Hampton Gardens Newsletter
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Issue 10 5 April 2019 HEAD OF SCHOOL’S NEWS Welcome to our April Newsletter which, again, is packed full of student events, activities, trips, visits, sport- ing successes and achievements. Every day the efforts and attitude of our students and the dedication of staff who enable them to reach their potential continues to impress me. This edition gives just some of the reasons why. It has been an incredibly busy and eventful term; my personal highlights included the collapsed day and the music and dance performance earlier in the week. Firstly, the collapsed day which involved the whole of Year 8 travelling to Hunstanton to complete some Geography fieldwork on coasts and sea defences. We were very lucky with the weather, which allowed the students to complete the activities with great success. Thank you Miss Dixon and Mr Ayling for organising this, it takes a lot of planning and co-ordination to get nearly 180 students in the right place at the right time. Whilst this was going on the Year 7s were treated to a STEM day organised by Mr Joyce and Mr Sandeman, which was a huge success with students talking about it for days after. Secondly, our dance and music performance, this was a very successful evening with over 70 students taking part. Thank you to all of you who attended to support the students so that they had an opportunity to show their talents to a live audience. Without doubt, there is a lot of talent in this school and I am looking forward to seeing these students develop over the coming years in future events. Thank you to Miss Mead and Miss Ennin-Mensah who were the driving force behind this successful evening. At this point, I would like to wish Miss Ennin-Mensah all the best for her wedding over the Easter holi- days, we all hope that she has a fantastic day. The final term of the year always proves to be just as busy as the rest and this year is no exception. Straight after Easter will see the start of the Year 7 parents’ evenings, which will take place over the first 3 weeks. We have organised it this way so that as many parents as possible can meet their children’s teachers. You will be informed via email when the slots are open for you to book appointments on Bromcom. If you incur/encounter problems making the bookings, please contact the school and we will assist in helping you. There will be examinations taking place in Maths, English, Science, Geography, History and Languages for both year groups. These will take place in the main hall under full examination conditions. We feel that this is important so that students get used to experiencing the process so that they know what to expect when they take their external examinations at the end of Year 11. It also allows students an opportunity to demonstrate the progress that they have made this year. Timetables will be published after the Easter holidays but so you are aware, the Year 8 exams will take place the week beginning 13 May with the Year 7 exams starting the week beginning 3 June. Students have access to many online resources including the PiXL maths app, which they could spend some of their holidays using to prepare for these exams. Could I ask all parents of students who use the crossing on London Road when walking, biking or scootering to school, to re- mind them of how to use the crossing responsibly. We are constantly reminding individuals in school however, we are still receiving concerns from the public about children crossing when they should not be. Just recently there have been a group of students hanging around at the corner of Hartland Avenue and London Road, waiting for other friends to turn up for school. This is a very busy corner and we are anxious that students are not putting themselves in a situation where they may get hurt. You may have seen recently that we are addressing this by being on duty down at the crossing whenever possible, could you also reinforce the message at home that students should make their way directly to school and not hang around in groups waiting for friends. Your help and support on both these matters would be appreciated. Inside this issue: Hampton Garden News and Information 1 - 8 Attendance and Positive Points Leagues 9 - 10 Physical Education Department News 11 - 15 1 Hampton Gardens Hampton Diary Dates and Term Dates 16 HAMPTON GARDENS NEWS It has been another successful term in respect of sporting successes, the PE pages of this newsletter will go into more detail. However, I would like to thank Miss Mead, Mr Trewhitt, Mr Leach, Mr Matthews, Mrs Williams and Miss Goodey, who have given up their lunchtimes and their time after school to run training and attend the fixtures. Without this dedication and com- mitment these clubs would not run. I am still concerned about the punctuality of a small group of students at the start of the day. Registration starts at 8.30am, which means that students need to be on site by 8.25am at the very latest so that they are able to get to form on time. We take attendance very seriously and feel it is part of our ethos that every child attends regularly to obtain a good education. This is so every student can take advantage of the educational opportunities available to them. I have had a number of re- quests recently to authorise family holidays. I would just like to remind all parents/carers that we are unable to authorise any holiday regardless of the circumstances. It may also be worthy of a mention that the school holiday dates are available for this year and next academic year on the website. Finally, the summer term is nearly upon us and I would like to take this opportunity to remind parents that students have the opportunity to wear the summer uniform. This means that students can wear the summer polo shirt (which needs to be tucked in) instead of a shirt and tie. This is not a compulsory so students can continue to wear their shirt and tie as normal. It is still a requirement for students to wear their blazar to, from school, and in assemblies even if they are wearing the polo shirt. After such a busy term may I wish everyone an enjoyable and restful Easter break and thank you all for your ongoing support of Hampton Gardens. Mr A H Greenwood Head of School Red Cross Dance and Music Show Hampton Gardens second showcase event was a fantastic success with 70 students involved. It was a lovely evening celebrating a range of talent from the choir, violinists, drummers, ukulele and pianists to cheerleading, theatre performances and street dance! Thank you to the dance leaders for their organisa- tion and presenting skills. A big thank you to all parents, carers, staff volunteers and families for your support. We raised £1137.23 – well done! National Spelling Bee Competition On Tuesday 26 March our three Year 7 Spelling Bee finalists (Ella , Leo and Abigail) competed in the regional finals. All three students did extremely well and were required to stand in front of an audi- ence and then translate and spell as many words as they could from a random list of 150 words in German. They also had to use the German alphabet to spell the words, so it’s a very tough task! We are very proud of all 3 students. Well done. This is Language This term the MFL Department have signed up to Thisislanguage.com which is a website where we can set homework and students can complete grammar tasks to enhance their knowledge of French and German. Students can also play the very popular Nutty Tilez vocab game. Well done to 8-B1 who have topped the leaderboard for this term with the classes getting 36,629 points! 2 Hampton Gardens Hampton HAMPTON GARDENS NEWS Year 7 - STEM Day Year 7 students undertook their first STEM day at Hampton Gardens and it was a massive success. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and the aim was to inspire students into thinking about these areas and how they might be able to obtain a job in one of these fields in the future. The speakers were hugely complimentary of the stu- dents saying “ They were incredibly polite and tried to achieve in every session, looking forward to coming back next year”. This is a massive testament to the mentality of the students and we hope they enjoyed the day. 3 Hampton Gardens Hampton HAMPTON GARDENS NEWS Year 8 - Geography Field Trip to Hunstanton Another first for Hampton Gardens School – the first whole year school trip. 175, Year 8 students on three buses, made their way to the North Norfolk Coast to collect primary data for their Geography enquiry. As is usual on bus journeys, everyone had a great time chatting, listening to music or playing games. We split the buses up into Old Hunstanton and Hunstanton Town to do the field work and the students set to work on the following skills: Counting Wave Frequency Measuring the sediment either side of the Groynes Measuring the direction of Longshore Drift Completing an annotated Field Sketch Completing a Bi Polar Survey of seas defences. They did this brilliantly and all students collected primary data. Of course, the best part of the day for everyone was lunchtime and many students ate fish and chips on the green.