Update to parents and carers
This update will include:
The first day back after half term, new timetables for all year groups and small timetable timings change for Year 7 and Year 8 students
Reminder of staggered starts and endings to the school days
Year 11 Mocks/Exams and Revision/Catch up sessions
Setting of work for students self-isolating
Government updated guidance and expectations regarding face coverings from Tuesday November 3rd 2020
Hampshire Cultural Trust – half term events
Noadswood uniform and equipment
Cross Country Week
The journey home – expectations
Schools Winter Influenza Vaccination Programme
Ashurst Hospital Newsletter
Heartfelt thanks
The first day back for all students after half term is Tuesday November 3rd 2020.
It will begin with an extended tutor time, during which we will make sure everyone is shipshape in terms of uniform and equipment, and issue new timetables.
New timetables for all Year Groups:
Students in all year groups will be beginning their new timetables after half term, following this first half term that gave Y7 and 8 students the chance to complete their KS3 curriculum thoroughly after the disruption of lockdown. The new timetables include Y9 starting their options subjects which we hope they will be excited about.
If anyone needs a fresh start, now they’re more settled back at school, now’s the time!
That said, I would also like to pass on our congratulations to so many of our students on their excellent efforts and incredible progress so far – we have been so proud and impressed.
Small timetable timing change for Year 7 and 8 for after half term:
Having reflected carefully together on our arrangements this half term, we will be making the following small adjustment for Year 7 and 8 to take effect from Tuesday November 3rd 2020:
We will now ask year 7 and 8 to be ready for tutor time to begin at 8.45am with a late mark being recorded any time from 8.50am.
We will also no longer be running a second, short afternoon tutor time for these year groups, but will have an extended period 5 – running from 1.50 - 3.00pm. Your children may agree with us that it has been causing more fluster than benefit in the afternoon as the children have whizzed across their zone to their second short tutor time, not to mention for the tutors bolting from their period 5 lesson across to this tutor time.
The additional ten minutes of lesson time gained can be used for a lovely settled start to the final lesson of the day, time to make sure everywhere is tidy, time for some mindfulness and time to make sure that the full 60 minutes of curriculum coverage will count. There is no change to the timings of the end of the school day incorporated into this tweak.
Reminder of staggered starts and endings for the rest of the school:
These have been adhered to very well by the majority of students, but may we remind you of their importance in terms of our maintaining of year group bubbles?
Here are the timings and entrances/exits again for your reference:
Please remind your children that when they arrive, it’s straight to tutor bases please.
We mustn’t drift back to arriving all at the same time – let’s reboot the sharpness of it with a new half term starting.
Year 11 Mocks/Exams for 2021 and revision/catch up sessions:
Mr Hewitt, House Leaders and I recently carried out mini, socially distanced assemblies with two House tutor groups at a time to provide reassurance and context to the year group for this important, complex year they are working so hard in; Mr Crowley will be speaking to them again, after the break, to provide further information about our plans for mocks and for revision/catch up sessions, too.
Setting of work for students self-isolating:
We wanted just to clarify that, as many of you will know first hand, we are proud to fulfil our duty to provide work for any students being asked to self-isolate.
With students who are unwell, connected to C-19 or any other illness, we do not set work as if they’re unwell we believe the students should be resting and getting themselves better rather than applying pressure to themselves to be working from home.
Government updated guidance and expectations regarding face coverings from Tuesday November 3rd 2020
Please click on the link to read the Government’s updated guidance on the wearing of face coverings in schools:
Please note the wording extracted from this guidance:
Where education leaders may recommend the wearing of face coverings for pupils, staff and visitors:
- where the layout of the school or college estate makes it particularly difficult to maintain social distancing when staff and pupils are moving around the premises
- where on top of hygiene measures and the system of controls recommended in the full opening guidance to schools and FE colleges and providers, permitting the use of face coverings for staff, pupils or other visitors would provide additional confidence to parents to support a full return of children to school or college
It also includes the fact that where areas of the country are in ‘High’ or ‘Very High’ areas of restriction owing to case spread and prevalence, face coverings should be worn by adults (staff and visitors) and pupils when moving around indoors, such as in corridors and communal areas where social distancing is difficult to maintain.
We therefore continue to remind you that it is the Noadswood expectation for every one of our students and adults who feel able to wear a face covering as an important way that we can all protect ourselves and those around us. We continue to acknowledge, of course, that there are people exempt and with genuine reasons why they would prefer not to do so.
It seems to us a potential preventative measure to be totally committed to rather than to wait until possibly more robust restrictions are in place later down the line.
We will be sharing with the students some input from the science around C-19 after the break to provide further insights as to why we focus on socially distancing, face coverings and sanitising.
Hampshire Cultural Trust: events over half term
Please see the HCT (click link) for a host of fun, Halloween based activities at various locations across Hampshire, some of which are free. Let us know if you decide to join in with any of them!
A reminder of Noadswood’s uniform and equipment:
Returning to school from lockdown and then the summer break has been huge for all of our students, and they have made us incredibly proud in so many ways – please see their letter when it comes your way in the next couple of days for just some of the reasons why.
However, even though many of our students are wearing their uniform brilliantly well and bringing all the right equipment in to school, we have seen some slippage from last year, pre-lockdown, and so we need to reissue to you our uniform requirements – let’s go all out to have a school to be truly proud of in this respect, too, when we come back together:
As we stated in the summer, students need only have EITHER the Noadswood blazer OR the Noadswood jumper with the badge – they don’t need to have both. However, these are the only two options, rather than plain black jumpers or sweatshirts, please, and hoodies of all kinds are not part of our uniform.
Key items of our school uniform are currently available from Skoolkit:
Item | Description |
Black trousers | Plain black, tailored, loose fitting trousers. No jeans, skinny trousers or corded type trousers. |
Plain white shirt | Plain white shirt with a collar and either short or long sleeved. No tshirts. |
Black Noadswood Blazer | Black blazer with the Noadswood logo on the pocket. |
Tie | Noasdwood school tie with the coloured stripes of your house (Prefects may wear the Noadswood prefect tie) |
Skirt | If your child chooses to wear a skirt, we ask that all year 7s wear the Noadswood school skirt. This is available from Skoolkit and is embroidered with the Noadswood badge. For students in years 8 – 11, we know that they may already have had a school skirt. We ask that when you replace this skirt, you do so with the Noadswood skirt embroidered with the badge as above. All skirts should be black and knee length. Skirts should not be rolled up at any time. Students should wear tights beneath their skirt from November until May half term, unless we have unseasonably hot weather, in which case we will advise you. |
Optional black v-next jumper with Noadswood logo | Students do not have to wear a jumper underneath their blazer but if they wish to, it must be the black v-neck jumper with the Noadswood logo. No hoodies or zip up jumpers to be worn under or over blazers. |
Shoes | Formal leather style, plain black shoes. No trainers, boots, canvas shoes or sport style shoes. |
Outer coat | Coats to be worn on top of the school blazer. No denim jackets, leather coats or sport jumpers/hoodies with our without zips. |
Jewellery | No jewellery other than a pair of small stud earrings in the lower lobe of the ear. A wrist watch or medical alert can be worn. No other piercings are permitted. |
PE kit | You can find the full list of recommended PE kit on the school website but we require the following: All years: School rugby shirt, plain black shorts, knee-length red socks, training shoes. Years 7,8 and 9: Plain white t-shirt or white polo shirt with the Noadswood badge.
|
Equipment | Pencil case (pens, pencils, ruler, rubber as minimum), face covering (unless exempt/specific reason not to wear) |
Cross Country Week:
It’s been a great half term for our PE department and the students are really enjoying their sport, now more than ever. Our arrangements for safe changing and safe sanitising of equipment are working well.
A reminder to all students that Cross Country will be the first week back for all year groups - more information will be sent out on ePraise from the PE department.
The journey home from school:
This is an important one – a minority of our students are not getting this right every day. Please would you have a chat with your children over the break about the importance of:
- Going straight home from school rather than hanging around near Tesco at the bottom of North Road and other local shops,
- Following the rule of six, rather than congregating in larger groups than that.
- Wearing face coverings unless exempt/have specific reason not to when in any of the local shops.
We are doing our all to manage the Year Group bubbles safely and to make it as easy as possible for us to be able to contact trace, as we have been able to do with respect to the two cases we have had of C-19 in our school to date. This could be so easily undermined by students not making sensible choices on the journey home, and it also provides worry to other community members. Rarely is anyone doing anything deliberately difficult, but it is not in keeping with the C-19 guidance, and so we would appreciate as much support from you all as possible.
Senior Leadership Team members and House Leaders do our all to cover the local community after school, as well as to go in to Tesco and liaise regularly with the staff there. We also work together with our colleagues at Applemore. Could you support us with your own children as much as possible, please?
As I wrote to you about today, we were also made aware of a fight between two of our students at the end of the school day at Noads Way Park. Again, we were able to get to the scene quickly and intervene to stop the incident and to disperse the group of onlookers from our school and another. But as well as this being a horrible scene for passers by to witness, and one that did not speak well of our generally superb Y11, it also broke C-19 guidance completely.
It put random groups of Y11 students, and one or two from other year groups, in contact with each other in an informal, unstructured way that would not happen in school. One parent commented to me that most of the students leaving the scene spoke politely, and are, in normal circumstances, great young people. I don’t doubt this, but we need far more responsible, public spirited, safe decisions from all of our young people every day. I will be reinforcing this with the students – can we all be in this together, please?
Schools Winter Influenza Vaccine Programme:
For those of you that wish to give consent for your child(ren) to have this, the influenza vaccine is booked to be made available to Y7 students on Monday December 14th 2020.
Ashurst Hospital in the New Forest - a newsletter and survey for local families and children
Take a look at the Ashurst Hospital document below (click link) to find out more about the services offered by Ashurst Hospital and the vision for its future as a Child and Family Health and Wellbeing Centre:
If you would like to share your thoughts, there is an opportunity to complete a survey, too.
Heartfelt Thanks:
I would like to end by thanking every one of you for your support this term so far. Whether it’s been an email with a suggestion or some encouragement, a wave as we’ve seen you driving or walking by when we’re out on the gates, your thoughts in our parent discussion group or our PSA, your comments on our social media presence, your ePraise messages, your time on the phone, your fabulously helpful and clear emails to health@noadswood.hants.sch.uk or just being out there, doing all the right things so your child can succeed back in school – you have all been incredible, seriously.
We really are so thankful, and are with you all the way through each day and each week.
We wish all the students a super half term.
Kathryn Marshall and the Noadswood Leadership Team