Middle School Newsletter 24/06/2019

To our Middle School Community,

Please read through the dates below carefully - end of year events, trips and important dates are being added and finalised each week.

Reminder - School Uniform

A reminder that full school uniform is still expected every day including black shoes and ties. We've reminded students about this today in assembly - please support this message at home. We've also reminded students to take care of their belongings, especially in the hot weather, when blazers may be taken off in lessons or while playing. Students are responsible for looking after their uniform pieces. As the weather heats up, water bottles are advised as well.

Dates For Your Diary

Return Date for Academic Year 2019/2020 - Monday 9th September

Tuesday 25th June: Y8 Salesforce Project Group - Nando's Meal (5:00pm - 6:30pm)

Wednesday 26th June: Year 6 Chessington visit (Please make payments on ParentPay)

Thursday 27th June: Year 4 Parents Information Evening
(4:30pm - 5:30pm)

Friday 28th - Saturday 29th June: Year 8 Camping Trip

Monday 1st July: Middle School Sports Day

Wednesday 3rd July: Lit Fest (More information to follow)

Thursday 4th July: Deadline for returning HPV forms (Year 7 only)

Thursday 4th July: Year 7 Ignite: A Moment of Humanity Event (4:00pm - 5:30pm)

Thursday 4th July: Year 5/6 Band Project Gala Concert (5:00pm - 6:30pm)

Friday 5th July: Summer Fair (Primary + 5/6) (3:30pm - 6:00pm)

Monday 8th July - Friday 12th July: Year 6 Residential Trip - In2Action Gloucester

Tuesday 9th July: INSET Day (School closed for all students)

Friday 12th July: Reports sent home

Monday 15th July: Year 7 Macbeth Performance (more information to follow)

Wednesday 17th July: Year 8 Legacy Event (TBC - more information to follow)

Wednesday 17th July: Summer attendance winners visit to ZapSpace

Thursday 18th July: Summer Exhibition of Beautiful Work (4:30pm - 6:30pm) 1:00pm finish (3:15pm supervision option available - more information to follow)

Friday 19th July: Middle School Annual Awards (see below for further details)

Friday 19th July: Last day of the Year - School Closing at 1:00pm

Dear Parents and Carers,

As you will be aware there was a serious incident in Stratford Park in the early hours of Monday morning. Although we don’t know all the facts, we understand that the incident was fatal and the victim was a man in his 40s. No young people were involved.

Perhaps our first reaction as a community is to feel sadness and fear. Sadness that this has happened on our doorstep and fear for the safety of our children, friends and family. But my second reaction was to feel pride and hope. Pride that children were in school, some upset of course, but the majority able to express their feelings to their peers and teachers. And hope that together as a school community - from 4 to 18 - we are building something that outshines the dangers around us.

Going forward we will redouble our efforts to keep children as safe as we can but we need your help.

Our strong advice to children is:

Avoid Stratford Park on their way home
If they are not being picked up by parents go straight home and go with a friend
If students are worried about anything encourage them to speak to their coach/class teacher or put a note in the worry box in each small school
Don’t have conversations with strangers on their way home. If they see something they are concerned about let us know

If you are worried about anything, either about your child and/or your child’s friends please get in touch. In particular, if you worry that they may be vulnerable to pressures outside of school, please let us know. We are working with an excellent schools police liaison officer who can provide support. We are also making sure our coaching and well-being curriculum covers the topics that children want to talk about in a safe and age appropriate way.

Please do get in touch with any questions or concerns.

Oli de Botton
Headteacher

Term Dates for 2019/2020

Attendance Winners - Week Beginning 10/06/2019

Year 5 Machu Picchu - 99.6% OVERALL MIDDLE SCHOOL WINNER

Year 6 Kilimanjaro - 98.0%

Year 7 Himalayas - 93.2%

Year 8 Olympus - 95.2%

Please see the Middle School After School Club Timetable Summer 2019

Snowdon's Debut

Snowdon class in Year 5 were lucky enough to be involved in the production of a short film advertising the company PWC. Called 'Intelligent Digital', the advert begins with members of the class sharing their hopes and fears for the future of the world, from environmental protection to wonderful new technology. After a long day of filming the class were amazed to see how hours and hours of footage was distilled down into only a couple of minutes for the finished piece. The film will be going out online as part of one of their business campaigns, so watch out for School 21 uniforms in the boardrooms of Canary Wharf and beyond!

Year 7 Ignite: A moment of humanity

Letters were sent home last week about the Year 7 Ignite performances for this year. On Thursday 4th July, in the Middle School Courtyard and surrounding rooms, all Year 7 students will perform their own original speeches they are crafting over this half term. The Ignite process gives the newest students to our school a course in Oracy and provides an opportunity for personal reflection. The speeches this year are focused on a moment of humanity that each student has experiences and identified and the impact this has had on themselves and the community. We look forward to seeing all Year 7 parents there! Please note, students are expected to stay back after school on this day to rehearse and get ready. Please contact Mr Thomas with any questions or concerns on dthomas@school21.org.uk

Raising money for Cancer Research - Zain's progress!

Hello everyone, it's Zain from year 5. Thank you to everyone who helped me raise money for Cancer Research at the school.

We had so many nice cakes to sell from parents. A lot of people bought the cakes biscuits and watermelon on sale. We made a huge £210.

As you can see, it's been paid into my race for life collection.

Thank you everybody because you helped me raise money to help scientists cure cancer. Thanks from me and Luke's mum to everyone who has shown kindness by donating or buying the food. also to Asia, Rome and Esme's mums who helped us on the day.

Don't forget you can join in the run or walk at Victoria Park on 6th July at 11am or join us with a picnic.

If you are working on a community project or would like to celebrate an achievement from outside of school in our newsletter, please get in touch with Ms Kyrk to help organise this.

Breaking News in Year 7

Here is this week's news story reel from the Year 7 roving reporters! Their own Even Better If feedback is to make sure interviews are shorter and snappier next week... watch this space to see how they go!

Annual Awards

Teachers are currently nominating students for our first Middle School Annual Awards. Students who have consistently gone above and beyond in our different curriculum areas of 'Head', 'Heart' and 'Hand'. We will also have a major award of Student of the Year. Nominees will be voted on with winners being announced and collecting trophies at our ceremony on the last day of term.

Year 8 Poetry

This week Year 8 have been learning about the 'ghazal' (roughly pronounced "huzzle") can be traced back to seventh-century Arabia.

It is composed of couplets (2 line stanzas) that are united by a strict scheme of rhyme, and line-length. The ghazal has been introduced recently to American poets by Robert Bly and Agha Shahid Ali. It usually has five to fifteen couplets. Each line should be of about the same length.

Imtiyaz in Fuji has written a brilliant example of this poetry from - and has given us permission to share his great work with the community. Please enjoy!

Summer Fair Update

We are having our Summer Fair on Friday 5th July 3:30pm - 6:00pm. There will be rides, bouncy castles, activities and stalls. Tickets for rides, bouncy castles, activities and stalls. Tickets for rides are being sold at 50p each. You'll find them throughout the week in the playground. There are also raffle tickets with great prizes ranging from restaurants, gifts to vouchers for the cinema or theatre. Please put the date in your dairy as it promises to be a bumper year.

Please note that while all students are welcome to attend the Summer Fair, parents or carers must attend with them, even in Years 7 and 8.

Recognition last week

Our recognition boards were filled with names again last week. Congratulations and thank you to all who demonstrated working in the zone, choosing kind and stepping up - you make our Middle School community #middlestrong!

The bulb in our projector has broken unfortunately, so some of the recognition was squeezed onto one day! Please share with your children as they may not have seen their name last week!

The Lunch Menu has changed - please see the changes above.

The Lunch Menu this week is Week 3!

Receiving Emails from School

Those with Yahoo email accounts need to add:

3164001@capita-intouch.co.uk as a safe contact so that they can receive emails from the school.

Camp Horizons - Kids summer camp in the Olympic Park

Camp Horizons is an Ofsted-registered kids (ages 6-14) summer activity camp provider, who will be running their 4th summer camp programme at Mossbourne Riverside Academy between 22 July - 09 August 2019.

Camp Horizons offers kids an action-packed summer filled with sports, drama, arts & crafts, dance, inter-camp competition and theme days! All staff are qualified childcare professionals (coaches/teachers), and are all have enhanced DBS checked. Camp Horizons can accept childcare vouchers and weekly rates start from £95.00.

Middle School Newsletter