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)