Headteacher: Mr Oli de Botton Middle School NewsletterTo our Middle School Community,The last week of the Autumn Term is upon us. What an incredible term it has been full on fun, learning, challenge and growth. A huge thank you to all of our families and the wider Middle School community for all of your support over our first term of the year as a full, functioning school. Our final week of the term is full of special events and celebration! Please note that on the final day of term, Friday 21st December, the coaching groups will be having their own Christmas celebrations. Please send your child to school with a party food to share (crisps, sweets, drink or fruit). Please remember that we are a nut-free school! On behalf of all of the staff, we hope that you and your family have a restful, fun and safe holiday and we will see you back for another great term in January! Dates For Your Diary Wednesday 19th December: Exhibition of Beautiful Work 4:30pm - 6:30pm (School closes at 1pm for preparation. Please see the letter sent home last week / contact your child's teacher if you need to collect your Year 5 / 6 child at 3pm) Thursday 20th December: December Above and Beyond Out and About trip Thursday 20th December: Secondary & Sixth Form Festival of Light Performance (6:00 - 8:00pm) Friday 21st December: Attendance reward trip to ZapSpace - CONGRATULATIONS SNOWDON CLASS! Friday 21st December: Class parties at the end of the day! Bring along food to share (remember we are a nut-free school!) Friday 21st December: Last day of term (school finishes at 1:00pm) Monday 7th January: INSET Day (School Closed for Students)Tuesday 8th January to Friday 15th February - Spring Term 1Friday 11th January: Family Film Night - 'The Blind Side' 5:30pm - 7:30pm £1 - includes popcorn and squash! Chewing Gum: Chewing gum at school is not allowed as it often ends up in unfortunate places and leaves a big mess. Please support the school by reminding your child about this rule. Students found to be chewing gum at school will have to complete a break or lunch time service, helping to clean up around the school. Parents will be contacted if students repeatedly break this rule. Thank you for your support with this matter.
We ask families to support the school in ensuring your children are representing School 21 appropriately, sensibly and safely before and after school. We have had reports of students outside of the school gates and in the playground using inappropriate language before school, and also for not demonstrating appropriate conduct at local shops on the high street after school. We will follow up these reports with calls home to parents and encourage any members of our community witnessing this to report concerns to the Middle School team. A revised duty rota will be fully in place after the holidays to support this. Please be aware that the school advises local residents and business owners to contact the police if they feel students are not conducting themselves appropriately. Please ensure you take responsibility for your child and speak to them about expectations when they are travelling to and from school. This will be addressed as well during assemblies at school. Uniform reminders: Please ensure your child is leaving for school each morning in the correct uniform:
We appreciate your support with this matter. Please remember to ensure your child has a water proof/resistant coat with a hood each day as we still go out for break and lunch in light drizzle. This is important as the weather gets colder! Middle School students have been reminded in assemblies that they are not to be in the corridors, classrooms or music rooms without an adult's permission and supervision during break and lunch times. They can however access toilets at all times and can visit the library to warm up if needed. Attendance Winners - this week and for the Autumn Term!Year 5 - Snowdon - 98.6% Overall Middle Winner Year 6 - Everest - 97.6% Year 7 - Rockies - 97.6% Year 8 - Fuji - 93.8% Congratulations to SNOWDON CLASS in Year 5 for winning the overall highest attendance this week and ALSO for the term by a tiny last minute margin of 0.01%! They will be invited to Zap Space to celebrate this Friday! Next term we start fresh with everyone starting over in the best attendance challenge. 96% and below needs definite improvement - please support your child to be in school ready to learn every day 1st 97.81% SNOWDON 2nd 97.80% Matterhorn 3rd 97.38% Everest 4th 97.18% Kosciuszko 5th 97.00% Himalayas 6th 96.39% Machu Picchu 7th 96.25% Fuji 8th 95.50% Rockies 9th 95.33% Ben Nevis 10th 95.12% Mont Blanc 11th 94.18% Kilimanjaro 12th 93.27% Olympus The Million Words Club! Huge recognition to another fantastic reader in middle school - Denisa in Year 7! Denisa is the latest student to reach 1,000,000 words read through our Accelerated Reader program. She will be selecting her book this week. Thank you to the English team and Ms Fisher for their support. Years 6 - 8 Festival of Light Massive congratulations to the Year 6, 7 and 8 classes who participated in last Thursday's Festival of Lights concert! It was a true demonstration of our #middlestrong attitude with students stepping up and demonstrating our School 21 values of Excellence and Community. The performances were truly moving - from the toe-tapping Shake It Off with the middle school choir to the medley of movie tunes from the Year 6 Big Band to the experimental Year 8 pieces, it was an inspiring night that made us all very proud. Huge thanks and recognition to the music team of Ms Crowhurst, Ms Wall, Mr Bush and Mr Start as well as the operations team, the staff who supported rehearsals and the performance, the parents and families and, of course, the students themselves! Salesforce Visit Year 8 Last week marked the end of the current coaching project on Enterprise for Year 8. Students worked on developing their own ideas for businesses and products over the weeks and had these ideas critiqued by visiting volunteers from Salesforce. Pantomime Madness!As part of the 'Every Child a Theatre Goer' initiative, Year 6 had the opportunity last week to attend the pantomime performance of Sleeping Beauty at Stratford's Theatre Royal. The production was a reimagined version of the classic tale and had all of us up from our seats dabbing, flossing and joining in with the action! A big thank you to Mr Thompson for very quickly organising to trip for us. Next term Year 7 will be attending another production locally - watch this space for more information!Student Voice Representatives Last week the votes for Student Voice were finalised and a student from each coaching group was nominated as representative. Congratulations to those chosen and to everyone who campaigned for the positions. The representatives will be meeting regularly after the holidays with Ms Mclear and Mr Bell to help our school improve and ensure that all students have a voice! Family Film Night! As a welcome back after the winter break, we will be holding our next Family Film Night on Friday, January 11th from 5:30pm. This time around we will be watching Wonder starring Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson. We ask for a £1 donation for everyone who wishes to attend which includes popcorn and squash! Bring along a pillow and snuggle up to watch this uplifting film with us! (Rated PG) Year 7 Abbey Gardens Event A final reminder that Year 7 will be holding their major end-of-project event at Abbey Gardens this week on Tuesday 18th December. Please see the flyer below for more information and we hope to see you there! This is the evening before our whole-school Autumn Exhibition. Exhibition of Beautiful WorkThis Wednesday evening on the 19th December from 4:30 - 6:30pm we will be holding our Autumn Exhibition of Beautiful Work. It is the first time that every year group from Reception all the way up to Year 13 in the Sixth Form will be exhibiting work from the term. Please come along to support the school and your child and to celebrate in the learning journeys from across the school! A letter was emailed home last week with more information. Please look out for individual letters for students who have been invited to present specifically. For students who do not receive an individual letter, please come along at any point during the exhibition to support your Year group and talk to the visiting audience about your work over the term.RecognitionHere's last weeks' recognition for students and teachers (and some products!) who went above and beyond to become big names in middle school! Check this week's recognition boards for your name.Being Share Aware: supporting your child to be safe onlineDuring the Middle School years many children become active on social media. It can be hard to keep track of what your child is doing on social networks, apps and games. Or know how best to keep them safe. The NSPCC provides guidance for parents to help untangle the web and on how to teach your child to be Share Aware. Follow this link to explore popular social networks, games and apps and to learn more about these to help support your child. Click on the image below to access the site. Overdue Library BooksPlease return your overdue library books! We currently have over 500 books overdue. This means that students are unable to borrow popular books.Students are allowed to borrow up to three books for a loan period of one month and can be renewed after this period should the need arise. Any books that are lost or damaged must be replaced.Mrs Fisher
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