Kesteven & Sleaford High School Parent Portal

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Term 5 - 3 May 2024

Dear Parent/Carer

I hope the sunshine has made a difference in your world this week! We always know when the summer examination season is upon us, when the evenings are light and there's real warmth in the sun!

My overriding sense this week is one of significant pride in our older students. The Art, Drama and MFL departments in particular have been so impressed with their preparation, attitudes and work.

We know that this is almost the most nerve-wracking time for students as exams start and the next few weeks are dominated by assessments. As part of our schedule of support for students that goes beyond the subject classroom, assemblies next week will focus on advice for students on their health and wellbeing during that focused time, with practical advice on sleep hygiene, healthy eating and hydration and grounding techniques. Year 13 have been great helping prepare advice that will resonate with younger years; with tips for Year 12 on what has worked for them throughout their A level studies and what they may have wished they'd done differently. For Key stage 4, our sixth form students have some great advice to offer on managing the lure of the mobile phone and all its apps during personal revision. More about phone use later in this newsletter...

If you have a child in the younger years an age appropriate version of how to best approach revision or preparations for assessments will be on offer. Years 7 and 8 have assessments in the weeks beginning 13 and 20 May in classrooms and we are very mindful of making that process a productive, confidence-building one.

Have a lovely bank holiday weekend.

Mrs J Smith
Headteacher

Useful Dates

GCSE Exam period starts

All Day

May

Bank Holiday

All Day

May

A Level Photography & Fine Art Exam

All Day

From 07 May until 09 May

May

Year 9 France & Belgium trip Information Evening

5:00pm – 6:00pm

May

Year 8 HPV Vaccinations

9:00am – 12:30pm

May

Local Governing Tier meeting

6:00pm – 8:00pm

May

Year 12 Devised Performance Drama Exam

All Day

May

Girls Bronze DofE Assessed Expedition

All Day

From 11 May until 12 May

May

Year 13 A Level Examinations start today

All Day

May

W/C Year 9 Assessment results to Parents

All Day

May

Year 7 Assessment Week

All Day

From 13 May until 17 May

May

Year 10 Virtual Parents Evening

4:00pm – 7:00pm

May

STEM Day - Year 8

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On Thursday 2 May 2024 the whole of Year 8 were given the exciting opportunity to take part in a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) day. Instead of attending their usual lessons, students participated in a wide range of workshops delivered by STEM Ambassadors from external organisations. Visitors included the LEBC (Leicestershire Education Business Company), Newcastle University, Sea Cadets, and I4IS (Initiative for Interstellar Studies).

Students took part in workshops such as Skateboards to starships, Chemistry in your shopping basket, Automotive engineering, Buoyancy, Strawberry DNA, Girls in STEM, and many more.

In the Buoyancy workshop, delivered by the Sea Cadet, students were given just a single sheet of aluminium foil to build a boat capable of holding as many marbles as possible without sinking. The winning team for the day successfully held over 100 marbles before sinking.

During the automotive engineering workshop, students learnt about career routes into engineering before being tasked to build motorised Lego technic cars. Teams managed to build some extremely fast cars and were able to apply gear principles very effectively. The fastest car managed to travel 2 metres in just 0.54 seconds!

Newtons laws of motion, Al Khawrizmi's algebra, Tsiolkovsky's Ideal Rocket equation, Kepler's laws, and travelling between the planets were just some of the topics covered during the skateboards to starships workshop, culminating in students racing balloon rocket cars to test out their calculations.

Newcastle University STEM ambassadors delivered multiple workshops throughout the day, giving the students a real variety of experiences. Workshops included Chemistry in your shopping basket, Strawberry DNA, Girls in STEM, Maths Murder Mystery, and Street Scientist. One of the favourite workshops had to be ‘Saved by the Gel’, where students learnt about pharmaceuticals and how gels are used as a base for many medicines, even getting to make their own gels.

Mr S Norris

STEM Coordinator

Mobile Phone Use in School

All parents are able to read our mobile phone and devices policy here. It is a Trust wide policy that recognises parents wish for their children to feel safe travelling to and from school, but also aims to protect students from the intrusive nature of being connected to the outside world, all day every day.

There is a growing amount of research around the impact of smartphones on young people and yet practically all our students own a powerful computer which can bring all sorts of benefits as well as potential threats.

We are seeing a small increase in parents sharing with us that they have supplied their child with a basic calls and text only phone; likewise we are seeing an increase in parents contacting their children during the course of the school day when students are not permitted to be using their phones.

In school this term we are listening to parents and holding staff discussions about how we live our agreed policy in practice. We are particularly keen to ensure that our younger students, who are (hopefully) very recent owners of smartphones, are supported to manage their use of a phone in line with our expectations and that as staff our messages are clear and easy to follow. We would love therefore to hear from you whatever views you hold. Please share your views via our enquiries email if you would like to, making it clear which year group(s) your child(ren) are currently in. Your comments will be read by Senior staff and we will be back in touch with parents via the newsletter in due course.

Mrs J Smith

Headteacher

Library and Literacy News

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Don't forget ‘Macbeth’ will be playing at the Sleaford Playhouse from Wednesday 8 May until Sunday 12 May. Year 8 will be studying ‘Macbeth’ in English during Terms 5 and 6. To purchase tickets, follow this link Macbeth - Sleaford Playhouse.

Mrs K Cowell

Second in English

Art News - Year 10 Fine Art workshop

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On Friday 26 April Year 10 Fine Art students took part in a drawing workshop with artist William Lindley.

Will has been commissioned by The Hub to work on UK SPF funded projects for the Riverlight Festival and Sleaford Heritage trails. The Fine Art students walked to the site of the Sleaford Castle and spent two hours making drawings of the area using a variety of different materials and techniques. Some students chose to focus on sketching the ruins that are still visible, while others looked at other elements of the site such as the plants and flowers or the surrounding buildings.

Will showed the group some of his own drawings of this and other historical sites in Sleaford such as the Bass Maltings, and explained the processes he uses to transform his sketches into final artwork. For this project he will be producing a piece of artwork to go on the old Post Office in the town, and some of the sketches made by students in their workshop may feature in this artwork or a separate piece at a different site.

It was a great opportunity to work alongside a professional artist and we are looking forward to seeing the work that Will creates for the Riverlight Festival on Saturday 22 June!

Miss E Cartwright

Art and Design Technology Technician

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Car Boot Sale - Saturday 4 May

4th Sleaford High School Guides are holding a car boot sale tomorrow

6 Guides from KSHS have been given the amazing opportunity to travel to Switzerland in August to visit Our Chalet, one of five Girlguiding World Centers.

To be able to go on this trip each girl needs to raise £1,200.

Please come along, grab a bargain and help these girls with their fundraising.

Mrs R Dye Leader 4th Sleaford High School Guides and Sleaford Rangers

Growth Mindset

Staff are invited to nominate students who have demonstrated a Growth Mindset in the past few weeks. This might have been in lessons, in clubs, in tutor time or simply around school. Please note we already award bi-annual subject badges and merits for good academic work, effort and improvement. These Growth Mindset nominations recognise those who show resilience (academic or otherwise); who aren’t afraid to get things wrong and learn from it; those who have a go, take themselves out of their comfort zone or show that even if a task is tough, they will persevere.

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