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Message from the Principal
As another busy week goes by I am amazed that we are now into December and only have three weeks to the end of term. This week we hosted the Parent's Surgery; through this I have been able to receive invaluable feedback which will improve what we do. I urge you to attend the next Parent's Forum on 25 January 2017 6-7pm.
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 ![]() ![]() Electronic Reports Trial for Year 13
We are trialling reports via email for our students in Year 13, in an attempt to move to a more efficient and paperless system.
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 The Christmas Hamper Challenge
This December KSCS are collaborating with Sutton Court Sheltered Accommodation Complex based just next door to the school site this Christmas in a fantastic opportunity to help the elderly community in Werrington.
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 Soke Basketball
On Thursday we welcomed 8 primary schools from across the Soke cluster to this year’s Soke basketball competition.
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 Post 16 Supervisors
Tracy Kohter and Amanda McDonnell our Day Supervisors would like to introduce our Post 16 students who together as a team work to keep our students supported at Lunchtime.
![]() The Post 16 students have now extended their role to supporting the Leadership Team making sure our students safety when leaving the school site at the end of the day.
Exciting new Maths Resource
It was a real pleasure to be able to speak at the Year 11 Parents’ Forum last half term to share with those present a key resource which the Maths department have bought into to allow our students to improve in their Mathematics – HegartyMaths.
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
Each child will be told by their teacher how to log in to the site but in short:
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 Attendance
"When life gets you down, do you wanna know what you've gotta do?...Just Keep Swimming" Dory - Finding Nemo
Well done to Aspire who hold onto the lead this week, with Excellence very close behind. It's also great to see houses who have increased their attendance this week. Let's keep on going! Sharon Blackledge ![]() What's happening at KSCS?
Events and visits in the school over the next fortnight:
Monday 05/12/2016
Year 11 PPE
Tuesday 06/12/2016
Year 11 subject evening 4-7pm
Wednesday 07/12/2016
Tutor Consultation 3:30 - 5pm (No Early Closure)
Reports Distributed
Thursday 08/12/2016
Year 2 Multi-skills Festival Session 2 - am
Wednesday 14/12/2016
Academic Mentoring (Unit 2)
Friday 16/12/2016
Christmas Hamper Challenge
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