Weekly Update #2, 1 October 2021

Upcoming events can be found on the website under School Life → Calendar and are outlined here for easy reference. For daily updates and news follow the HeadStart Facebook Page and YouTube channel.

With the wonderful news that schools are permitted to open to all students for onsite lessons starting Monday 4th of October, we wish to extend a warm welcome back! The HeadStart team is thrilled with the news and looking forward to seeing everyone back in school.

Key Points

· Children will be allowed to return to class onsite, regardless of the vaccination status of their parents. This means even if a parent is not vaccinated, their child is allowed to return.

· We will still expect all children and staff to be ATK tested once every two weeks. This means that any children coming to school on Monday 4th of October, should take an ATK test on Friday or Saturday and complete the declaration form HERE by 5pm on Saturday 2nd of October. we will provide all students in these year groups with one free ATK test kit. These can be collected from the school office at the following times:

Friday 9am to 4.30pm Saturday 9am to 2pm

If you do not wish to collect a free kit from school, or your child has already been part of the school Sandbox, you can purchase any ATK test kit at most Pharmacies. Although parents do not need to be vaccinated to send their child to school, we have been asked to collect parent vaccination data from all parents. Please complete the Google Form below which includes an ATK declaration, which must be completed in order to send your child to school on the 4th of October.

· The mid-term break will commence on the 16th of October, and in order to return after the mid-term break, students should have another ATK on the weekend of 23rd & 24th October.

· Given that all students will be able to return to normal classes during the school day, the Well-Being program will end on Friday 1st of October. There will be no after school activities or Well-Being programs prior to the mid-term break. Details regarding academies will be shared by the end of this week.

· School buses will resume according to the standard schedule on Monday 4th October. Clarification: buses will leave at 3.30pm. The 4.30pm buses will resume once ASPs start.

· Pick-Up and Drop-Off procedures will be shared on Friday, along will all protocols for onsite learning.

Students timetables will return to those which were planned for the start of the school year and these will be updated and available on the student and parent portals on Saturday morning.

For those parents who wish to keep their children at home and following an online program, we will still be providing online learning opportunities. What this entails will be different depending on which phase of the school your child is in and we will be sharing these details with parents on Friday.

We are delighted to announce our IGCSE (97% A*-C), A Level (98% pass rate) and BTEC (100% pass rate) results for June 2021. These successful grades are the result of a tremendous amount of hard work from the students, supported by their teachers and parents over the last two years. Well done everyone for these magnificent results. “A” grades and Distinctions do not tell the whole story, and all of our students should be congratulated for completing their courses during one of the most challenging periods of time in living memory. Nevertheless, we would like to acknowledge some of the students who achieved top grades in their IGCSE, AS, A Level and BTEC qualifications. We are proud of you!

Research tells us:

Resilient individuals can block out the negativity of their surroundings & environment. Instead, they see opportunities in obstacles, they believe stumbling blocks are stepping stones; they recognise that frustrations can be a force to teach new skills & problems are places to try more creative strategies.

In order to support our students to become more resilient in Secondary we have considered the role of resilience in their thematic Homeroom sessions titled HeadLine of the Week. Students have considered what it is to ‘break the mould’ and to be different. They looked at some leaders and changemakers in the world and how to make a difference they had to be different, and to be different they had to be resilient. Students watched a video about overcoming obstacles and how we need to be resilient in ourselves to overcome not just our everyday obstacles, but others’ expectations of us. In Primary, the students have talked about how they have shown great resilience in the last few weeks and overcome many obstacles which other children of their age have never experienced. -Pastoral Care Team

Last week saw the start of the wellbeing program and the return of the Academy footballers back to the Advanced Football sessions. It was great to see lots of students back on the pitch playing with a smile and being physically active again through fun football sessions. -Coach Frost

What a fabulous first few weeks we’ve had in Preschool. The children amazed me at how well they all did settling into Preschool, exploring their environment and making new friends. We are all looking forward to having a lot of fun together this year. -Ms Amy Drew

Students in the Early Years Sandbox class have thoroughly enjoyed being back in the classroom. They have been busy seeing old friends and making new ones. We have had lots of opportunities to play and explore. Students have particularly enjoyed playing in the newly renovated Indoor Play Centre. - Ms Jasmine Gray

Whilst we continue to work using the ‘hybrid’ approach, we have been using one of the lessons each week to take part in project work. As we have been learning about the parts of a plant and what it needs to grow, we decided to create our own plants using Lego. Look at the wonderful models the children made in pairs! You will notice that they have remembered the roots, the stem, the leaves and the flower. Well done Year 1 Blue! -Mr Sam Young (Click to expand photos)

Year 3 have come back to school with a bang and have seriously impressed me! Take a look at them in action; from exploring numbers in Maths, to writing questions in English - these guys certainly have been busy! We had a lot of fun making the classroom dark and pretending we were in a cave as part of our Stone Age topic. Children laid on the floor and made cave paintings underneath the classroom tables. Such a fun start to being back at school. - Ms Charlotte Myers

In Year 4 White, we loved this STEAM challenge of building a marble run from cardboard rolls that lasted for exactly 30 seconds. We had to work together as a team by collaborating and cooperating, and we definitely put both our creative and critical thinking skills into practise trying to complete this! In the end, the target time was reduced to 10 seconds and while we were getting close, nobody ended up getting theirs to run for the exact time! Still, we showed a lot of great teamwork and had a lot of fun doing it! -Ms Jen Rapkins (Click to expand photos)

Sometimes students still surprise me with their soul and ability. As an introduction to the process of approaching ‘unseen’ texts in the course, students in Year 12 Literature were asked to write a reflective poem in order to encourage them to think of the craft and purpose which writers invest in their work. All pieces were interesting and accomplished, but for me, Alicia Martin’s moving and profound piece was particularly outstanding. Remember, that students have until 1st November to enter the Bennington Young Writers Competition; speak to your English teacher for details! - David Pollicutt, Head of English

Pipe Dream

I kept it alive like monarch butterflies

This grand, orange, fluttering mess of a dream

Spilling out of a jar too small to contain it.

At 5, chanting do re mi’s with my heart in my hands, the bittersweet naivety of a child.

With every tiny flitter of wings in my chest, I grew to love the feeling

Or at 7, uncluttered and light like the silky breath of air

Blowing in through some back window somewhere.

I frolicked

In the idea.

Of fiery stage lights, red and pink

of slipping into song and bright tulle costume

I dreamt in vivid color, too brilliant for my own good

When I was 9 and 10, I wished for skyscrapers and 4th of julys,

for some wonderful trick of fate to sweep me up, like velvety wings

And carry me, in a lustrous marriage of golds and browns, to my dream.

I danced

into adolescence,

those butterflies adorning my vision

and constricting it too.

At 14, no one tells you you’re still allowed to dream.

And the heaviness of indisputable doubt creeps in like a thick, poisonous fog

In the theatre mogador, it was different.

Like tiny flailing flaps of panic inside my skin

because it was just me and my thoughts and this impossible view.

Actresses belting to jazz, ardent, blazing eyes

etched with wings of liner singing about ‘Roxie’

At the standing ovation, my jar was shut,

fastened with the apprehension of a pipe dream

I still think about it at 16, when my wishes are shallow, without colour.

Sometimes ambition gets the best of me, and the jar of butterflies opens again.