2nd December 2016

In the meantime, the Leadership Team and I are always open to receiving suggestions which may improve your son/daughter’s education. In the New Year, I hope to offer an open subject focused morning or afternoon to existing parents. Thereby you will be able see the school, and a subject area, in operation to learn more about how your son/daughter is taught.  More details to follow early next term…

Christmas Carol Concert Friday 2 December – “A great night of entertainment for less than a cup of coffee at Costa.”

On Friday evening the Performing Arts Faculty and Choir will be conducting the annual Christmas Concert Under the title of “We Wish You A Kenny Christmas”. The event is used for students to undertake performances in front of an audience. There will be students in all year groups from Years 7-13 performing solos and duets as well as groups performances from rock bands, acapella and the school choir. There will also be a mix of pop songs alongside some of your Christmas favourites.

This starts at 7pm in the Assembly Hall with a £3 charge per adult, £1 per child to attend. Tickets are available on the evening; I do urge you to attend this fantastic festive show piece and get into the Christmas spirit early!

Many thanks to the Performing Arts Faculty for organising this event.

End of term reports

Looking ahead, on Friday 7 December Year 7-13 will be receiving their end of term report.  It will go home by hand. Please look out for this just in case they forgot to give it to you, or it gets lost in the bottom of their bag!  We are trialling with Year 12+13 the distribution of reports via email and if this is successful then it will be rolled out to all years next term where an valid email address is stored on our school management address for those with parental responsibility.

Free learning resources

Finally I wish to recommend to you a number of resources that the school has invested heavily in, which are free to your son/daughter.

1. The first is obtaining a free copy of Office 365 under the Microsoft student licence agreement. Click here

2. The second is accessing the school’s remote access provision.  This is an excellent method by which any student can access almost everything that they use inside school, including their saved area, and the vast majority of software. Click here

3. We have spent £1,000 in a new online Maths tutorial software so that eventually every student in the school can access Heggarty Maths for free.  It is currently being rolled out to Years 9-11.

The details of the above are listed below.  Now is a good time to take a look at these resources and check if you are using them at home to support learning.

Best wishes

Bryan Erwin
Acting Principal

Reports will be emailed out on Wednesday 7 December, in line with the other reports issued across the rest of school.

As this is a trial process, any and all feedback is welcome. Please email me with any comments you may have: p.swift@kscs.org.uk

Thank you.

Mr Swift
Extended Leadership Team

Each tutor group has been given a plain cardboard box which they are to decorate and fill so it miraculously turns into a beautiful Hamper that can be given to an elderly lady or gentleman at the complex.

We are asking the students to use their imagination and creativity to create an exciting exterior to the box, along with showing compassion and generosity towards the recipient by providing gifts inside the box by Tuesday 13 December.

We would appreciate parental support with this competition by helping your son/daughter with any materials and presents that they may need.  

I will make sure that pictures of the Hampers will be displayed on our social media channels and in the following newsletter for you to view when the competition is at its end. Your support and enthusiasm are appreciated.

Mrs Bamber
Charity and Events Leader

Each school had 8 members within their squad from Year’s 5 and 6. The students started the morning by taking part in some basketball related activities set up and ran by the post 16 sports leaders. Once this had finished they played 3 games against other schools.

The 8 teams were initially put into 2 groups of 4 where they played against each team within the group. The top two teams in each group progressed to the semi-finals. The semi-finals saw William Law take on Welbourne and Duke of Bedford take on Wittering. After two close semi-finals William Law progressed to take on Duke of Bedford in the final which left Welbourne and Wittering to fight out for third  and fourth place respectively.

In the third place play off Welbourne took the victory to finish in third  place. In the Final things were very close with near misses from both teams but Duke of Bedford managed to take it at the end by a score line of 2-0 to be this year’s winners. I would like to thank the Sports Leaders that assisted me with running the competition. Finally, I would also like to say thank you to the students that took part for all their hard work and effort they put in along with the primary staff for supporting this event.

Thank you

Mr Gray
Second in Faculty for Physical Education and SSCO

HegartyMaths is an excellent online website (www.hegartymaths.com) created by UK Teacher of the Year 2014 and Global Teacher Prize Top 10 Finalist, Colin Hegarty. Colin is a dedicated Maths teacher and received these awards for his outstanding contribution to Mathematics education and improving students’ performance.

Using HegartyMaths we aim to provide our students with a first rate online learning resource that will complement the fantastic classroom lessons they receive in school. We have initially rolled out HegartyMaths to students in Years 10 and 11 to give them extra support with their GCSEs with a view to opening it out to other students later in the year.

We understand students at home, can at times, struggle to remember concepts they have learnt in class and parents may find it difficult to help them due to the different methods used when they were in school. HegartyMaths is therefore a great tool to support with this with over 800 videos, followed by small quiz assessments to check understanding and track progress. Each child will have access to top quality learning materials to enhance their home learning and prepare them for the demands of the new GCSE whilst doing away with the notion of feeling either stuck or not suitably challenged!

Students can use HegartyMaths in a variety of ways and can watch video tutorials on topics they have learnt in school, as well as getting ahead of the game by looking at upcoming topics – essential for those students who really want to make the biggest difference to their grades. Following the completion of quizzes (which can be completed multiple times to ensure full understanding), students will receive instant scores to let them know how they are doing. They can then leave comments to teachers who can provide vital feedback to help students move forward on the areas they are struggling on.

We encourage our students to

1. Watch all of the video of a topic and take down detailed notes (videos are 10 minutes long with teachers modelling solutions).
2. Complete the quiz showing full workings (exercise books will be provided to students in Years 10 & 11).
3. Ensure they get at least 90% of a topic correct - if not they haven’t understood a topic well enough and it may well be the foundations of a topic they come across later on. Topics and videos can be taken as often as necessary until the student has grasped the understanding of a concept fully.

Each child will be told by their teacher how to log in to the site but in short:

1. Go to www.hegartymaths.com
2. Click on Existing users, Student login (located at the top of the website).
3. Type in the school name.
4. Write in their first name, last name and date of birth.
5. Choose their own password which they will need to remember.

I fully believe Mathematics is just like any other key skill in life and can be improved upon through hard work and practice. HegartyMaths is a fantastic platform to allow our students to do this on and if used correctly will improve the performance of each and every student’s Mathematics in Ken Stimpson Community School.

We in the Maths department look forward to working with you to support our students learning.

Mr Hussain
Assistant Principal & Head of Mathematics