Weekly Newsletters

A good number of Year 7 students enjoyed an educational trip to Burghley House as part of their art lessons.

We also welcomed a large number of year 6 students from local primaries schools to taste life at our school. On Wednesday evening, I was please to speak to and receive feedback from a number of parents as part of our Parents’ Forum.  I do urge you to attend the next meeting which will be a surgery where you will be able to feedback to us anything that you feel we need to know.  The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 30 November, starting at 6pm, in the Conference Room.

Throughout the week, Year 6 and 7 students have been enjoying the ‘Pop Up Science’ exhibition.  The photos below show how much the students have been engaged in learning about a wide range of scientific topics.  I wish to thank Mrs Young, Teacher of Science, for organising this exhibition.

On Tuesday we welcome prospective parents to our open evening.  We will close at 2.20 pm in the afternoon, so please make sure that any transport arrangements are in hand for the afternoon.

Whilst not necessarily a highlight, more a necessity, we carried out an evacuation drill on Friday last week.  I am pleased to report that the students were very well behaved and acted upon the guidance necessary to ensure a safe and orderly evacuation.

I would like to promote a kind offer from the local Tesco Store, making free fruit available to students before school.  There is a clearly marked stand in the store, with a variety of fruit available for students to have free of charge. I would ask is they remember a fair use policy of 1 item each. Together with Tesco’s we are making the clear stance that no student will be allowed into the store from 8.30 am onwards; they reserve the right to restrict the numbers of students into the store before school. 

Art exhibition

The Art department are holding a KS3 Art and Design exhibition on Monday 3 October in the Art department (Room 1L37) between 5-6pm.

I am inviting parents of pupils from last Year’s 7, 8 and 9 cohort to view the work. I would also like to extend the invitation to all of you. It would be lovely to see some familiar faces to support the students’ achievements in this subject from last year.

Finally, I hope that all students, particularly Year 7 students, have now settled in and are up to speed with the school’s expectations.  I have been impressed how our new staff have settled into life at Ken Stimpson Community School and are forging excellent relationships with our students. Each week we will aim to share with you a small profile of up to two new members of staff so you can get to know them as well. You may be interested to read a little more about them below.   

Best wishes

Bryan Erwin
Acting Principal

The new Year 7’s will now have received their SAM Learning log ins and these will be written or stuck into their planners. 

Reminder to all parents that SAM Learning can be accessed using their website www.samlearning.com and to log in use the following information:

Centre ID: PE4KS

Login and Password: Your child’s date of birth followed by their initials (eg. 300903AB)

As a school, Ken Stimpson Community School’s usage for the last academic year was 7909 hours. This shows that our students are committed to their learning and work hard on their studies.

Mr Boothman
Teacher of Computing

The task for the morning was to work in groups of three and using scrap paper, masking tape, bolts and rings, design and build cranes to a specified length. Each crane would be tested for strength by attaching a bucket and adding whole cans and half cans of baked beans until the crane buckled. It was a challenge which all our students rose to, coming up with some strong and not so strong designs.  Congratulations to the winning team:  Devin Hindhaugh, Deimantas Steponkus and Tyreece Mason their team managed to take six full cans of beans before buckling. Maria clearly explained the differences in the designs and why some were able to take a heavier load.

We then travelled to the Maths Campus where each student was given a lunch voucher and free rein on the delicious food available. It was certainly good maths practise because they were all determined to spend as much of the allowance as possible with one student managing to work out which items he could purchase using the exact full amount.

Feeling satisfied the afternoon was spent using maths skills to work out a series of maths problems based on a very engaging presentation by James Munro, a former PhD student now working within the Applied Mathematics Department and Theoretical Physics Department. 

Finally a chance to ask the two student assistants questions about university life, clubs and the thousands of courses available every year.

 

Mrs Patman
Pupil Premium Administrator

They have been using our school as a pop-up science hub and have been visited by Year 5 and 6 from our local primary schools, as well as our own Year 7 and  8 students. Their enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff brought a wide range of experiments and displays for hands-on learning, which was enjoyed by students and staff alike. Their theme was 'The Cosmos' which links in well to our KS3 curriculum. This has been a fantastic opportunity to enrich science learning and enthuse our pupils, which we hope to repeat in the coming years with new and exciting themes.

Mrs Young
Teacher of Science

During the day students attended an Art workshop and made some Dragon Fly sculptures out of wire. We also visited the sculpture garden and gardens of surprise where a number of students got a little wet with the surprise water features! This wasn’t as bad as we were very blessed with the fabulous weather.

Mr Housley
Teacher of Art