Par­ent home: Lat­est news

Septem­ber 2021

Dear Parents/​Carers

I hope you had a rest­ful and enjoy­able sum­mer break and are look­ing for­ward as much as we are to the new year ahead. We hope that you and your fam­i­lies are well. Well done to all of our stu­dents who have started the new aca­d­e­mic year really pos­i­tively. We are so pleased to be back to some degree of nor­mal­ity and we are excited to get crack­ing with them and see how well they can do!

More than ever, stu­dents have to show a good work ethic, resilience and deter­mi­na­tion, as well as receive excel­lent teach­ing, in order to do well in their end of year 11 and year 13 exam­i­na­tions. Amid the con­stant flux and chal­lenge of the last 18 months, stu­dents have shown great tenac­ity and the GCSE and IBCP results were tes­ta­ment to their efforts — we are very proud of them all and wish them lots of luck with the next steps in their jour­neys, wher­ever that may be. We are delighted that the major­ity of our Y11s choose to stay on to study the IBCP in our 6th form; our sixth form has grown sig­nif­i­cantly over the last few years and this year we have approx­i­mately 140 stu­dents tak­ing the IBCP now.

I know many of you saw our Y11 and Y13 results news on our school web­site and thank you to so many who sent in such pos­i­tive com­ments and let­ters about our bril­liant Year 11 and Year 13 stu­dents and our com­mit­ted staff. Of course none of this suc­cess would be pos­si­ble with­out the ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment of our staff team who do absolutely every­thing they can to help our stu­dents suc­ceed. If our stu­dents work hard they will have every oppor­tu­nity in the future to find the suc­cess and ful­fil­ment they absolutely deserve. We know that with your sup­port and back­ing our stu­dents can achieve great things and this makes King Ethel­bert a very excit­ing place to be. It is also sig­nif­i­cant and impor­tant for you to note that at a time of a nation­ally pub­li­cised short­age of teach­ers, King Ethel­bert con­sis­tently receives a wide field of excel­lent appli­ca­tions from teach­ers with the appro­pri­ate aca­d­e­mic qual­i­fi­ca­tions needed for each sub­ject spe­cial­ism when­ever we adver­tise a teach­ing post. King Ethel­bert is a good place to work as well as a happy place to be for everyone.

To all new parents/​carers at King Ethel­bert I offer a warm wel­come to you and your child as you join the King Ethel­bert com­mu­nity. There is absolutely no doubt that if parents/​carers work together with the school we will, as an extended team, pro­vide the best oppor­tu­ni­ties for all our young peo­ple. We all have the same ulti­mate goal which is to pro­vide our young peo­ple with oppor­tu­nity for suc­cess in a pos­i­tive, happy and car­ing environment.

You will find enclosed with this let­ter our annual cal­en­dar for parents/​carers which is cor­rect at the time of print­ing. Addi­tional activ­i­ties or any key changes to this cal­en­dar will be sent to you as soon as they are known so that you can keep track of every­thing that is going on. 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. It is impor­tant that we are able to keep in con­tact with you so please make sure we have your cor­rect email address and mobile phone num­bers because we do text parents/​carers if there are impor­tant mes­sages we need to get out to you quickly. You may have seen on our web­site the par­ent app, My Ed, which we use reg­u­larly to send you impor­tant infor­ma­tion includ­ing progress reports for your child. Please do have a look at www​.myed​schoolapp​.com for fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the app and how to down­load it if you haven’t already. This will enable us to com­mu­ni­cate with you, via email and text, any infor­ma­tion we need to send home.

2/​…

We want you to join in our cel­e­bra­tions and acknowl­edge the suc­cesses of all our young peo­ple. We are also aware, how­ever, that you may have wor­ries and con­cerns at any point in the year so do please con­tact the school if you have any queries and do feel able to come and talk to us so that we can work together for the ben­e­fit of your child. Your child’s form tutor is always the best first port of call.

One thing that has been proven over and over again is that in order for your child to do well at school it is imper­a­tive that he or she has excel­lent atten­dance. I can­not stress enough the impor­tance of mak­ing sure your child is in school every day if at all pos­si­ble and any ill­ness is reported to us quickly so that we can sup­port you and your child to ensure work is not missed. Progress is directly linked to the amount of time spent in school and we all want our chil­dren to do as well as they are able. Should your child feel unwell dur­ing the school day, please remind them that they should go to Pupil Ser­vices to see our qual­i­fied first aider, Mrs Keam, and not phone home them­selves in the first instance. This allows us to work with your child and your­selves to assess and triage appro­pri­ately and con­tact you if necessary.

Forth­com­ing Events

YEAR 6 OPEN EVENTS : Tues­day 21st Sep­tem­ber: 6.00 pm – 8.00 pm

Wednes­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber: 9.30 am and 4.00 pm – 6.00 pm

Parents/​carers will recall the impor­tance of school open events where year 6 parents/​carers have the oppor­tu­nity to visit local sec­ondary schools to assist in mak­ing their choice of sec­ondary pro­vi­sion for their child. Our events this year are being held as above. On both of these days stu­dents will leave school at

2.20 pm to enable prepa­ra­tions for the open events to be made. We appre­ci­ate the con­tri­bu­tion from many of our cur­rent stu­dents who will be involved in these events. Fur­ther details will be for­warded to par­ents of stu­dents involved in due course.

YEAR 11 RAIS­ING ACHIEVE­MENT EVENING: Wednes­day 6th Octo­ber 2021 – fur­ther details to follow

YEAR 11 SUB­JECT EVENING: Tues­day 12th Octo­ber 2021 – fur­ther details to follow

YEAR 13 RAIS­ING ACHIEVE­MENT EVENING: Wednes­day 13th Octo­ber 2021 – fur­ther details to follow

YEAR 10 SUB­JECT EVENING: Tues­day 19th Octo­ber 2021 – fur­ther details to follow

YEAR 11 SIXTH FORM INFOR­MA­TION EVENING: Wednes­day 9th Novem­ber 2021

PRE­SEN­TA­TION AFTER­NOON – WIN­TER GAR­DENS, Mar­gate — Wednes­day 17th Novem­ber 2021 at 2.00 pm

YEAR 7 PROGRESS EVENING – Tues­day 23rd Novem­ber 2021: On Tues­day 23rd Novem­ber between 4.00 – 6.00 pm we will be hold­ing a progress evening for parents/​carers of year 7 to meet with your child’s form tutor and review their first term at school. Fol­low­ing this, your child’s sub­ject teach­ers will be avail­able in their class­rooms for pupils to intro­duce and to share with you the work they have been under­tak­ing. Fur­ther details of this event will be given to year 7 parents/​carers nearer the time, and we look for­ward to wel­com­ing all year 7 parents/​carers on this evening.

YEAR 12/​13 SUB­JECT EVENING: Thurs­day 2nd Decem­ber 2021 – details to fol­low nearer the time.

STAFF TRAIN­ING : 2021 — 22

In line with many other schools nation­ally we will, for some of our staff devel­op­ment time this year, be run­ning morn­ing train­ing ses­sions for staff between 8.00 – 10.15 am – ‘Early Ris­ers’. There are five days through­out the year when these are scheduled:

Wednes­day 29th Sep­tem­ber 2021 8.00 – 10.15 am

Fri­day 12th Novem­ber 2021 8.00 – 10.15 am

Fri­day 14th Jan­u­ary 2022 8.00 – 10.15 am

Thurs­day 17th March 2022 8.00 – 10.15 am

Wednes­day 27th April 2022 8.00 – 10.15 am

On these days pupils are not to come into school before 10.30 am. Stu­dents should report to their les­son for period 2 at 10.35 am where reg­is­tra­tion will be under­taken by their sub­ject teacher. Period 3 will fol­low at 11.35 am and lunch at 12.35 pm. There will be no morn­ing break on these days. The rest of the school day on these occa­sions will run as nor­mal, with school fin­ish­ing at 3.20 pm. Please will you ensure that your child does not arrive pre­ma­turely to school as staff will be involved in pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment work­shops and there will be no staff super­vi­sion until 10.30 am.

3/​…

We will be hav­ing four fur­ther staff train­ing days dur­ing the year and as all staff will be involved in con­tin­ued pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment, the school will be closed to stu­dents. These days are:

• Fri­day 11th Feb­ru­ary 2022

• Wednesday/​Thursday/​Friday 20th, 21st and 22nd July 2022

A reminder that this term school fin­ishes on Fri­day 22nd Octo­ber with the school reopen­ing on Mon­day 1st Novem­ber 2021.

We are look­ing for­ward to this new aca­d­e­mic year which will be a very excit­ing one as new plans and ideas are imple­mented by us all to make sure our stu­dents are given all the oppor­tu­ni­ties they deserve. I know, as ever, that I will have your sup­port in mak­ing 2021/​2022 a happy, pos­i­tive and suc­cess­ful one for every­one involved with King Ethel­bert School. Please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us if you have any queries at all. It is very impor­tant to me that staff and parents/​carers work closely together so that all our young peo­ple are given the best pos­si­ble oppor­tu­ni­ties to find hap­pi­ness and suc­cess. Thank you to all parents/​carers for your con­tin­ued and much appre­ci­ated support.

Yours sin­cerely

Mrs V Willis

Head­teacher