NewsleƩer Issue 22
November 9th 2012
INSPIRING LEARNING; ACHIEVING EXCELLENCE
IMPORTANT DATES FOR YOUR DIARY: Deadline for Sixth Form applications Friday, 30th November 2012 Nov 13th: Year 12 production Educating Rita Nov 14th: Year 7 Parents’ Evening with tutors Nov 13-16th: Geography field trip to Slapton, Devon Nov 15th: Merton Schools’ Celebration Event, to be held at RPHS Nov 15th: Years 5 and 6 Boys’ football Nov 15th: Wimbledon Music Festival Nov 16th: Years 8 and 9 Boys’ basketball
I am delighted to be the new Director of Raynes Park Sixth Form, having taken up the post in September 2012. Although I have held various Senior Leadership roles during my time at Raynes Park High School, I am really looking forward to building on the continued success of the sixth form in my new role. The A Level and AS Level results in the summer were excellent with 78% of our students achieving A*-C grades at A Level or BTEC equivalent, and an overall pass rate of 99%. Raynes Park Sixth Form has become the popular first choice for continuing education for our Year 11 students. We now have over 200 students studying a variety of courses including traditional A Levels through to Level 2 BTEC Vocational courses in subjects such as Information Technology and Business Studies. We also offer students the opportunity to retake GCSE Maths and English. Our curriculum offer is continually improving as we respond to students requests for new subjects to be offered. This year we have introduced A Levels in Business Studies, Economics and a Level 3 OCR Cambridge Nationals course in Health and Social Care, all of which are proving popular and successful with our students. A full list of the courses on offer, along with an application form, can be downloaded from the school’s website in our Sixth Form Course Booklet. Yesterday we held a very successful Open Evening which was well attended by current RPHS Year 11 students as well as external applicants. Completed application forms must be returned to school by Friday 30th of November 2012. We provide excellent support to ensure all our students achieve their best academically, but also develop into well rounded adults ready to play an active role in society as well as having the skills and character to respond to its ever changing demands. That said, we are not just concerned with end results, we also provide excellent resources, teaching and guidance in order to actively support students in the next stage of their educational journey- be it into Higher Education, Further Education, Apprenticeships or work. Many of our students from last year are now studying at their first choice Universities including Exeter, The London School of Fashion, Portsmouth, Southampton and Leeds to name a few - and are loving it!
@officialRPHS
I look forward to keeping you updated on the progress of the Sixth Form through the coming year and also would like to take this opportunity to say good luck to those students sitting modular exams in January as part of their A and AS levels. Ms Lawner, Director of Sixth Form
Attendance I would like to thank parents and carers for all that they are doing to support attendance and punctuality, however there is clear room for improvement for many students. Please help us to avoid unnecessary stress being caused to families as a result of fines and court action due to unauthorised absence.
Send your child to school whenever possible. Do not worry about sending your child in with a cold which may be infectious - in our close knit small community we’ll all catch it sooner or later anyway!
Telephone, text or email the attendance officer when your child is absent and follow up with a slip from the planner / note / letter when they return. Please ensure that your child delivers this to their tutor!
If your child has had more than three days off sick in the same school year please provide a medical appointment card / prescription / receipt for relevant medicines / doctor’s letter so that we can authorise the absence
If your child’s attendance drops below 90% for ANY reason please call your child’s learning mentor to discuss. We want to help. A child with attendance of 90% is missing an average of ½ day schooling EVERY WEEK. Studies show that these children cannot compete with the achievements of students who are in school every day. Thank you for your continued support and co-operation. Mr Castle, Deputy Headteacher
Useful Contact Information:
Ms K Dillon Learning Mentor Year 7
Ms J Lander Learning Mentor Gibbs House
Ms C Wilson-David Learning Mentor Halliwells House
[email protected] Tel: 020 8946 4112 Ext. 1109
[email protected] Tel: 020 8946 4112 Ext. 1110
[email protected] Tel: 020 8946 4112 Ext. 1113
Ms F Turko Learning Mentor Miltons House
Mr A Melham Learning Mentor Newsoms House
Ms A Thomas Attendance Officer
[email protected] Tel: 020 8946 4112 Ext. 1112
[email protected] Tel: 020 8946 4112 Ext. 1111
[email protected] Tel: 020 8879 4834
Miltons Z Respect and care; Contribute and share It has been an exciting start to the new academic year; Raynes Park High School looking fresh and smart and really moving forward. The emphasis on the pastoral system is something which I strongly support and am really proud to be the Head of House for Miltons Z. As a House, the students have responded wonderfully in participating and supporting each other. It was lovely to see the House Captains supporting the year 7 students at Superteams which of course we won “Whoopee”, superb effort by the younger members of the House. House Plays are in full swing at the moment, and Miltons students have a really imaginative idea, the older students taking on board organising, writing and directing, developing as both leaders and ambassadors for the House and the school. Well done year 11s. Attendance is rising and punctuality improving. There is no doubt that this will help achievement. Good luck to the students in 11MZ who are taking their GCSE exams at the moment. As someone who has been at this school for a long time (30 years) I was anxious about the changes. I have to admit it is a joy to see that the students are responding so positively and in turn pulling me into a new era. Well done to all in Miltons Z. Ms Jager, Head of House Miltons Z
Head Boy and Head Girl Mikki Collins
We are extremely proud to have been voted in by the students and staff as Head Girl and Head Boy of Raynes Park High School. Voting followed a presentation by each candidate to members of staff and sixth form peers. This is an opportunity which we are honoured to have and will seek to inspire students across the whole school into achieving their ambitions and highest potential. We are currently involved with Children in Need and are really enjoying working with everyone. Mikki Collins, Head Girl Alpha Barrie, Head Boy
Alpha Barrie
Trip to WW1 Battlefields in Belgium Over the first weekend of the half term holiday a group of thirty four students from Years 9 and 10 were in Belgium to visit some of the key sites of the World War One Battlefields. Although the weekend was primarily educational, the students spent an enjoyable first day at Bellewaerde theme park for a bit of rest and relaxation before the more serious, hard-hitting itinerary began. Bellewaerde is similar to Chessington World of Adventures, so there were a variety of animals to see (elephants, lions, tigers and giraffes included) as well as the rides to enjoy. The second day began with a visit to Tyne Cot cemetery, the largest British & Commonwealth memorial cemetery in the world, on the site of the 1917 Battle of Passchendaele. The students were completely in awe of the rows and rows of headstones marking the graves of some of the soldiers from the UK and other Commonwealth countries who died in the battle; a battle which claimed almost three quarter of a million lives, some buried where they actually fell. The visit was even more poignant in that we were able to locate the name of the great-grandfather of one of our group, Max Felloni from 9MX. Max’s great-grandfather’s name was on the large memorial wall which commemorates the soldiers for whom there is no marked grave because their bodies were never recovered. We followed this with a visit to Talbot House (a residence in Poperinge, away from the front line where soldiers were able to experience some kind of normality whilst on leave from the horrors of battle) and the prison cells of those soldiers who were shot at dawn by their own side for desertion, although today it is clear that they were suffering from shell shock or post-traumatic stress. A visit to the Passchendaele museum in Zonnebeke gave the students an opportunity to see a recreation of life in the underground world of the trenches before then experiencing the real thing in the preserved trenches of Sanctuary Wood on Hill 62. They trudged through the mud and water and thereby gained some idea of the actual conditions the soldiers were faced with. The day finished in Ypres with a visit to the Menin Gate, the vast stone arch that is a memorial to the missing and which contains some 55,000 names of dead soldiers whose bodies were never found. We attended the moving “Last Post” ceremony which has been held there at eight o’clock every evening since the end of the Great War, with the exception of the time under the German occupation in World War Two. The final day began with a trip to the German cemetery at Langemarck: an almost spiritual place in atmosphere, very different in design to the Commonwealth cemeteries but just as moving and containing the bodies of thousands of German soldiers (including 25,000 in one mass grave), many of whom were school leavers. We then returned to Ypres to visit to the splendid “In Flanders Field” museum with its wealth of information and interactive displays before finishing the trip with a little retail therapy in the Cité Europe shopping centre next to the Channel Tunnel in Calais. None of the group failed to be moved by the sites and experiences of the trip. In the words of one, “I had a fantastic time, even though I couldn’t help feeling sad when thinking of the waste of young lives and the horrors endured by all”. Mrs Jones, Head of Modern Foreign Languages
Miltons X Nothing great is achieved without enthusiasm Welcome back everyone. This is the second half of a particularly long term however students have made an exceptional start. Particular merit must go to all of those who have above 95% attendance and a superb achievement record; of which there are many. I would like to thank all staff, students and parents for being so welcoming after I moved to Raynes Park at the start of this academic year. It is great to work with students who want to achieve and are exciting to have in the classroom, and to have supportive parents on the end of the phone. At the end of last half term Miltons laid down an important marker in the Raynes Park sporting calendar; by taking the first win of the year and the Superteams trophy. Huge congratulations to all of our strong and committed year 7 students who took park in Hockey, Football, Benchball, Cooking as well as tug of war. Not to mention the infamous year 7 Hakka which Mr Wheatley judged as being Outstanding. Year 11 students in Miltons X head into the thick of their examinations this week, kicking off with Maths and English. This is an important time for these students and I would encourage all of them to revise hard, turn up early and read every question twice in order to succeed. Like all of our students, I want Miltons X Year 11s to understand that school is about opportunity. The more opportunity you take whilst here, the more opportunity you have when you leave. Those who take advantage of what is on offer here, who turn up every day, who work hard during lessons, will prosper in years to come. Mr McInerney, Head of House Miltons X
Wimbledon Music Festival On 25th October the music department was delighted to welcome 50 students and their music teachers from two other Merton high schools. The students from Ursuline High School and Ricards Lodge High School visited Raynes Park High School to rehearse with our students for the forthcoming Wimbledon Music Festival, due to take place on 22nd November at St Paul’s Church and in April at the Royal Albert Hall. The performance, entitled ’The Journey’ is an amalgamation of Merton secondary and primary school students and will be accompanied by a full orchestra. Ms Boyd-Leslie, Head of Music
Equality Act 2010 In our continued endeavours to ensure that all students’, parents’ and carers’ needs are met and catered for to the highest degree, we would appreciate your involvement in our annual research and information collation. This data focuses on the extent to which Raynes Park High School is effectively meeting and supporting the needs of those within the RPHS community with disabilities. The Equality Act (2010) defines disability as follows: a person has a disability if:
they have a physical or mental impairment
the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to perform normal day-to-day activities
For the purposes of the Act, these words have the following meanings:
substantial means more than minor or trivial
long-term means that the effect of the impairment has lasted or is likely to last for at least twelve months (there are special rules covering recurring or fluctuating conditions)
'normal day-to-day activities' include everyday things like eating, washing, walking and going shopping
This definition covers a much larger group than most people think and with children may represent 7% of those that attend school. In order to clarify this definition, the following explanation of the terms used might be helpful: 'Physical impairment' includes sensory impairment 'Mental impairment' includes learning difficulties and an impairment resulting from, or consisting of, a mental illness e.g. OCD, ASD, ADHD, ODD or Dyspraxia (not just low IQ). 'Substantial' means more than trivial or minor 'Long term' is defined as 12 months or more Examples of disabilities include serious / life threatening allergies, genetic conditions such as sickle cell, cancer, HIV, hearing or sight impairment, asthma, diabetes and others Raynes Park High School needs to identify students and their families for whom this may be relevant and engage with those that are willing in the information gathering processes to ensure that all relevant students, parents, carers and staff are supported as fully as possible. We would very much appreciate if you will complete the on line survey to enable us to identify and address any concerns you may have with respect to this area. Please note there is no obligation to include your name and contact details. You can complete the survey by linking to:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KLLZCM2 The survey will take just a few minutes for you to complete and will close on Monday, 26th November at 9am. Thank you for your assistance. Mr Batchelor, Assistant Headteacher
Merton Celebration Event We are delighted Raynes Park High School has been chosen to host a celebration evening on behalf of the London Borough of Merton. The evening is taking place to celebrate the achievements of Merton secondary school students. This is a prestigious event in the borough, and it is a wonderful opportunity for the school. A small number of students have been specially selected to act as Student Ambassadors for the evening. The Ambassadors will be hosts and guides during the event; welcoming guests, serving light refreshments and ensuring our guests know where to go. Ms Buckley, School Business Manager
Biology Field Trip On the 22nd of October, a group of Sixth Form students ventured on an A Level Biology field trip to Epping Forest Field Centre. The six students, Aleesia Edwinselan, Megan Horsford, Beverley Kwaning, Amina Sheikhosman, Surekka Sivabalarajah and Natalia Wee were all thrilled to be given the chance to experience the study of biology in a natural environment. They learned a number of sampling techniques, including pond dipping and transects, and were also given a crash course in the scientific method prior to planning their own investigations as part of their A2 coursework. These investigations ranged from measuring the abundance of sorrel in both trampled and untrampled soil, to the factors
that affect the height of moss as it grows up our native trees. The students were certainly delighted get ‘down and dirty’ in the undergrowth as they meticulously gathered the data they needed for their investigations! Mr Littlewood, Science Teacher
Governing Body Strategic Visits A programme of strategic visits for governors has been arranged during the year. The visits will focus on particular aspects of the school. In addition to the visits programme, governors are linked to specific departments. Prior to the half term break a group of governors visited the school and focused on behaviour & support as well as teaching & learning. We heard about changes to pastoral care and the House system and our discussions included the role of Advanced Skills Teachers. The group of governors spoke with staff and students, visited lessons and received presentations from Mr Castle Deputy Headteacher, Mr Derrington Advanced Skills Teacher and Mrs Adli Assistant Headteacher. Governors found the visit a valuable way of experiencing the school at work and look forward to the next visit later on this month. Ms Tulloch, Chair of Governors
PE Fixtures Holly Hall, Andrea Morrissey, Elisha Arjoon, Rebecca Halford, Adriana Linton, Stephanie Mokolo, Sasha Robinson Packham and Ayana Prentice took part in a Year 7 netball fixture at Ricards Lodge High School on Wednesday 7th November. This was their first set of matches representing Raynes Park in which they performed extremely well coming away with one win and one loss. The team beat Ricards 1-0, who were in fact a year 8 team and lost 2-0 to Harris Academy. The girls showed fantastic team work and really enjoyed the experience. I am very proud of their performance and teamwork displayed. Ms Bartle, PE Teacher Raynes Park High took part in the Year 10/11 Merton Table tennis finals at St Marks Academy on the 25th October. It was a fiercely competitive competition with each school having some fantastic individual talent on show. The end result came down to count back with both Raynes Park High School and St Marks Academy winning the same amount of matches. Raynes Park ran out as the overall winners and are looking forward to representing Merton in the Surreys at Whitgift school on the 30th November. Well done and good luck with the next round to Harry
Mar n, Cameron Goode, Ali Tarique and George Lee. Mr Hayes, Head of PE
www.raynespark.merton.sch.uk
