September 2014
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September 2014 Dear Parent/Carer, Having now had two complete weeks of the school year, 2014-15, for all students at saltash.net, I am very pleased to be able to write to you and report that we have had an extremely positive start to the term. Not only have we welcomed all of our new Year 7 students to our school, we have also been pleased to receive 14 new students into Years 8, 9 and 10, as well as students from our own and other schools who have joined our excellent Sixth Form learning community, taking the total number of post 16 students to 214. If you are a new parent or carer to our school, then we say a special word of welcome to you. There will be many opportunities throughout the school year for you to get to know the staff and students at our school and we hope you will soon feel an established part of our whole school community. One of the first things I need to share with you in this newsletter is to do with school communication and the changes which have taken place to upgrade our ICT facilities. Our move to ‘Office 365’ and ‘The Cloud’ has meant a change to all staff email addresses. They now all follow the same pattern, which is a member of staff’s first name initial, followed by their surname and then @saltashcloud.net—so my address is [email protected] and my deputies are [email protected] (Mr Dan Buckley), [email protected] (Mrs Linda Griffin), and [email protected] (Mr Nick Scantlebury). Please note that I can still be reached on the [email protected] address and we also have [email protected] if there is something of a more general nature. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks and gratitude to Mr David Jones, Network Manager, and his ICT support team, for all that they have done over the summer holidays, and, indeed, over the past year, to make sure our ICT provision at saltash.net remains ’cutting edge’ and continues to uphold Ofsted’s estimation of the school, last April, when they judged us to have ‘exceptional ICT practice’. In addition to welcoming new students to our school, we have been busy helping our new staff settle into saltash.net. Those of you who received the end of summer term Community Newsletter will know that we said ‘goodbye’ to several longstanding members of staff who were retiring, as well as other staff members who were moving on to promoted posts in other schools. Joining us this school year are: English: Miss Gemma Beacroft Miss Catherine Bailey Miss Lynne Jones Miss Natasha Bruty Maths: Mrs Rachel Will Science: Mr Nick Glanville West (from January). Mr Bryan Heighway will be taking his classes for the Autumn Term. Music: Mrs Emily Venner (Head of Department) Design & Technology: Mr David Jolly (Head of Department) Mrs Anna Porter for the Autumn Term. We are hoping to make a permanent appointment from January. Art: Mrs Rose Stiling Modern Languages: Miss Melanie Breforth SEN: Mrs Lucy Gomer The Area Resource Base has been renamed ‘The Zone’ Science Technicians: Miss Rose Kennedy (Senior Science Technician) Mr Chris Fisher School Mini Bus Driver: Mr Noel Hill School Cleaner: Mr Phil Powell-Thomas Other Staff Changes: Mr Jim Romain is now Head of Art and Assistant Director of Creativity; Mrs Amy Feldwick is Direc- tor of Creativity; Mr Scott Wieprecht is Head of Year 8; Mr Alex Hunt is now an assistant to the SENCO, Mr Jeremy Skelton; Mr Dan Budd now combines a part time PE teacher post with his PE Technician role and Mrs Clare Hele is teaching some English alongside her Literacy ‘catch up’ role. Pastoral Teams for 2014-15 Year 7 Head of Year: Mr Ben Rowe Assistant Head of Year: Mrs Emma Metters Leadership Group Link: Mrs Linda Griffin Year 8 Head of Year: Mr Scott Wieprecht Assistant Head of Year: Mrs Karen Snowdon Leadership Group Link: Mr Pete Bond Year 9 Head of Year: Mr Mark Feldwick Assistant Head of Year: Mrs Karen Snowdon Leadership Group Link: Mr Andrew Oldfield Year 10 Head of Year: Mr Dave Stokes Assistant Head of Year: Mrs Eileen Sloggett Leadership Group Link: Mr Ollie Lee Year 11 Head of Year: Mr Matt Oakes Assistant Head of Year: Mrs Eileen Sloggett Leadership Group Link: Mr Brendan Lee Year 12 & 13 Head of Year: Mr Nick Scantlebury Assistant Head of Year: Miss Laura Wilkinson Leadership Group Link: Mrs Isobel Bryce Also supporting pastoral provision at saltash.net are Mr Chris Armer - Parent Support Adviser, Mr Dave McKie - KS3 Mentor, Mr Grant Taylor - KS4 Intervention Officer, Mrs Lucy Gordon - Learning Mentor, Mr Dave Uden - Learning Mentor, Mrs Auriol Underhill - Student Support, Mrs Sue Briggs - 6th Form Administrator and Mrs Pasha Debeuc - SEN Administrator. We are also extremely fortunate to have the services of Counsellors from ‘Psychology Associates’ as part of our student and staff support school team. Start of term - Our students have commenced the new school year extremely positively. From my own learning walks and from feedback received from staff so far, I know that your sons and daughters are engaging well with their learning, are keen to participate in the numerous clubs and activities on offer and, almost without exception, are upholding our school uniform policy. Please can I ask for your continued help and assistance with checking uniform and also making sure that for students in Years 7-11, the planner is signed by you weekly. Your involvement and interest in your children’s education is absolutely essential to their learning, progress and overall levels of success. We have already welcomed a large number of Year 12 parents to a start of year Information Evening, and also scheduled for this term is a Year 10 Parents and Carers Infor- mation Evening (Wednesday 19th November). In addition there will be an evening for Year 7 parents to meet with their child’s form tutor on Thursday 23rd October—further details to follow. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with the school if there is any information you need to sup- port your child’s learning. Front entrance to the school We have very limited space at the front entrance to the school and it is essential that our con- tract buses and taxis are able to manoeuvre safely at the end of each school day. For this rea- son, please do not drive on to the school site to collect your children as it causes unnecessary congestion and can present a hazard to students exiting from the front entrance. Likewise, if col- lecting your children by car from the back drive exit, please do not park somewhere which will impede the flow of traffic, make it a problem for residents in the area or make it difficult for the service buses to pull in and park. Thank you for your cooperation with this request. Adopted from care Schools are asked to include data in their termly census about children who have been adopted from care. We appreciate that this can be a sensitive question and so ask that, if you are pre- pared to share this information, you email Mrs Dickson, Data & Personnel Manager, via [email protected] There is no obligation to advise the school, but please be as- sured that the information will be treated with the utmost confidence. School environment Our Site Manager, Mr Graham Drewery, and his team have been busy over the summer holidays. Many parts of the school have been repainted, including the upstairs Science and Maths corridors and some of the classrooms … we particularly like Mr Killeya’s rasp- berry pink wall in Room 51! In addition, a successful bid to the Big Lottery fund last year, by Head of PE, Mr Hawkins, and Business Manager, Mrs Lumbard, resulted in a £10,000 project to install a fitness Trim Trail in our grounds. Situated to the rear of our tennis courts, there is now no excuse not to keep fit whilst enjoying the most wonderful views at the same time. Morrisons Vouchers We are collecting the Morrisons vouchers again this year, so please if you do shop in Morrisons can you collect the vouchers and either hand them in at Reception or there is a collection box just inside the School Library. We are currently replanting the school’s sensory garden and would like to use the vouchers to obtain some sensory plants. This will enable students to experience plants that offer stimulation of the five senses - taste, touch, sound, sight and smell. Clubs and Activities: This year’s clubs and activities booklet is currently being collated and will be available soon. In the meantime, clubs are being advertised on the school bulletin. It is great to see so many extra- curricular and enrichment activities being made available to our students. End of Summer term: It is always difficult at the end of the summer term to report on the many activities taking place. We try to report on as many as we can in the Community Newsletter but have limited time to do so. We have therefore included a few more articles for your perusal. See below:- Going Dutch 2014! We were so proud to take a group of 40 absolutely charming, polite and enthusiastic Year 9 stu- dents to Holland for Curriculum Enrichment Week 2014. Even the 15 hour coach journey across four countries to reach our destination couldn’t dampen their high spirits and good natures, and no- one was travel sick! Staying in Valkenburg – a small and friendly town built above a vast labyrinth of caves – we en- joyed five fun packed days of activities including: tobogganing, swimming, underground La- serTag, Cave Adventures, a water maze, shopping, boat cruise along the Maas, evening bowling and a day at Phantasialand, Germany’s largest theme park.