Start of Year letter

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Cre­ated: Thurs­day, 15 Sep­tem­ber 2022 11:18

Writ­ten by Tom Sellen

Sep­tem­ber 2022

Dear Parents/​Carers

I hope you have all had a lovely sum­mer and were able to enjoy the excel­lent weather.

Fol­low­ing the sad news of the death of Her Majesty Queen Eliz­a­beth II, and in line with the rest of the coun­try, King Ethel­bert School will be closed on Mon­day 19th Sep­tem­ber 2022 this being the offi­cial date of the State Funeral. It is with fond mem­o­ries that we remem­ber when some of our stu­dents and staff had the great plea­sure in meet­ing our late Queen back in 2011 when she vis­ited the Turner Con­tem­po­rary in Margate.

It has been an excel­lent first week and stu­dents are already demon­strat­ing an extremely pos­i­tive approach to the new aca­d­e­mic year. We have launched the new ASPIRE vision and stu­dents are already earn­ing house points for demon­strat­ing good per­for­mance in the fol­low­ing areas; atti­tude, suc­cess, pride, inspi­ra­tion, resilience and enterprise.

Fol­low­ing all the dis­rup­tion and obsta­cles from the last few years, I would like to offer huge con­grat­u­la­tions to our out­go­ing year 11 and 13 cohorts. Despite the chal­lenges they faced in this period they demon­strated admirable resilience and achieved excel­lent results. In year 11 58% of stu­dents achieved at least a grade 4 in both Eng­lish and maths and in year 13, 92% of stu­dents passed the IBCP. This Is tes­ta­ment to the hard work put in by the stu­dents and the excel­lent sup­port pro­vided by our staff.

We are all extremely excited by the new aca­d­e­mic year and also the return of more trips and extracur­ric­u­lar oppor­tu­ni­ties. Details of some key events and exams can be seen in our annual cal­en­dar (enclosed in this let­ter) for parents/​carers which is cor­rect at the time of print­ing. We also have our school web­site which is con­tin­u­ally updated with impor­tant infor­ma­tion so do check the web­site reg­u­larly to find out the lat­est news and any impor­tant infor­ma­tion you need to know.

You may already be aware that we are using the Class Charts sys­tem and all stu­dents have been sup­plied with their log-​in codes and instruc­tions. This sys­tem allows par­ents, car­ers and stu­dents to view their progress and reflect on their behav­iour and achievements.

Read more …

Y6 Open Events 2022

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Cre­ated: Wednes­day, 07 Sep­tem­ber 2022 09:07

Writ­ten by Vic­to­ria Har­rop

Sum­mer Let­ter 2022

Details

Cre­ated: Wednes­day, 31 August 2022 10:36

Writ­ten by Deb­bie Shall­cross

July 2022

Dear Par­ents and Carers

It seems incred­i­ble that we are once again at the end of another busy school year. Please be reminded that school fin­ishes on Tues­day 19th July at 12.00 pm (please see start times and changes to the day for next year at the end of this let­ter). This year has con­tin­ued to present some chal­lenges, but it has been enor­mously suc­cess­ful in so many ways too.

I must start with a huge con­grat­u­la­tions to our Year 13 stu­dents who received their IB Diploma results this term. We had well over 100 entries and they have done incred­i­bly well:

• 97% of all entries passed
• 28% were graded at the top grades of 7 — 5
• 82% addi­tion­ally passed their reflec­tive projects, a 3000 word extended research essay on an eth­i­cal ele­ment of their spe­cial­ist subject

Stu­dents are await­ing their Level 3 BTEC results which form the final ele­ment of the IBCP (Inter­na­tional Bac­calau­re­ate Careers Related Pro­gramme). These arrive in August so we will share these results and their des­ti­na­tions then, but around 75% are aim­ing to secure uni­ver­sity places with oth­ers in the appli­ca­tion process of higher level appren­tice­ships or employ­ment. These results are par­tic­u­larly remark­able given that Year 13 did not have the prior expe­ri­ence of for­mal GCSE exams due to Covid and have had to endure fur­ther sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tions to their stud­ies through­out their courses. The stu­dents have shown immense resilience, deter­mi­na­tion and drive to achieve this level of suc­cess and we wish them love and luck for their future ventures.

Year 11 com­pleted their GCSE and BTEC qual­i­fi­ca­tions this term and have shown tenac­ity and good humour in equal mea­sures. We have been so proud with the way they have nav­i­gated and taken on every­thing that has been thrown at them and we look for­ward to find­ing out how they have got on when their results come through in August. Stu­dents, you looked fan­tas­tic at your Prom! We are delighted that the major­ity of you hope to return to our sixth form to study the IBCP.

Thank you to the many par­ents, car­ers and friends who have helped us gather and send resources and sup­port to the Ukraine amidst the ter­ri­ble dev­as­ta­tion that we have been see­ing on the news. We have also been pleased to wel­come and sup­port a num­ber of Ukrain­ian stu­dents to our KES com­mu­nity and we con­tinue to work as a col­lec­tive of Thanet schools to sup­port this ter­ri­ble human­i­tar­ian cri­sis in any way we can.

In other news, we have had a plethora of excit­ing, wider oppor­tu­ni­ties and activ­i­ties and it has been won­der­ful to be able to offer these more rou­tinely again in term 6. We have had a fan­tas­tic range of school trips such as Duke of Edinburgh’s Award vol­un­teer­ing work and expe­di­tions, Year 12 uni­ver­sity trip, Year 10 cit­i­zen­ship trip to Par­lia­ment, Year 9 maths trip to Thorpe Park, Year 8 canoe­ing trip, Year 7 ori­en­teer­ing trip, Year 10 geog­ra­phy field trips to Whit­stable, Year 9 glid­ing trip and a trip to Wim­ble­don. With­out excep­tion, stu­dents have behaved respect­fully and respon­si­bly and been won­der­ful ambas­sadors for the school as always.

Stu­dents have also hugely impressed us in wider cur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties this term, such as Eng­lish speak­ing assess­ments, Busi­ness pre­sen­ta­tions, Year 10 Employ­a­bil­ity Day work­shops, Sports Day, Year 6 Tran­si­tion Day sup­port and com­mu­nity ser­vice efforts around our site includ­ing from our Young Car­ers and our Stu­dent Gar­den­ing Team.

We have also had some super indi­vid­ual stu­dent suc­cesses in sport (includ­ing national skate­board­ing suc­cess!), the Rotary Club Inno­va­tion Com­pe­ti­tion, Thanet Schools’ Young Artist Fes­ti­val Com­pe­ti­tion and, once again, our Year 12 Busi­ness stu­dents are plan­ning and lead­ing a range of school com­mu­nity events, assem­blies and fundrais­ers in aid of the men­tal health char­ity “Mind”.

The penul­ti­mate week of term saw an enor­mous effort from over 100 stu­dents with their staff in plan­ning and exe­cut­ing the bril­liant Cabaret Show at the Win­ter Gar­dens. It was a joy­ous show of dance, music, design, cater­ing, musi­cal the­atre, drama and fun! At KES we often talk about team­work and about find­ing suc­cess and hap­pi­ness for all. The most won­der­ful and unique part of my job is see­ing our young peo­ple find their pas­sions and con­fi­dence, find indi­vid­ual suc­cess and be part of some­thing big — our school shows epit­o­mise this. A week later, we have con­tin­ued with some more won­der­ful musi­cal enter­tain­ment back at the Win­ter Gar­dens with the Coastal Acad­e­mies Trust Musi­cal Med­ley in which all of the Trust schools come together to cel­e­brate and perform.

I was recently lucky enough to be lent a copy of the first King Ethel­bert School mag­a­zine, from a friend of the school; it is dated 1948, 10 years after the school opened! It was won­der­ful to see a bit of his­tory of the school and to reflect on the jour­ney we have come. In those days, the school houses were named after ships cap­tained by his­tor­i­cal explor­ers such as Cap­tain Cook, Sir Ernest Shack­le­ton and Cap­tain Robert Fal­con Scott: Adven­ture House, Dis­cov­ery House, Endeav­our House, Endurance House and Res­o­lu­tion House. The themes and pho­tos and arti­cles also cel­e­brate the school clubs (includ­ing needle­work, model mak­ing and pup­pet mak­ing!), trips, vis­its and sports team suc­cess (includ­ing tug-​of-​war!)

The mes­sage in the ‘Fore­word’ from the Chair of Gov­er­nors at the time still rings true for me in every way:

“It would seem the ambi­tion, that this school should be the best of its kind, rapidly became a tra­di­tion and has been loy­ally upheld through­out its his­tory to date. As the years roll by, it is my earnest hope that the same spirit of achieve­ment will be car­ried on, and this school will ever remain true to the tra­di­tion which has been so well founded and that the gen­er­a­tions to come will have every rea­son to be proud, as we are today, of King Ethel­bert School”.

At the end of every year, sadly we have to say good­bye to some staff who are mov­ing on and we send our enor­mous thanks and love and best wishes to the following:

Mrs Kelly Smith (Art & Photography)

Miss Rachael Braith­waite (Geography)

Mrs Sarah Wright (Head of Maths)

Mr Andrew Green (Maths)

Mrs Maria Beltran-​Martin (2i/​c MFL)

Miss Andrea Kourel­lias (2i/​c MFL)

Finally, as you will know, I am retir­ing after thirty years in teach­ing, to enjoy some time and adven­tures with my fam­ily and friends. I feel very priv­i­leged to have been part of the King Ethel­bert jour­ney and to have served the Thanet com­mu­nity. Thanet is a beau­ti­ful, friendly, cre­ative, chal­lenged, car­ing, diverse, char­i­ta­ble and remark­able com­mu­nity and, as with all places, it is the peo­ple that define it. King Ethel­bert School is an extra­or­di­nary place and I have been reminded daily of the extra­or­di­nary peo­ple that define it; stu­dents, par­ents and staff.

To stu­dents: Always remem­ber, you are remark­able peo­ple. You blow me away every day with your intel­li­gence, cre­ativ­ity, ambi­tion, inno­va­tion, human­ity and kind­ness. Con­tinue to fol­low your dreams in the knowl­edge you can achieve any­thing with con­fi­dence and perseverance.

To par­ents and car­ers: None of the magic hap­pens with­out you. Thank you for your unfail­ing sup­port and efforts behind the scenes and for allow­ing us to share and shape the life jour­neys of your amaz­ing children.

To the staff, what­ever your role: I am in awe of what you do. I am so lucky to have spent the last 13 years as part of the KES team and on behalf of all the lives you touch — thank you.

I wish you all a lovely rest­ful sum­mer and a well earned break.

With very best wishes.

Yours faith­fully

Vicky Willis

Head­teacher

Mon­day 5th Sep­tem­ber 2022

Stu­dents return as follows:

Year 7 8.55 am

Year 11 8.55 am

Year 12 10.15 am

Year 8 11.45 am

Year 9 11.45 am

Year 10 11.45 am

Year 13 11.45 am

Tues­day 6th Sep­tem­ber onwards: Tim­ings for the new school day 2022 – 2023:

Reg­is­tra­tion 08.55 — 09.15

Les­son 1 09.15 — 10.15

Les­son 2 10.15 — 11.15

Break 1 11.15 — 11.45

Les­son 3 11.45 — 12.45

Break 2 12.45 — 13.15

Les­son 4 13.20 — 14.20

Les­son 5 14.20 — 15.20

Y10 Employ­a­bil­ity Day

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Cre­ated: Fri­day, 08 July 2022 14:31

Writ­ten by C Edwards

On Mon­day 11th July, Year 10 will be involved in a num­ber of activ­i­ties through­out the day to improve their employ­a­bil­ity skills. These work­shops will be led by a num­ber of exter­nal busi­nesses. We are really look­ing for­ward to this event.

Recon­nect Free Fam­ily Bus Pass

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Cre­ated: Fri­day, 24 June 2022 11:06

Writ­ten by Vic­to­ria Har­rop