Friday 27th September

Co-headteachers’ welcome

It is hard to believe that October is just around the corner, yet I am delighted to be writing to you to share just a few of the highlights from this first month of the new academic year. 

Firstly, we want to extend an enormous thank you to you as parents/carers for your partnership with us. This month has seen a number of important parent evenings in person, all the way from Reception – Year 12. As a result of these, we have so much clarity for the year ahead, related to the importance of phonics and early reading; relevant and exciting changes to assessment reporting in Years 7 – 9; and support, as ever, for careers guidance and inspiration through the years and into sixth form. We value the face-to-face contact, and we know you do too, much as the virtual platforms remain so important to us as the year proceeds. If you have any questions at all related to slides sent out, please do not hesitate to contact the primary phase leaders or secondary heads of year in the first instance. 

It is a great privilege for us as co-headteachers to host our all-through open morning each year, and this year surpassed our expectations once again. With over 1000 people attending throughout the morning, our all-through school was a-buzz with the vibrancy of learning. Our tour guides – at all ages – were such ambassadors for our school, demonstrating pride and commitment. Those in music or sport and indeed every department were an inspiration to those visiting. We know this from the feedback we received! As the sun shone, we were delighted once again to see the belonging of students of every age to our special community. 

… “ Just to say what a great atmosphere there was at your open day. Relaxed and welcoming. I was impressed….”

… “  Special mention to our tour guides …  They were both very, very lovely students and did your school proud…”

… “ I looked around the school with my daughter this morning, and I just wanted to feedback on how fantastic our pupil tour guide was …  He was obviously so proud of the school, gave us excellent information and I was just generally impressed with how he carried himself. We were very impressed generally with the school- from what was going on in the classrooms, to the band playing, and the excellent presentation by the headteachers.”

… “ I wanted to share my sincere thanks for an excellent Open Day you held on Saturday. It was incredibly well organised and an insightful event. I really appreciate the time and effort your kind students put into giving our family an informative tour of your primary phase. I was very impressed with their knowledge of the primary setting and their confidence. They answered all our questions and both students kept saying what they ‘loved’ about the school. As I also heard from other parents whilst walking around, “it’s been the best school we have visited.”

In our co-headteacher speeches on Saturday, during which our Year 7 and Year 13 speakers demonstrated their incredible oracy skills, we spoke of ‘flourishing’ and how supporting and championing every student to flourish requires an incredible team of students, parents/carers, staff, governors/trustees and every member of our school community. We would like in this newsletter to take a moment to shine a light on our governors and trustees. Their roles can be often hidden from view, and it is very important for all parents/carers to understand that, as leaders, we receive their expertise, their diverse knowledge and skills, their unwavering support, and equally as important, their direct challenge, throughout the academic year. As volunteers, they give tirelessly to the school, and over my 20+ years in education, I have never worked with a more experienced and expert board than that in place at Simon Balle. In this newsletter, we would like to extend our thanks in particular to Mr Paul Connolly, Mrs Ann Orpin and Mr Roy Hardcastle who have given such an incredible service to our school and community. The hours they have given cannot be counted, their generosity of spirit cannot be measured, and the impact of their wisdom, which has been so far-reaching, cannot be written in words. As they pass the baton on, we are delighted to let you know that Mr Connolly and Mrs Orpin will remain as ‘members’ to the Trust board. 

As the half term continues, we trust that your children will continue to enjoy their academic studies and the plentiful enrichment opportunities available to them. From the Year 5 residential last week to the Year 13 business/economics trip in New York now, and to the vast array of extra-curricular opportunities that Mr Prendergast has emailed this week, our message to all is to please, ‘get involved’ – ‘give a new club a go’ – ‘try something different’ and simply experience that sense of ‘belonging’ to Simon Balle. 

We look forward to Sixth Form Open Evening on Wednesday 2nd October. We are ‘more than just great A levels’ and, once again, we look forward to welcoming both internal and external prospective students and families to gain a sense of who we are – where we believe, quite genuinely, that there is no tension between the highest of academic expectations and outcomes, and the richest of experiences with character education and enrichment.

Sixth Form Open Evening

We look forward to welcoming you to our Sixth Form Open Evening on Wednesday 2nd October 2024 from 17:30 – 19:30. Our Sixth Form Open Evening offers you the perfect opportunity to begin considering life after GCSEs.

On the evening you will have the opportunity to explore the school site and visit each of our departments. Our outstanding and experienced subject teachers will be on hand to showcase their subject and talk you through the finer details of the course. Talks from our Sixth Form Leadership team will take place in the main school hall at 17.45 and again 18.45. Sixth Form student guides are also available to offer you a tour of the school and talk about our wonderful enrichment programme.

Many of our students also enjoy studying a range of new subjects, available to them for the first time. Psychology, Sociology, Economics, Politics, Film Studies and English Literature are often popular choices. We offer a creative pathway for students keen to follow their passions. Students have the opportunity to study A Level Music, Art & Design, Drama and Media Studies, in addition to History, Geography, Philosophy, Religion and Ethics.

However, we also believe that Sixth Form should be about MORE THAN JUST GREAT A LEVELS. We are proud of our students’ individual talents and enjoy supporting them to grow as young people. 

Once again, we look forward to welcoming you on to our Sixth Form Open Evening.

SEND

Our all-through SEND team has continued to grow over the past few years. There are some familiar faces, alongside a few new ones.

All teachers are teachers of SEND so please do discuss any concerns with your child’s class teacher or form tutor. Staff in school regularly speak to the SEND team for advice as well as to share successes and challenges. 

If you would like to speak to a member of the SEND team, you can book a virtual appointment of up to 15 minutes with a member of the SEND team, please use the following booking link: Booking link.

Some student require access arrangements for GCSE and A Level exams. The latest guidance for students, parents and carers can be found here parent handout AA

Hertfordshire County Council have put together a Neurodiversity Handbook to support with neurodiversity. They have asked that this comprehensive resource is shared with parents regardless of whether pupils have a diagnosis. 

DSPL3 are hosting a coffee morning for parents on13th November and have asked us to share the details.

Nut allergy warning

We have been informed by the Food Standards Agency that some mustard products being imported into the UK may contain nuts. We have spoken with our caterer, Accent, and they have advised that any student who suffers from a nut allergy should avoid consuming any products from the canteen that carry a “may contain mustard” warning. This is the safest option for those with nut allergies until we can determine which products, if any, may be affected.

For more information, you can follow this link https://www.food.gov.uk/news-alerts/alert/fsa-aa-42-2024-update-4 to the Food Standards Agency, as there are some popular high street products that are also affected.”

Year 11 Theatre Trip

On Monday 23rd September the drama department took 36 year 11 students back to 1955…well the Adelphi Theatre to see Back to the Future The Musical! 

Adapted from the 1985 classic movie we were thoroughly entertained by the songs, fantastic characterisations and superb special effects. A great evening was had by all and the students commented they would highly recommend the show.

Please click here for our latest careers opportunity blog

PE News

It’s been a fantastic start to the season with sports clubs over subscribed and fixtures up and running. Please see a full update of all sports fixtures and the final results of our Key Stage 3 Inter-house sports competition by going to the following link – https://www.simonballe.herts.sch.uk/september-sports-blog/

Library News

ROALD DAHL QUIZ RESULTS

Well done to everyone who participated in the Roald Dahl quiz in the secondary library on Friday 13th September and earned points for their houses. 

Especially well done to the runners up and winners!

• In third place: Frankie (7M)
• In second place: David and Yuko (7R)
• In first place: Jake and Toby (7R)

The Great European Bake Off

Well done to everyone who baked cakes for the MFL bake off yesterday. We were very impressed with all of the entries! There were 26 entries altogether. We will be awarding house points to all of the bakers. Well done especially to those who wrote their recipes in foreign languages! Thank you to everyone who came to vote! We had over 220 votes!

Congratulations to the winners!

The cake that best linked to the European Day of Languages theme: Number 25 – Robert and Arthur, 8R

The tastiest looking cake: Number 18 – Isaac, 7A

The best decorated cake: Number 3 – Summer, 9N

You can take a look at all the other entries in this gallery:

Author visit

On Wednesday 18th September we were delighted to welcome the author Nazima Pathan to the Larch. Nazima spoke to years 4, 5 and 6 about her new book Dream Hunters and showed students how to create their own fantasy adventures with the essential ingredients of characters, maps and magical tools in an interactive session, followed by a book signing. You can purchase copies of Nazima’s book from The Book Nook bookshop in Ware, or online at booknookshop.co.uk. You will get 10% off the RRP of the book when you use the code DREAM at the checkout.