one student, James Goulding in Year 8, who has become the first member of the club, with an impressive 1,036,529 words read! Massive congratulations to him. This term has also seen the appointment of some Reading Ambassadors within Key Stage 3. They are: For Ormonde: Chloe Hankin (Y7), Oliver Biggs (Y7), Kayden (Y8), Ellen Moore (Y8), Amber Whiles (Y9) and Ashleigh King (Y9) For Shipley: Ciara Kearney (Y7), Joshua Lewis (Y7), Cainan Marshall (Y8), Chantelle Whetton (Y9) and Sophie Chippendale-Scott (Y9) For Howitt: Katie Greaves (Y7), Joshua Canlin (Y7), Chloe Hallam (Y8), Lexie Stapleton-Bojko (Y8) and Nathan W (Y9) For Gregg: George Pearce (Y7), Conor Brough (Y7), Rohan Phillips (Y8) and Louis Brown (Y9) These students will represent their Houses and Year group with the responsibility of promoting, encouraging and supporting reading within school.

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