Friday 1st December

Co-headteachers’ welcome

We hope that all were able to have a relaxing and happy long weekend. Certainly the students (and staff!) I have spoken with this week were pleased to have an opportunity to rest and recoup because it is a busy and exciting few weeks ahead, academically and in relation to so many wider community opportunities. 

And so, first to reflect upon our open events for prospective students and their families in the last fortnight. Our sixth form open evening was busy and vibrant with our current sixth formers doing us proud in showcasing departments across our broad curriculum, giving guided tours and talking with such eloquence and confidence to both our current Year 11 and external students interested in Simon Balle. With more than 500 visitors to site, and a packed out hall for speeches, it was a privilege to share the success of our sixth form with so many. ‘More than just great A levels’ is what we are, and we received much positive feedback from students and parents visiting as they understood both our high expectations academically, and our extensive enrichment programme. Music, as ever, was front and centre with live performances and a packed out department to find out more about our music academy and its opportunities. Visitors commented too on the tangible ethos of care communicated by our students. Students make progress that is significantly above the national average if they join or continue their journey at Simon Balle, and a broad and ambitious curriculum, as well as a pathway to excellent future destinations is what we pride ourselves on. To find out more, and to apply for sixth form please visit here – applications must be in by 10th December 2023. 

Similarly, as ever, it was a privilege to be showing prospective parents around the Larch on Wednesday. Parents commented on a calm and purposeful ethos; engaging learning taking place; support and challenge a-plenty; excellent relationships between staff and children, and children with one another; and the breadth and ambition of the curriculum exemplified. The Year 6 tour guides were incredible – every parent commented on their enthusiasm, their sense of belonging, their confidence, their pride. It is clear that we remain a school of choice – and across all of our three open events, a huge thank you to our Larch children for their music, and their tours. 

Each newsletter we comment on enrichment – but each newsletter there is more to share! Much news is contained below from secondary phase geography field work to Year 6 Macbeth performances in London. Music concerts have spanned secondary strings and singing, secondary wind and brass, rock school, and a Larch extravaganza with both choirs, strings, wind and brass providing a lively and happy evening of music. Despite the darkening evenings,  sports opportunities continue to abound – just this week we have been so proud of our Year 7 rugby team, and our Years 8-9 with hockey. Great performances, great values shown. 

As you know from our pedagogy portal as a fortnightly focus on teaching and learning, we do not shy away from informing you as parents what we are doing to ensure that we sustain and further advance outstanding teaching at Simon Balle All-through school. This week, at our INSET day, we were privileged to welcome Tom Sherrington to inspire us all and set us on the next steps of weaving together his insightful work on walkthrus (teaching and learning guides) with our bespoke Simon Balle teaching and learning principles. We invest in excellent professional development to ensure that our students from 4 – 18 are taught consistently by subject experts who are passionate about the craft of teaching and learning together with their care for every student. 

And finally, we look forward to so much coming up in the next few weeks. Firstly, good luck to our Year 11 students who are showing so much dedication to their learning. We wish them all the best on study leave and their mocks commencing soon. As the festive season comes once again, we welcome students and their families warmly to join us in so many events. Please do support us at The Frost Fair tomorrow (see below), and attend our Larch and/or secondary Carol services at All Saints Church, our Reception Nativity and much more. We hope that your children will enjoy all that we have on offer at this special time of year – please see below for a round up of dates. 

• Saturday 2nd: PSA Frost Fair
• Thursday 7th: All-through Christmas Jumper Day
• Wednesday 13th: Reception Nativity Play
• Thursday 14th: Y12 Herts Young Homeless 5K run
• Friday 15th: Secondary Book Flood in the library
• Monday 18th: Secondary Carol Service
• Tuesday 19th: Secondary Christmas lunch
• Tuesday 19th: Larch Carol Service
• Thursday 21st: Early finish (12pm)

Christmas dinner

We hope that as many students as possible will join us for Christmas Dinner this year. A letter regarding dates and cost has been sent to all parents (primary and secondary). Tickets must be purchased via ParentPay by the end of today (Friday 1st December).

Frost Fair this Saturday

Get ready for a frosty fiesta at the upcoming Frost Fair tomorrow (December 2nd, 12-4pm)! Your presence will make it truly special.

A quick reminder that our event’s magic is fueled by volunteers. A heartfelt thank you to those who’ve already signed up! Your support means the world. To those still considering, it’s not too late to join the festive fun – lend a hand and be part of the jolly crew!

Check your existing sign ups, look for empty slots and sign up here.

Let’s make this Frost Fair the best one yet!

Christmas Jumper Day

Please join us in supporting Save The Children on Thursday 7th December. Make a donation via the link and then wear your Christmas Jumper to school.

https://christmas.savethechildren.org.uk/fundraising/CJD230032080

Parent Staff Association

Exciting news awaits! Elfridges (Larch Secret Shopping) and the KS1/2 UV Party tickets will soon be on sale. To join the festive fun, you need to register on the PSA website first. The process is simple. However, your registration will need to be manually approved by admin before you can  checkout. Register today for a smoother checkout experience.

If you are able to volunteer at events such as these, please join our volunteer database.

Link to Elfridges poster

Link to UV Party Save the Date

Food Bank collection (Herts and District Food Bank) OOD BANK COLLECTION FOR HERTS AND DISTRICT FOOD BANK:

From Monday 4th December until Tuesday 14th December, the Year 12 House Leaders will be collecting donations in our Primary and Secondary phases for our local food bank in Hertford. Providing families are able to donate, the following items would be gratefully received:

• Cup of soup packets
• Jars of sauces
• Tea and coffee
• Tinned tomatoes
• Spreads such as jam and honey
• UHT milk
• Long life juice
• Tinned meat/fish/veg
• Biscuits
• Tinned fruit/custard/rice pudding
• Toilet rolls

Students may leave their donations in their classrooms/form rooms, and secondary students may take their items to the sixth form resource centre.

Many thanks in advance!

Library news

Jólabókaflóð (Book Flood) and Christmas Bingo

Celebrating the Icelandic Christmas tradition, bring a book from home as a gift and hand it in to Mr Belsey and Miss Iles any time from Monday 4th December to Monday 11th December to collect a Book Flood ticket. Then join us at 1:25 pm in the library on Friday 15th December for the Book Flood: there will be Christmas bingo, Christmas music, and books to read and take home. Students should speak to Mr Belsey and Miss Iles if they would like to attend the Book Flood but are not able to bring in a book as a gift.

Book fair in the Larch

The Travelling Books book fair will be returning to the Larch library between Monday 4th December and Thursday 7th December. During the fair, the books will be available in the Larch library for students to browse. Here is a wish list document that students may bring into school and use during the school day if they wish to write down the books they would like to buy. Parents/carers can then view students’ book choices when they take their wish lists back home with them. Alternatively, you can browse the books online. The book fair will be open to parents from 3:15-3:45 pm each day from Monday 4th December to Thursday 7th December. Please note that the book fair will be cash free.

If you would like to purchase any of the books you can either 1) pay for the books using a bank card and this QR code in the Larch library during the fair or 2) pay for the books online at home and then collect them from the Larch library during the fair.
To make payments please use the following link: www.travellingbooks.co.uk/pay. Then in the ‘Find your school’ search box, please type in the following number: 16903841. Please bring evidence of the book order and payment.
(You will not be able to purchase books until Monday 4th December.)

Piano concert on Thursday 23rd November

Thank you to the students from the Larch and secondary school that played the piano for the lunchtime concert in the library. Well done to Ethan, Seren, Sophie, Dominic, Zoe, Lucas, George, Oliver, Ziva, Ethan, Vanessa, Ben, Hector, Sylvie, Orson, Edward, Lola, Holly and Charlie for your piano playing.

Pedagogy Portal

On Tuesday’s INSET day we were fortunate enough to have Tom Sherrington work with our staff to help develop our School Improvement Priority around ‘Walkthrus’. Tom (the author of ‘Teaching Walkthrus’) works with schools and colleges providing support on curriculum, assessment and the quality of teaching and learning. He is a regular speaker and contributor to conferences and education festivals. We were extremely fortunate to spend time with him and the portal this week shows what he went through with staff during the INSET day. 

https://www.simonballe.herts.sch.uk/category/teaching-learning-news/

Careers 

Please click here for our latest Career Opportunities Blog. This has a range of different opportunities for students in Year 11 -13 including CISCO work experience and virtual sessions with TFL, Lloyds and the RAF. You will also find some free resources for primary and secondary school students.

Please click here for a really useful document regarding current trends in the labour market.

Musical News

Head over to the Music pages to read about November’s Musical News

Volcano Day

It was great to have Y9 showing off their volcano creations last week. The whole year group took over the hall to showcase their models, cakes and artwork created as part of the tectonic hazards topic in Geography. The pictures here show a small selection of what was on display. You can also see how excited the Larch students were to find out about what the older students had been up to.

Harry in Year 9 reflected on the day: 

“Volcano Day is a yearly event at the end of the volcano section of year nine’s tectonic hazards topic. During this topic, we have learnt about the earth’s structure and what benefits and negatives this causes for us. One of the hazards that is caused by the earth’s formation and tectonic plates are volcanoes. As this has been a key area of our topic, for volcano day we were given the opportunity to make a model, piece of artwork, cake or explosion and bring it into school to show other students and our teachers. We also got the opportunity to show this year’s creations to some of the younger years at Simon Balle school, who have also been learning about volcanoes. Volcano day was a fun, informative end to our topic and was a fun way to learn more.”

Y12 Geography field trip to Manchester

The Y12 Geographers have been exploring Manchester this week. They have interviewed BBC staff about the corporation’s move to Media City in Salford, attended a lecture at the Etihad about stadium-led regeneration in the east of the city and carried out fieldwork in a variety of locations around the city centre.

DofE “Making a difference”

The school has been running the Duke of Edinburgh awards scheme for the last 2 years, in that time we have helped many local causes through the volunteering aspect of the award.

It was so nice to receive a letter from the Manager of Hertford Library about three of our students and how impressed he was. He went on to say: “They have been polite, punctual, engaging, friendly and have built nice relationships with the children and staff at the library. The parents have also given me glowing reports about how much their children have enjoyed the club and look forward to coming every week, they have been as impressed as we have with how the boys have gone about running the club”

We would also like to thank Jonathan, Jack and Soham for entering into the true spirit of DofE, reinforcing the core values of the school. If you are interested in The Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme we will be looking to recruit the next cohort around February 2024 (information to follow).

Health, wellbeing and safeguarding

What parents need to know about…

Please click here to find out about supporting children to deal with upsetting content.

Physical Education News

It’s been a fantastic month for Sport at Simon Balle across Football, Rugby, Netball and Hockey. You can read all about this in our latest blog post. 

In relation to PE kit, we no longer are using Stevenson’s for PE kit and for this year have moved to ProSportskit.

The white polo top is no longer available and for this year (2023-24), if necessary you can purchase a Simon Balle PE T-Shirt as an alternative option. The information below can be located on our website. 

PE kit is now available to order from ProSportsKit  http://simonballe.deco-apparel.com/

• White and green PE top
• Black shorts or skort
• Green rugby socks
• Shin pads and gumshield
• Football / Rugby Boots
• Optional Extras: (from ProSportsKit – http://simonballe.deco-apparel.com/)
• Simon Balle Black Midlayer
• Simon Balle Shorts
• Simon Balle Black Leggings
• Simon Balle Tracksuit Bottoms

Year 11 Outdoor activities Trip

During the past couple of weeks, our Year 11 OCR Sports Studies students attended an Outdoor Activities trip to Harlow. Students completed 2 activities which were the High Ropes and Kayaking. This was part of their course and they were assessed on the practical skills as well as their knowledge and understanding of using equipment safely. Our students behaved impeccably and were a real credit to the school displaying resilience and courage in abundance.

Learning in the Larch

Reception: In Reception the children have been learning about doubling in Maths, using numicon to support their understanding. The children have also enjoyed the story of ‘Not A Stick’ and have done some brilliant writing with their own ideas, as well as being very creative during child initiated learning with what they can create!

Year 1: Year 1 have continued their hard work in Phonics as they learn more Level 5 sounds, and have focused on doubling and halving in Maths this week. They have also been learning about Advent, and have made a fantastic class Advent wreath!

Year 2: The children in Year 2 have been working hard on writing brilliant poems based on ‘The Sound Collector’. It has been wonderful to see the children use a variety of wonderful language to describe all of the sounds they have collected. 

Year 3: It has been fantastic to read so many brilliant fables written by Year 3 this week. Taking inspiration from well-known Aesop fables, the children have taken those familiar stories and morals and turned them into their own original versions. When writing them, the moral was ‘slow and steady wins the race’ as it kept children focused which helped them take their time on each element of writing. 

Year 4: In PRE, the children in Year 4 have been focusing on the Christian faith, learning about Advent. They were learning about the significance of the candles on the advent wreath and what each part symbolises. This continues their learning on the significance of a range of symbols from different religions.

Year 5: Over the past two weeks, Year 5 have been looking at how recent redevelopment has changed Hertford and how it has impacted local residents in their Geography lessons. In English, they have been working hard creating cinquains (small poems). 

Year 6: Last week we were blown away by the courage and determination shown by all Year 6 pupils at the Shakespeare festival in London. We are so very proud of all of the efforts you put in and it well and truly paid off.

Year 6 SATs information evening

We would like to invite Year 6 parents/carers into the Larch for an information evening to give you more details about the end of KS2 SATs and the year ahead. We highly encourage you to attend, and in previous years have had near 100% attendance.  We look forward to seeing you in the Larch hall at 6pm on Wednesday 10th January.

Larch Survey results

Thank you to all parents and carers for your invaluable feedback. We will endeavour to respond to all specific individual questions and below have responded to more general questions raised.

Some key statistics we are proud to share:

• 98% of parents/carers would recommend Simon Balle to others.
• 98% of parents/carers said their child is happy at Simon Balle.
• 99% of parents/carers said their child feels safe at Simon Balle.
• 98% of parents/carers said the school deals effectively with bullying, or that they don’t know as their child has had no experience of this.
• 98% of parents/carers said the school makes sure children are well-behaved or they’re unsure as they’ve not had any experience of this to comment.
• 91% of parents/carers feel the school has a wide range of extra-curricular activities.
• 95% of parents/carers are aware of what their child will learn during the year.

A selection of quotes from some of our families:

Thank you for ensuring that my daughter is not only being well-educated through your exceptional curriculum but will also graduate from the Larch as a well-rounded individual by exposure to the value system reiterated throughout the curriculum and school.

A truly wonderful school whose core values are event in their pupils and teaching staff. My children are thriving both emotionally and educationally, I couldn’t be happier. 

We are constantly impressed by the standard of education, the range of activities available and the way progressive independence and choices become available as your child develops. 

How do I find out what my child is learning this year?

In September we held information sessions for each year group that outlined the curriculum for the year and shared these slides with families- please let your class teacher know if you’d like this to be reshared. On our school website, our curriculum maps are plotted so you can see what your child will learn in each term, but also if you would like to look into a particular subject you can get more information as well as what they will learn in future years.

https://www.simonballe.herts.sch.uk/curriculum-years/ 

https://www.simonballe.herts.sch.uk/curriculum-overview/ 

When will I hear about my child’s progress?

We have plotted our parent evenings for Autumn to discuss settling into their new year group and targets for the year ahead, as well as another before May half term to summarise progress so far and any final targets to work on for the final half term. Your child’s annual report will be with you in Spring term (around half way between the two parent evenings), which will outline in more depth the specific strengths and areas for development in each core area and the wider curriculum. Spreading these progress updates to once per term means that enough time is given to work on their areas of development. Your child’s class teacher will be in touch if there are any concerns their progress has slowed down, however if you have any questions please speak to your child’s teacher and they will be happy to give you more information. Your child’s weekly dictation is also completed in their home learning book for you to see on a weekly basis.

Each year group has either workshops, assemblies or performances throughout the year- please look out for more information! We also look forward to inviting parents into the Larch for our annual summer open celebration evening where your child’s work throughout the year will be celebrated. 

Why are parent evenings held virtually?

Feedback from our School Cloud system has been overwhelmingly positive, with 92% of parents reporting that they find it easy to navigate. Parents have informed us that the virtual evenings are useful as it means that families can attend appointments more easily with flexibility from home or work, appointments are held promptly with no risk of them running late, and more than one parent can join from different locations. On the rare occasion there is a technical difficulty, we are able to follow up with a phone call to ensure no information is missed. As always, please catch your child’s class teacher on the door at home time or drop an email to larch@simonballe.herts.sch.uk if you have any questions about your child’s learning. 

Parents and carers of children with SEN

In September, your child’s student profile was shared, and progress will be reviewed and updated in January, and will be shared with you. 

A reminder for all that the first point of contact (both for learning and pastoral wellbeing) should be your child’s class teacher/form tutor. Beyond this, please reach out to the heads of year and/or primary phase leaders. If your query is specifically in relation to SEND, please book a Calendly meeting in the first instance using this Booking link.

Term dates reminder (this year)

We will be breaking up for Christmas at 12.00pm on Thursday 21st December. The new term starts on Monday 8th January.

Term dates for this year and next year can be found here on our website.

The assessment and reporting schedule can be found here on our website.

Wishing everyone in our community a positive and fulfilling fortnight ahead.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs Rachel Kirk and Mr Michael Moss (Co-headteachers)

Friday 17th November

Co-headteachers’ welcome

As I write this newsletter I can only reflect on how proud and humbled we were as co-headteachers when the whole school community came together for our Remembrance Service which was again a poignant experience. The whole school stood silent listening to students reading, the choir and the superb recital of the Last Post. It was a real time for reflection and to pay respect. We feel proud to organise this event which is always so moving.

What an incredible couple of weeks we have had to the new half term. The sports, music and enrichment compliments our learning in the classroom. I was suitably challenged in the primary chess club as I received multiple requests for matches from a very talented set of students, all eager to become the next Magnus Carlsen. Before my next visit I think I need to do some secret practice! We have so much to look forward to across this half term with planned enrichment opportunities a plenty. Please do keep an eye on our social media pages. 

Our all-through leadership allows us to continually stay in touch with and support our students’ development pastorally as well as academically. A highlight in the Larch this week has been Year 1 looking for clues into Beegu’s spaceship landing at Simon Balle. If you see some yellow or sparkly footprints around the site you know who they are from! At the other end of our age range there is a real buzz with our Year 11 and 13 students as they start to prepare for their mock exams. It is lovely to walk around the classrooms, from Reception to Year 13, listening to the positive learning relationships between students and teachers as they hone their knowledge and skills.  

In the last couple of weeks there have again been lots of events taking place. We were invited to hear our Year 12 present their Extended Project Qualification (EPQ). The enormous amount of work which has gone into these projects was reflected by the polished presentations. Topics were fascinating as much as they were diverse from space mining, terraforming, outsourcing to world war poetry. One parent commented ‘The projects were very interesting and varied and I’d like to thank and congratulate all the students for being so articulate, confident and engaging in their presentations. They were a real credit to the school and really conveyed the value of EPQs.  Well done to everyone! A thoroughly enjoyable experience’. It was wonderful to see so many students engaging in this enrichment opportunity which will have not only boosted their knowledge of their chosen topic, but also taught them so much about planning, research and communication skills.

Finally, we held our Larch Open Evening where we welcomed prospective reception students on Thursday 16th. This was a chance to showcase our students’ work, our strong ethos and values and the amazing learning culture that exists. It has certainly been a busy period in our school community!

Sixth form open evening

Our Sixth Form Open Evening will take place on Wednesday 22nd November from 5.30 – 7.30pm. Talks will take place in the hall at 5.45pm and 6.45pm. 

To help them prepare for their next steps, all Year 11 students will have a lesson this week focusing on the new A Level subjects (Economics, Film Studies, Media Studies, Politics, Psychology, BTEC Sport and Sociology) – providing them with information about the topics covered, assessment and future career pathways for each subject.

Some useful documents to read in advance of the open evening can be found below:

Subject guide – click here

Mini-prospectus – click here

For further information and support, we would strongly recommend looking at the Sixth Form section of our website.

Extra- curricular enrichment clubs at Simon Balle

We are proud of the high quality and varied opportunities we offer across the primary and secondary phase for students to engage in extra-curricular clubs. Recently Year 3+ took part in a student voice survey to give us their thoughts and opinions on what we offer. Below are just a handful of things they told us!

‘I think there is a lot of options for people to choose from and that is good’

‘I personally enjoy the clubs I attend as they allow me to connect with people easier whilst having fun’

‘I find the clubs that I attend very fun and active’

‘I love all the clubs I’ve been to!’

‘I really like the large range of clubs at Simon Balle’

‘I enjoy art enrichment because I get to spend time with my friends and be creative. It also helps me look forward to Wednesdays’

‘I particularly like the sports clubs because they are fun and they help me stay fit’

‘I really enjoy the clubs, there is such a wide range of them!’

Some students said they weren’t aware of the clubs on offer, so an action we will work on is promoting the clubs so both students and families are aware of what we are offering so no student misses out. There is now an updated enrichment notice board in the secondary dining room by the new drinks machines, clubs will be promoted in form times and the website will be updated regularly. 

This year we introduced a new enrichment programme for all Year 12 students to enhance their skills set and develop a range of employability skills. Please find below some statements from current Year 12 students regarding their enrichment experiences:

Teachers of Tomorrow: Every Friday morning for enrichment I do ‘Teachers of Tomorrow’, where I have the privilege of working with both Year 11 and Year 7 students for two hours dedicated to helping out in PE lessons, this includes, getting equipment ready, leading warm ups and helping individual students who may need help. During my time, I have enjoyed it and found it useful as it has enhanced both my leadership and communication skills. Additionally, in the future, this works hand in hand with my subjects, PE A level, specifically in the sports leadership module. (Harrie).

Larch Outreach: Every Friday morning, for the first two periods of the day, I help out a year 5 class in the Larch. This involves me helping the students with their maths worksheets, conducting dictation and supporting them whilst they polish their literary pieces. I enjoy assisting in the primary school as it allows me to give back to the school community and help the younger students to improve their understanding on different topics, such as multiplication. Volunteering encourages me to develop my communication and leadership skills whilst also improving my confidence when working with other members of staff. This is important for my next steps as it provides me with a strong foundation of team working skills as well as my employability. (Sienna).

Young Enterprise: Young Enterprise is an activity where you and the people who have also taken part in it are able to create a product to sell to the general public. You also can choose whether you want to keep the profits and split them between you all or give it to charity. Over the course of it you will be able to attend conventions national and internationally if you do well and local markets and  with cash rewards at the end of it all. I have found the experience very enjoyable so far as you get to work as a team and debate on your ideas and how you want to make your product the best it can be. The whole project shall help me progress with my Business Studies as I will get to understand how a small business operates and how to manage and understand profit. (Thomas).

Music academy: This option focuses more on the performance aspect of music. Over the past few months I have been preparing many pieces of music to perform with my group at various events. I have found the music academy very useful as well as highly enjoyable. It has boosted my confidence when performing and also taught me key performance skills.I have always been very interested in music and want to pursue it as a career.  (Eva)

School Magazine: The Simon Balle magazine group is aiming to create a sixth form magazine by the end of 2023, with articles, photography and art summarising the events of this year. The magazine group is a good way to express many differing levels of creativity, whilst also allowing you to develop your writing skills. I joined the magazine group as my enrichment option, in order to allow myself to explore the aspects of journalism (a career I am interested in) and what it’s really like, as well as to give myself an outlet for creativity in between my not so creative studies. I hope that my involvement in this enrichment option will help me eliminate or choose where or what I want to do after sixth form, as well as giving me some experience in journalism if I choose to go down that route. (Rosie).

For the extra-curricular enrichment opportunities for Y1-13, please follow the link: https://www.simonballe.herts.sch.uk/whats-on/extra-curricular-provision/ 

If your child is interested in joining a club, please look at the wide range of options available at lunch and after school on the above link to see which adult to speak to regarding joining, or contact Mrs Boyce if you have any questions: boycek@simonballe.herts.sch.uk

EPQ Evening

Last Thursday, Year 13 hosted their EPQ exhibition. The Extended Project Qualification allows each student to embark on a largely self-directed and self-motivated project. Students choose a topic, plan, research and develop their idea and decide on their finished product. 

As students carry out their project they are required to record aspects of the process and then complete a write up exploring their main findings. This year, over 20 students completed the qualification. The exhibition celebrated the effort, hard-work and in-depth research that students have carried out over the past six months or so.  

Exhibition guests commented on the amazing achievement “I just wanted to congratulate all students who were present at the EPQ showcase. They were all so passionate and had so much to say about their projects. The students certainly knew their subject very well.”

“I just wanted to drop you an email to say how fantastic the sixth form EPQ event yesterday was. The projects were very interesting and varied and I’d like to thank and congratulate all the students for being so articulate, confident and engaging in their presentations. They were a real credit to the school and really conveyed the value of EPQs.  Well done to everyone! A thoroughly enjoyable experience.”

Please see below the diverse range of project titles:

Cross country

On Friday 3rd November twenty-four children in the Larch took part in a cross country competition against many other schools in the Hertford and Ware partnership. The children were a credit to the school demonstrating many of our school values and showing excellent sportsmanship. We were delighted with the following results from the competition as well as some excellent individual performances:

Year 5/6 boys -1st 

Year 5/6 girls -1st 

Year 3/4 boys -1st 

Year 3/4 girls -2nd 

With an overall 1st place as a school. Well done to all that were involved with this event.

Library news

Book fair in the Larch

The Travelling Books book fair will be returning to the Larch library between Monday 4th December and Thursday 7th December.

During the fair, the books will be available in the Larch library for students to browse. Here is a wish list document that students may bring into school and use during the school day if they wish to write down the books they would like to buy. Parents/carers can then view students’ book choices when they take their wish lists back home with them. Alternatively, you can browse the books online.

The book fair will be open to parents from 3:15-3:45 pm each day from Monday 4th December to Thursday 7th December. The book fair will be cash free.

If you would like to purchase any of the books you can either 1) pay for the books using a bank card and this QR code in the Larch library during the fair or 2) pay for the books online at home and then collect them from the Larch library during the fair.

To make payments please use the following link: www.travellingbooks.co.uk/pay. Then in the ‘Find your school’ search box, please type in the following number: 16903841. Please bring evidence of the book order and payment.

 (You will not be able to purchase books until Monday 4th December.)

Poetry Competition

Well done to everyone who entered the Poetry Competition.The poems entered were really inspiring! It made it very difficult to judge them. All poems were judged anonymously by the author Alice Hemming. 

Congratulations to the winners:

Harrison (Year 6)

Robin (year 10)

Bors (year 10)

Willow (year 11)

Head on over to the Library News blog to read the winning entries and see a full list of the runners-up.

GCSE Drama

Y10 and 11 GCSE Drama students visited the local theatre on wednesday to see “The Laramie Project”. The Laramie Project is a thought-provoking piece of theatre. It is a true story about a young man called Matthew Shephard who was brutally murdered in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998. In the aftermath of this awful crime Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theatre project went to Laramie and conducted more than 200 interviews with its citizens. From the transcripts, the playwrights constructed a chronicle of the life in the town after the event. This will form part of their written exam ‘Live Theatre evaluation’ work, as well as being another fantastic theatre experience.

Health, wellbeing and safeguarding

What parents need to know about…

Please click on the links to find out what parents need to know about smart TVs and what parents need to know about Tik Tok and what parents need to know about microtransactions

SEND team at Simon Balle All-through School 

As an all-through school, our support for students with SEND is provided through a team approach. We work closely together, to ensure a consistency of support for children and their families. We support one another, so that we can all develop an understanding of the wide range of needs, and the presentation of these from Reception to Year 13. 

As you will know, Mrs Raven (SENDCo) begins her maternity leave later this month. We wish Mrs Raven all the very best, and we look forward to welcoming her back as SENDCo in due course. 

During this period, Miss Wood will be our all-through SENDCo. To support Miss Wood, we are pleased to share with you the SEND team: 

• Mrs Kirk – headteacher – leading the team 
• Miss Craik – all-through SEND manager 
• Mr Robins – HOY12 and leading support for students with SEND in the sixth form 

We are delighted to welcome two new permanent members of the team:

• Ms Howard – Family lead for inclusive education and wellbeing (Mon – Wed)
• Mr Brown (E.) – Student lead for inclusive education and wellbeing (Wed – Fri)

Miss Wood, Ms Howard, Mr Brown and Mrs Kirk will all be proactively working in the Larch and the secondary phase of the school throughout the week. 

A reminder for all that the first point of contact (both for learning and pastoral wellbeing) should be your child’s class teacher/form tutor. Beyond this, please reach out to the heads of year and/or primary phase leaders. If your query is specifically in relation to SEND, please book a Calendly meeting in the first instance using this Booking link.

We look forward to welcoming our new team members and keeping all parents abreast of support within the SEND team across the all-through.

In related news, the Ofsted report from the SEND Inspection in Hertfordshire has recently been published. A link to this can be found here:  https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/microsites/local-offer/feedback/improving-send/area-send-inspection.aspx

Frost Fair Reminder

Just a reminder that the Frost fair is fast approaching. There are lots of ways you can get involved – see the dedicated Frost Fair newsletter for more details.

Amongst other things there will be an opportunity to get your hands on a pre-loved Christmas Jumper – just the thing to help you get involved in supporting Christmas Jumper day on Thursday 7th December (more details to follow).

Lost property (primary and secondary)

We are finding an increase in unnamed lost property in corridors and classrooms. Please ensure your child’s clothing is named (either full name, or first name and class). 

We highly encourage the children to be showing the value of responsibility in keeping their belongings on their peg or in their locker, and we are thankful for your continued support at home in helping build this responsibility with us.

Careers

Please click here to view a range of different career opportunities including – Solicitor, Finance and Trading Apprenticeships. As well as opportunities for students interested in Engineering and Art.

Please remember to look at opportunities from our last blog post as many of these will have closing dates later in the year.

Learning in the Larch

The children in Reception are delighted to have finished learning their Level 2 sounds in Phonics and are rightly very proud of themselves! We are now working on reviewing the sounds learnt, and practising our segmenting and blending skills to read words accurately. The children have also begun rehearsals for their Christmas Nativity show and we are really impressed with their enthusiasm for all the songs they are learning.

Year 1 have continued their incredible learning of the character Beegu, and this week have been using their story maps to write their own story about Beegu’s adventures. They are taking great care to use time connectives and to use their cursive handwriting. 

It has been wonderful to see lots of the Year 2s so proud of their determination and resilience when learning the ‘rebalancing’ method when adding the numbers 9 or 11. 

Children in Year 3 have been very enthusiastic about their new History unit; The Stone Age. They listened to information about Skara Brae and found it fascinating how artefacts have been kept in such good condition. 

Year 4’s new Science unit is all linked to electricity and they have been looking at how to make a complete circuit. In D&T, to link to this, they have begun to design ‘light up’ Christmas cards where they will apply their electricity knowledge to the making of these! 

Year 5 have been hard at work writing autobiographies in English this week. They have also been learning how to turn remainders into decimals and fractions when completing short division problems. 

Year 6 have been developing their confidence applying a wide range of punctuation, including colons and semi-colons, to their newspaper articles in English. In Science, they have been enjoying learning the scientific symbols for components of a circuit.

Future Living

Future Living Hertford is collecting gifts for families in need this Christmas. They need new gifts for children of all ages. They are also looking for donations of new lego sets to support Lego Therapy. Please click the image to see the flyer for more information.

Pedagogy Portal

In today’s T&L blog, we look at a continued priority for us around how we develop oracy in the classroom. Mrs Boyce and Miss Chuchla have been instrumental in working alongside the Voice21 programme. We aim to embed oracy to improve educational outcomes as well as supporting wellbeing, confidence and mental health. The link below will highlight an aspect of the work with Voice21 about how watching videos of classrooms, can enable staff to professionally develop in this area. 

https://www.simonballe.herts.sch.uk/category/teaching-learning-news/

Spring Bulb Planting Project

Myself and Mr Tweed have organised a planting programme to encourage wildlife and increase colour around the school. It aims to target specific areas within the school and make them look a little less neglected and more colourful, als to represent the schools aims of  becoming more eco friendly. 

It also provided an excellent  opportunity to involve the larch eco group, with secondary school students in a project that positively benefits the environment and wildlife,

As a team we prepared the soil area ready for the bulbs. The larch students then took the lead on digging the holes and planting the bulbs. It was all done with excitement and considering the rainy conditions we were working in – it didn’t dampen the smiles. The bulbs have been planted at the front of the school for everybody to see on their way in each day, there were also various other locations around the secondary school site that have had a splash of colour added come spring time.

This project is the beginning of a planting programme that we hope to grow over the next few years. It will hopefully become a yearly part of the beginning of the school year and more. 

Elizabeth (Y11)

Colourful ceramic tiles (broken or whole) leftover tile adhesive needed!

Art and Design are planning an exciting project and will be needing a lot of tiles. If anyone has any spare coloured tiles/knows anyone who works in the tile industry that may be able to help please can you contact ledsterh@simonballe.herts.sch.uk

Wishing everyone in our community a positive and fulfilling fortnight ahead.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs Rachel Kirk and Mr Michael Moss (Co-headteachers)

Friday 3rd November

Co-headteachers’ welcome

We cannot believe that November has already begun! As with every year, an adjustment is needed with the change to the clocks, lighter mornings but darker evenings, and the need for warm fires, enjoying autumn and even looking forward to winter too. We do hope that everybody within our community has had an enjoyable and restful half term break. 

At this half-way point it is a great moment to reflect on all that was achieved by our wonderful young people last half term and look forward as well to the plentitude of opportunities during autumn 2. Please do keep an eye on our social media channels for the October highlights! To begin here, we would like to reflect upon the importance of our partnership between home and school. All the way from Reception to Year 13, we know that when there is a strong engagement between parents and school staff, we jointly provide the very best possible opportunity for our young people to thrive. This is evident in how well our Reception children have settled, already demonstrating an understanding of our Simon Balle values and establishing good routines with reading daily at home, sustaining child-initiated opportunities indoors and outdoors in school, and developing independence and confidence. Some highlights of partnership events across the all-through have included: Year 11 information evening, Larch parents’ evenings with 1:1 meetings, Year 8 parents’ workshop, Year 10 parents’ evening and invitations too for meetings with a particular theme from trips to our SEND team. There is much more to follow  – we strive for 100% at each event, and ensure our materials are always tailored to be informative and helpful to all. Our aim is to communicate with parents/carers in as many ways as we can to provide support – this includes safeguarding and e-safety, and attached to this newsletter is helpful information about our young people staying safe when using X (formerly known as Twitter). We strategically plan to capture parent voice throughout the school year so that we can learn from your feedback and act upon it. Please do take the time to respond to our google forms (always designed to be quick!) – we will report back to you to celebrate strengths and highlight what is next. 

And so to Autumn 2! To give you a flavour, we are looking forward to the poignancy of Remembrance all-through ceremonies; the celebration of no less than eight concerts with musicians performing from Year 2 – Year 13; ongoing trips including GCSE drama, OCR outdoor sports, geography field work and Year 6 Macbeth performances in London; and a high profile to PSHCE and personal development, including the profile of anti-bullying week and enrichment after-school clubs continuing at a pace (https://www.simonballe.herts.sch.uk/whats-on/extra-curricular-provision/).

Please never forget that whilst we want to highlight here all the exciting opportunities and notable and memorable moments, the core of who we are and what we do is in each and every classroom every day. A highly positive climate for learning created, and an excellent quality of teaching and learning to inspire and engage our wonderful young people. We thank them here for making our school such a special place to be.

Primary and Sixth Form open evenings

We are pleased to invite prospective reception parents for September 2024 to visit the Larch to have a tour of our facilities, hear from some of our students and listen to speeches from our co-heads. For the Thursday 16th November open evening please arrive for 6pm; if you would prefer to come to the open morning on Wednesday 29th November, please email larch@Simonballe.herts.sch.uk to book a place.

Our Sixth Form Open Evening will take place on Wednesday 22nd November from 5.30 – 7.30pm. Talks will take place in the hall at 5.45pm and 6.45pm. For further information and support please visit the Sixth Form section of our website. All of our current sixth form students are expected to attend to either act as guides for prospective students or to represent the different subject areas in classrooms. We hope to see as many of our current Y11 students there as possible to explore the different possibilities that sixth form has to offer.

Please share this information with anyone that you know that will be looking for primary or sixth form places in September 2024.

Pedagogy Portal

In this week’s portal, it’s a great opportunity to share the vehicle staff are using on our journey to reach our school improvement priority. Our aim is to achieve the highest quality of teaching and learning for all, through research-informed practice. Take a look as we begin the pathway to achieve this through the work of ‘Walkthrus’. https://www.simonballe.herts.sch.uk/pedagogy-portal-walkthrus/ ‎

Internal Assessments

There have been quite a few internal assessments going on recently. For the first time our year 9 students sat their assessments in the hall to give them the experience of a real exam environment, year 12s completed in-class assessments this week and year 11 have their mock exams coming up in December. Dates for all these internal assessments (and the dates for reports and parents for each year group) can be found on the Assessment page of the website.

House competitions update

Over 60 students across the Larch centre and the secondary phase entered the Pumpkin decorating competition. There were so many spooky, creative and imaginative entries. Thank you to all of the students who entered.

The winners of the pumpkin competition are:

Larch centre:

• 3rd – Elijah – Hedgehogs
• 2nd – Darcey-Rose – Squirrels
• 1st – Jacob – Owls

Secondary phase:

• 3rd – Edie – 7N
• 2nd – Martha – 10N
• 1st – Vladyslava – 11L

Congratulations to our winners. They received Halloween treats and House points. All entries were awarded a House point. 

Our first Inter House sports competition of the year took place towards the end of October and what a great festival of sport it was. Year 7 students played touch rugby alongside the Year 8, 9, 10 and 11 Boys. The level of skill and technique was excellent with free flowing plays and students able to express themselves as well as representing their houses. The Year 8, 9, 10 and 11 Girls played Netball and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. A big well done to all students who participated so well displaying the school values throughout. The overall Year group winners were as follows;

• Year 7 – New
• Year 8 – Lea
• Year 9 – Rib
• Year 10 – Mimram & Lea
• Year 11 – Ashbourne

You can see a full roundup and house league table here. Stay tuned for the next House competition!

Sport News

In other sports news we continue the Year 7 Boys football team beat Totteridge Academy 3-0 to progress to the next round of the National cup where they play Kingsmead School from Enfield. The Year 8 Boys football team progressed to the last 16 of the County cup beating The Grange Academy 3-2 after extra time in difficult conditions. They will now play Parmiters in the next round.  The Year 11 Boys beat Chiltern Hills Academy and progress to the next round of the National cup where they play Stoke Newington school. The Boys also play Kings Langley in the round of the Herts cup. Our Year 7 girls won their first game against Leventhorpe in the County cup and now play Knights Templar in the next round. The U14 Girls football team beat Adyfield 6-0 to progress to the next round of the County Cup too. 

In Netball news, our U16 girls play Stanborough in the County league this week and have been going strong so far in a very competitive league. 

In Golf news, on Wednesday 18th October, the Schools Scratch Championships Rose Bowl took place at Chesfield Downs Golf Club. Well done to our Year 12 representatives Alfie and Kieran who performed very well. For more information on our Sport extra-curricular activities please visit our Sports web pages on the school website – https://www.simonballe.herts.sch.uk/sport/secondary-sport/

Y9 Battlefields Trip

The second Year 9 trip to Belgium was a great success. Students gained a valuable insight into the context of the First World War by exploring key sites linked to the conflict in and around the town of Ypres, including various cemeteries, museums and former battlefields. Their impeccable conduct, engagement and enthusiasm was a credit to the school; one highlight was when Holly and Alexander laid a wreath on behalf of the Simon Balle community during the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate. Students commented that “I understand more about the scene and atmosphere the soldiers were dealing with which will expand my knowledge in lessons” and “It added perspective to the information we learnt in class”. There are still places available for next year’s trip for students currently in 8 Mimram, New and Rib.

Remembrance Service Friday 10th November

School presidents will be visiting students in their form times from Monday 6th to Thursday 9th November, taking cash donations for a Poppy. These are to be worn on Friday 10th for our Remembrance Service. Break will be slightly later for the secondary students and the service involves standing for a while, so please make sure you have had breakfast in the morning and have a coat to wear.

Y13 Geography Field Trip

The Y13 geographers have just completed the second of their two compulsory field visits. Their four days in Dorset gave them the opportunity to carry out some different fieldwork techniques and revise the coasts and rebranding content from Y12. Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door provided some physical geography awe and wonder on the first day, before heading to the Youth Hostel for dinner and the usual evening lesson. On Tuesday they set out to explore the Jurassic Coast between Lyme Regis and Swanage, looking at the different ways in which the World Heritage Site has been used to rebrand and regenerate the area. Dangerous conditions resulting from Storm Babet forced a change of plans, and after a short walk into Swanage to look at the power of the sea, the students spent much of the day working on their coursework. On the final day the students carried out a transect of Boscombe to assess the impact of regeneration on the seafront. Well done to the Y13 students for their hard work and resilience.

Learning in the Larch

During October, the children have been developing their understanding of the purpose of Black History Month and how we at Simon Balle celebrate it throughout our curriculum all year round. The Larch students have been looking at significant figures who are Black and British, researching, discussing and developing their understanding of their actions and the huge impact they have on society. We are very fortunate to have a rich and diverse curriculum for children to explore these individuals and others all year round. The children had wonderful, insightful questions and statements to share of their experiences and knowledge. It has been fantastic to see the efforts made by the children and their understanding of the diverse world we live in. 

The children in Year 2 have been learning how to use expanded noun phrases in their writing. Focusing on ‘On the way home’ by Jill Murphy, they applied this grammar into their own pages of the book, being very creative with their ideas. It was wonderful to see the beginning of their new Science unit, where the children were given different items and sorting them into groups, using the clues to work out they will be learning about materials! 

Before half term, Year 3 were lucky enough to have a play on Year 5’s Scratch games. They were asked for their feedback and what needed debugging. The atmosphere in the room was amazing! In English, they have begun to analyse different fables and what a moral is. Over the next couple of weeks, they will be writing their own fable stories.

In Maths, Year 4 have been busy learning and applying the bus stop method for division. This is a tricky method and they showed great determination with it. The excitement has started in English with them beginning their unit linked to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. These next few weeks will be filled with mystery, magic and wonder! 

In Maths, Year 5 have been working hard on long multiplication. They have shown great perseverance, especially remembering the place holder in the second row! In Science, they have enjoyed starting their new topic of ‘The Earth, Sun and Moon’. 

This week in English, Year 6 have been writing their own newspaper articles based on the death of King Duncan in Macbeth. They have blown us away with their language choices and ambitious vocabulary. When we started our new Science topic of electricity this week, both classes were full of excitement when we created different types of circuits. 

Larch Maths equipment request for donations

If you have any spare measuring containers such as plastic measuring jugs or weighing scales (not electronic), we’d be grateful for any donations for us to keep in our maths cupboard for teaching measures across the Larch throughout the year. Please drop to the Larch office.

Library news

It’s been a busy half term in the library. Head over to the new Library News pages to find out more about what’s been happening and the events coming up this month such as Non-Fiction November.

LAMDA

Well done to the below students who passed their exams last term:

Seren Duo Acting Grade 2 – Merit, Sophie Duo Acting Grade 2 – Merit

Laurel Solo Acting Grade 4 – Distinction, Ben  Solo Acting Grade 4 – Distinction, Emma Solo Acting Grade 5 – Distinction, Robin Solo Acting Grade 4 – Distinction, Charlotte Solo Acting Grade 4 – Distinction

Oxford University Opportunities – Y12 students

Please find below a range of opportunities on offer at Oxford University for Year 12 students who are interested in applying to Oxford or Cambridge University next year:

Online recording of a recent information evening regarding Oxford University access programmes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6zuws1OiUI 

The application forms for each of the programmes can be found below:

• Floreat (Humanities)
• Frontier (Science) 
• Fibonacci (Maths)

Careers and work experience

We’ve compiled a lot of links to upcoming careers events on our new Careers blog. Whilst many of these opportunities are aimed at older students, it’s never too late to start having a look at what’s out there.

On the 22nd – 26th April 2024 our Year 12 students will be taking part in Work Experience placements. Unfortunately, some students do find it very difficult to find placements that are linked to areas they are interested in pursuing in the future and this is where we hope that you can help.

If you are able to offer a placement during this week please contact us at workexperience@simonballe.herts.sch.uk and let us know the area of business/industry that you work in and we will be in touch as soon as we can. We would be very grateful for any support!

Health, wellbeing and safeguarding

What parents need to know about…

Please click on the image below (or download the pdf) to find out What parents need to know about X (formerly Twitter).

Nut Aware School

Due to having a number of students and staff with allergies, a reminder to please not send your child in with any food that has nuts in or hidden nuts in, this includes bakewell tarts (almonds), and some cereal bars. We encourage a healthy substantial snack for breaktime such as fruit, crackers, breadsticks or a small sandwich which will give the children energy and focus until lunch (fruit is provided to reception and KS1). We thank you for your continued support.

NHS Public Health Newsletter

Please take a moment to look at the latest newsletter from the Public Health Nursing Team. This month’s letter includes lots of information about sleep and mental health, as well as useful contact details for a range of healthcare professionals and support services.

SEND Coffee Morning

This week the SEND and Attendance teams hosted a coffee morning for parents to discuss Emotionally Based School Absence (EBSA). Some useful discussions were held with the parents that came and showed the importance of home and school working together. 

Future coffee mornings are planned for both later this term and into next year. 

If you would like to speak to a member of the SEND team, and your child currently attends Simon Balle all through School, 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

Attendance Reward Scheme

We would like to thank parents and carers for ensuring that their children are in school as much as possible. Our current attendance statistics are:

Whole school attendance 94.99%

Primary phase 97.88%

Secondary phase 93.87%

Our attendance sits slightly above the national average for school across the country but we are some way short of our aspirational target of 97% across the All-through. 

Students will be introduced to a new attendance reward scheme in the coming weeks with the chance to win a range of prizes. The competition will work on the basis of students earning a ‘ticket’ to go into the prize raffle for every week in school where they manage 100% attendance. The more weeks they have 100%, the more chances they have of winning a prize at the end of term. 

We are currently working with the PSA to gather a range of prizes which will appeal to our students and this will initially be run in the secondary phase. More information will follow in the next newsletter.

Giving back

Lego Donations

If there are any spare lego sets you no longer need and would be willing to donate to school please hand them in at the primary or secondary office. If there are complete sets with booklets and instructions this is great but we also welcome donations of bricks for more creative uses.

Frost Fair  

Please click here to see the PSA’s Frost Fair newsletter (this will open in a new window that will allow you to click through the pages of the letter). There’s lots of information about what to expect, and most importantly what needs doing to make it as successful as it has been in previous years.

We still need people to to volunteer to help out at the Frost Fair. Students, staff and adults alike, can you spare just an hour of your time on Saturday 2nd December to help make this year’s fair a success? Sign up here!

With a craft market, games, entertainment, craft activities, a super sized inflatable snow dome, mulled wine and giant pigs-in-blankets with all the trimmings, we know you’ll find something that you’ll love.

All student sign ups that complete their volunteer slots will be awarded a House Point and will also be entered into a draw to win a £20 Amazon voucher.

Christmas Gift Drive

Future Living Hertford is collecting for families in need this Christmas. Please click the image to see the flyer.

Hertford and District Foodbank

If you would like more information about the Hertford and District Foodbank, please see the flyer or contact contact Tania Noxon on noxont@simonballe.herts.sch.uk or 01992 410400 ext 236.

Raffle tickets

Tickets for the Winter Raffle are available to the all-through community.  Larch to Year 8 will receive tickets while Year 9 and above may collect from the school office.

This year, we are offering the option to pay for tickets online.  You will need to register and wait for admin approval before you complete your purchase. For more information, including prize list, visit the link above.

Gin

After numerous requests, our Festive Gin is back! Crafted by our friends at Spirit of Hertfordshire, save on postage by ordering before 30th November and select ‘local pick up’.  Orders will be available to collect at the Frost Fair on 2nd December.

Wishing everyone in our community a positive and fulfilling fortnight ahead.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs Rachel Kirk and Mr Michael Moss (Co-headteachers)