Weekly Newsletters

I believe sometimes it is better to say fewer words and allow the infographic below to remind us all of some of the special achievements over the calendar year.
 

We return on Monday 6 January as normal.  Please heed the messages about being in full uniform, on time and most of all being ready to learn and achieve, so that good habits pay off.

I wish you all a peaceful and restful break and a prosperous New Year.
 

Bryan Erwin
Principal

 A winner for each year has been drawn randomly from the 1000's of tickets students have earned.

Congratulations to the following winners in Autumn term 2, they will receive their prize early next term:

• Y11 Ryan Stacey
• Y10 Sophie Lethbridge
• Y9 Owen Hill
• Y8 Liberti Munday
• Y7 Wojciech Staruk

The reward raffle starts anew this 1/2 term so keep working hard and you may well be the next winner.
 

Mr A Mantell
Head of Faculty: Science

It was a pleasure to see our young people interact so confidently with the residents and create some fantastic Christmas decorations with them. Students also donated two Christmas hampers to the raffle table, fundraising for a new sensory room for the home. Well done Year 8!

Mr P Swift
Assistant Principal

Over the past 2 months the students have been involved in writing a persuasive short essay on a subject of their choice and they were given the opportunity to turn these into short speeches which they performed at the Showcase event. They were also presented with a Project Lego Enterprise challenge to take part in on the day, where they had to create a robot that would be useful for a University student. I am pleased to report that our team, and their robot Bob, won the challenge against a number of Peterborough schools! Well done team!

Miss S Kingston
Post 16 Student Support

With some of the funds raised, we have purchased a set of books including Positively Teenage and Body Brilliant. These are available to borrow from 3L09. A number of students have already borrowed some and found them to be very helpful.
Several Post 16 students have been helping teach Year 7 PSHE classes for the Peer Education Project. They have worked through a series of activities around well-being and positive mental health and at the end of the five lessons were able to take their workbooks home. Students really enjoyed being taught by Post 16 and in turn, our Post 16 students loved being involved and as a result, have developed improved self confidence and communication skills. 

Most students in school have now completed an online well-being survey. We will be analysing results in the new term. We will use the survey to help us identify areas to focus on for future activities and events. 
A number of young ladies have completed the DOVE Confident Me programme and feedback has again been very positive. Please ask your child to talk to us if you think they would benefit from taking part in this.
We continue to promote and update through our social media pages, please follow us on facebook (Ken Stimpson Community School - Wellbeing Group) and instagram (ks_wellbeing)

We wish you all a very happy Christmas and look forward to another busy year in 2020.
 

The wellbeing team

They were encouraged to take part in an anti-smoking poster competition and a smoking cessation quiz.  
Students were rewarded with prizes and certificates for their efforts and the results are shown below:

• Winner of the poster competition - Alina Rasul (£10 voucher)
• Group winner Mrs Chalmers tutor group (box of chocolates)
• Certificates awarded to the following students for their great effort: Joseph Edwards, Owen, Jacob Braidon, Adam, Daniel Aiden, Jamie, Casey Johnson, Aaliyah McCormick, Kayla Borrillo, Kobe Fisher, Isobel Johnson, Finley Eze, Alisha Mazumder, Lewis Scott, Owen Scott, James Mason, Lilly Walsh, Matas Palavinskas

Ms S McNaughton
PSHE

Another end to a busy half term, MFL students have been continuing with their current topics of:

• Year 7 Family and Pets
• Year 8 Paris
• Year 9 Freetime
• Year 10 Technology
• Year 11 Home Town and Environment
• Year 12 Technology

Students have been working very hard and we are pleased to nominate our 'Stars of the Half Term' and our 'Student of the Month'.
Our Stars of the Half Term are:

• Miss Frith - Kelsey Mitchell
• Mrs Ferguson - Ruby Hollowell
• Mr Heaps - Milly Parker
• Miss Beckingham - Vanesa Eitmonaite

Our Student of the Month was Ainee Alanjandro.

We are particularly proud of our Year 9 students who were brave enough to speak Italian in the hall in front of parents and Year 7s to showcase what they have been learning since September. In groups and individually, both Year 9 Italian classes showed a presentation about themselves and their hobbies.
Mrs Boughton and all the MFL teachers would like to especially congratulate Tuana Egeli on the project she produced with her presentation and for her ambitious and resilient attitude in languages.

Thank you to all parents who were able to come, we hope you enjoyed it.
Here are some photos of the event.

Joyeux Noël et buon Natale!
See you in 2020!
 

Miss Beckingham

This is a national competition where students design and build a solution to an engineering problem with limited time and resources.
The team rose to this challenge fantastically.  They had to design a device that could be launched from an Airbus airplane and help people in a disaster zone.  The teams engineered a diverse range of solutions from a powered life jacket to a floating hoover to remove ash after a volcano.  

The students needed to demonstrate:

• Creativity and innovation
• Team work
• Projected management
• Presentation skills

The team from KSCS designed a pod that could deliver food and supplies to people after the natural disaster.  It included a moisture sensor to set off an alarm if it landed in water and lights to attract people to the supplies.  They did a great design, model and presentation.  Ken Stimpson School deservedly won the competition against the other local schools. We’ll have to wait and see if they achieved enough points to go to the national final later in the year.
 

Mr A Mantell
Head of Faculty: Science

This an opportunity for students and parents/carers to hear from the subject leaders of English, Maths and Science on how to make the most of the remaining time in the build up to the GCSE exams. Vital information will be shared, as well as guidance given on key revision sessions being held in school. 
 
There will also be the opportunity to speak to the subjects leaders if you have any questions. We are keen to work alongside parents/carers in helping our students meet and exceed their target grades and look forward to welcoming you to the evening.
 

Mr T Hussain
Assistant Principal

High standards require constant attention and maintenance. Currently we have a very small minority of students that do not have the appropriate uniform as we reach the end of term. We would request that any issues are rectified over the Christmas break. The current areas that we would like to emphasise are:

• Trainers of any sort are not acceptable - all students need to be wearing an appropriate school shoe.
• Ties need to be worn by all students, everyday and shirts need to be tucked in at all times.
• Hoodies are not permitted at KSCS.
• Skirts cannot be Lycra and need to be at knee length.

The full uniform policy can be seen here: http://www.kscs.org.uk/information/policies/uniform-policy

In the New Year we will be challenging any student that falls short of the KSCS standards. We are in the process of adopting some quite robust measures for students that do not meet the policy requirements.  We believe the uniform policy and guide are clear and we take the responsibility to ensure these standards are met very seriously. We would like to request your support in ensuring your child arrives at school each day dressed appropriately, on time and ready to learn.

If there is any confusion surrounding these expectations, the policy, or the appropriateness of any item of clothing, please do not hesitate to contact your year team.

We would also like to remind you of some of the other processes that exist to support these standards.

Lesson Exit 

We want to operate classrooms that are disruption free. If a student presents disruptive behaviour during a lesson, they will be exited to the behaviour unit for the rest of that period. They will then receive a 30 min after school detention. This is compulsory, failure to attend this detention will result in a full day in the Isolation Unit. 

Lateness

Our expectations on punctuality are very clear, all students need to be in their first lesson by 8.45am. If they fail to arrive to lesson in time they will receive a 30 min after school detention that day. Again, failure to attend will result in a full day in the Isolation Unit.  A warning bell sounds at 8.40am and the school gates open at 8am.

Many thanks for your ongoing support.

Mr Whales
Vice Principal

Our year 7 tutor group assemblies began in earnest after October half term with Ms Surman and Mrs Jones form being the brave groups that organised and delivered the first one about bonfire night. 

The year 7 students have once again proved what a mature and hard-working group they are. We have put several rewards in place for the students that continue to get it right; positive phone calls, reward film afternoon and a very special rewards assembly. In this assembly, Gold certificates for Connect points and Excellent Attitude to Learning certificates were given out. The rest of the certificates were given out by tutors.

Year 7 throughout November/December have been collecting food and other items for the soup kitchen and the shoe box appeal for the homeless.  Again, the boxes they produced were outstanding.  The charities were overwhelmed by their generosity.
 

On Wednesday 18 December some staff and I had the pleasure of taking some of year 7’s to Bounce. What a fabulous evening that was and how well behaved they were. It was a pleasure to see them out of school time. Keep an eye out for the next social I will be organising. 

Year 7 have been outstanding with uniform expectations and having the correct equipment. Please ensure that they keep this up on your son/daughters return. It has been a pleasure for the year 7 team to get to know the students that little bit better since they began.

I wish all our wonderful year 7 students a very Happy Christmas. Please enjoy yourselves this holiday season and come back on 6 January 2020 refreshed and revived for another fun packed term.

Mrs C Read
Head of Year 7