Headteacher's Weekly Update 3 - Friday 19th September 2025

Dear Parents and Carers

I hope this letter finds you and your families well, a Friday update for you as always.

Attendance first of all, which remains a big push for us this year. Last week’s figures are detailed in the table below. A special mention to 7C who achieved an outstanding 100% attendance for the week, well done to them.

Whole School Attendance %	Year Group	Attendance by Year Group %
94.88	7	96.67
8	95.67
9	96.16
10	92.83
11	93

Further analysis of last year’s GCSE results highlights just how crucial good attendance is. Amongst Year 11, 72% of those with 95%+ attendance achieved five 4–9 grades at GCSE including English and Maths, compared to just 20% of those with 80% or less. The gap is just as stark at the higher end: 52% of those with 95%+ attendance secured five GCSEs at grade 5 or higher, compared with only 14% of those below 80%. Attendance is vital – please continue to support us in making sure your child is in school every day.

It was lovely to see so many Year 11 families at the Information Evening this week. Preparing the Class of 2026 for their summer exams is a real partnership between home and school. The “magic formula” is not complicated: hard work, determination and, unapologetically mentioned again, good attendance.

For all year groups, I would stress the importance of positive home/school relationships.  The vast majority of families work with us so well, but we are seeing an increasing number of long, passive-aggressive and sometimes just aggressive emails.  These rarely help.  A phone call or a face-to-face conversation is far more productive, and most issues can be resolved very quickly.  Sometimes a child’s perspective of something is quite different to ours, so hearing from us directly is important.  We are quick to admit when we don’t get something right, and we will always listen.  Everything we do is for a reason, and always with the aim of preparing your child for life beyond Kelmscott.  We run a tight ship with sky-high expectations, but always with kindness, hopefully the very reasons you chose us.  Please let’s continue to work together.

A polite reminder that students are responsible for their own belongings during the school day.  Belongings left unaccompanied at break or lunch can be picked up by others (often by mistake) and misplaced, and with such a large site it can take time to reunite items with their owners.  This is an important life lesson, so thank you for supporting us with it.

Today our Year 7 students enjoyed the Clubs Freshers’ Fayre, an exciting opportunity to explore the wide range of clubs on offer from sports and music to coding and debate. The event was a phenomenal success, with the majority of Year 7s signing up for a club or activity that interests them.

Students were also encouraged to suggest new clubs and our thriving Dungeons & Dragons club is a great example of how student ideas can come to life. The Fayre offered a fantastic platform for students to share their own ideas for future clubs and get involved in shaping their extracurricular opportunities.

Our PE co-curricular programme got underway this week with fixtures for Year 9 boys’ football, Year 8 boys’ football, and girls’ football.  The Year 7 inter-form league is set to kick off this coming Monday, we look forward to receiving match reports as the league progresses.

Year 7 Boys:A fantastic turnout for football trials last week saw over 50 students in attendance.  The Year 7 football team also got off to a great start this season with a 3-3 draw against Willowfield, with Ivo Edwards named Player of the Match at centre back.  

Year 7 Girls: The Year 7 girls’ football team played matches against Edinburgh and Jenny Hammond Schools on Thursday 18th September.  Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the experience and the chance to get out on the pitch.

The Year 7 lunchtime inter-form football league starts on Monday 22nd September, and we are hoping to see lots of students taking part throughout the term.

Year 8:Year 8 had a brilliant start to their season, winning 7-0 against Highams Park in their first game of the season in Division 1.  It was a very impressive performance all around, with Adam Watton (8C) named Player of the Match for his excellent organisation of the defence and keeping a clean sheet.

Year 9:Year 9 had their first fixture of the season, losing 6-1 to Willowfield.  Although the boys didn’t get the result they wanted, they grew into the game, started to find their rhythm and showed great resilience.  We hope they carry this energy into their next match on Tuesday.

A fantastic effort by all our athletes.  A reminder that our PE department offers a wide range of sporting activities for students to get involved in.  For more details, please encourage your child to speak directly with the PE department. 

I am pleased to let you know that Safer Routes Waltham Forest are working with us again this year, helping ensure safer journeys for our students to and from school.  You can read more about their work and the benefits here. 

This week Kelmscott School is proud to be taking part in National Coding Week, a nationwide event that encourages people of all ages to explore digital skills and discover the opportunities technology can bring. The theme we’ve chosen to focus on is Artificial Intelligence, helping our community to understand what AI is, how computers learn from data, and the exciting careers this field could lead to.

Our Computing department has arranged lots of opportunities for students to get involved and we are excited to see the curiosity and creativity this inspires across our school community.

If you would like to explore at home, here are a couple of useful links:

• A quick tutorial on coding a flower in Python

• An article introducing some of tomorrow’s tech-savvy stars

A reminder that our Open Evening is on Wednesday 24th September.  On Thursday 25th September, school will start later than usual at 10.40am through the normal gates.

As always, I will close with this week’s Reward Points winners.  Well done to the winners from each year group with a special mention for Daniel Seddon-Cruz in 7C with 24 points, the highest in the school. 

➪ Year 7, Daniel Seddon-Cruz in 7C with 24 points

➪ Year 8, Lily Adamo in 8E with 19 points

➪ Year 9, Norbert Dorbrovat from 9S and Denis Colea from 9O both with 18 points

➪ Year 10, Rebeca Sukai in 10E with 21 points

➪ Year 11, a hat trick for Hannah Agere in 11K, Deniss Dutu in 11S and Rayaan Uddin in 11L all with 17 points

Wishing you all a restful weekend.

Mr Sam Jones 

Headteacher