Dear Parents/Carers
I hope this letter finds you and your families well; a Friday update for you, as always.
We welcomed hundreds of new families to Kelmscott on Wednesday evening, as we opened our doors for Open Evening. The event was a great success as we showcased the school, and everything it offers, to our community. Our current students were pivotal to this; operating as tour guides as well as helping out in every department across the school. It is not an exaggeration to say that I have been inundated with messages from the families who visited us yesterday, to say how impressed they were with our students. They display such maturity and are clearly very proud of the school that they attend. This is very heart-warming to see. My heartfelt thanks to all those students who helped out on Wednesday.
The Classics Department is thrilled to announce a unique opportunity for KS3 and GCSE students, to delve into the myth of King Erisychthon through a dynamic four-part workshop series led by Dr. Efi Spentzou, from Royal Holloway University. This series includes three creative sessions followed by a public event showcasing the artistic and architectural interpretations inspired by this ancient story. Students will have the chance to envisage a green school and neighbourhood within the landscape of Kelmscott, bringing these mythical characters to life.
The Art department continues to welcome students wishing to use the Art room, K207, every Friday lunchtime from 12:45 - 1:15pm, especially useful for those students wishing to enter the Black History Hero Portrait competition. With many fabulous art prizes to be won this is always an extremely popular competition, with some very exciting entries.
We received a query about what happens at break and lunchtimes when it is wet, a pertinent question for this week of course. Our school is set up well to deal with wet weather. There are a number of indoor spaces such as the library and canteen that are well used at break and lunchtimes, in addition to the lunchtime clubs that take place, that reduce the numbers of students that are outside too. In addition to this, all around the Lea building there is a canopy that provides shelter for hundreds of students. This means that all students can remain dry if they wish to. I say that, as despite having this provision, a good number of students still choose to play football, cricket and such like during the inclement weather. A good coat that is warm and weatherproof is clearly a big help too, along with an umbrella for when students make a dash for the classroom, between buildings, at the end of registration, break or lunch.
We have also received a number of concerns about the canteen, specifically long queuing times that I felt important to address too. With one thousand one hundred students at Kelmscott, it is clearly a challenge to get all students through the canteen, but it is not impossible. For the first two weeks, Year 7 came to lunch 10 minutes early which mitigated the situation. Last week, each year group had one day each that they came down early. This week is the first week where no year group has come down early – clearly we don’t want students missing out on learning from their lessons. As I think families know there is a rota each day to try to be as fair as possible.
Students who are first or second on the rota arrive straight away, the first named year group enter the canteen instantly, the second line up outside, under the canopy. We tell the third year group to arrive at 1pm approx. so they do not waste time queuing. The fourth and fifth year groups know that they won’t get in until 1:10 approx. so they can socialise, go and play football or cricket, head to library for 30-40 minutes, until they are called to line up.
This week, students have been served their food by 1.20pm at the very latest leaving them 10 minutes to eat their lunch in the worst case scenario, not perfect, but not a disaster for that small group. On certain days, things can be a bit tighter e.g. fish and chips on a Friday, which always proves popular (this was definitely the case today as we overran) and the roast dinner on a Wednesday, that is also popular but also a bit more time consuming to plate up with seven elements on the plate. This can slow the queue both inside and out. I spoke to the Pantry about this last week and have asked for them to increase their number of staff to speed this up. I haven’t received a response from their management team yet but will chase next week if I don’t hear anything. Ultimately, no student will go hungry though, if we need to, on the rare occasion, we will extend the lunch slightly (5 minutes typically) for the small numbers of students at the back of the line.
Students who bring packed lunches line up with their year group too, as per the rota, but they are called forward, usually straight away, as long as there is room in the canteen at that point – which is normally the case. I know some families box clever on the day their child’s year group is last in line and provide a packed lunch on that particular day but it’s our job to provide a hot meal for students, so please don’t feel you need to do this. We had some problems last year with food running out in the main canteen, that has not happened this year. Our new chef seems to have a much better handle on both buying and preparing plenty of food to ensure there is a full plate for every student who wishes to have a hot lunch.
We also have our mobile servery that provides sandwiches, pasta pots and suchlike, to relieve a bit of pressure on the canteen. There is no rota for this service so any year group can queue up and buy food from there on any day. A member of Kelmscott teaching staff supervises this area. There is a finite number of sandwiches/pasta pots here and, given the servery is a fair distance from the canteen, once these run out, they run out. The Pantry do review the numbers of sandwiches and pasta pots sold each day, whether they sold out etc. and amend the number of sandwiches they make the following day. This is a tricky thing to predict sometimes, as you might imagine.
I always welcome your feedback on this important area of the school. We need our students to be well fed and watered to ensure they can engage fully in the classroom and with co-curricular activities. Three members of the senior leadership team are in the canteen every day to manage and monitor things – we will continue to do this closely.
I am delighted to report that our School Council Representatives and STORM Ambassadors have been confirmed across the school. Students who wanted to run for Student Council were asked to prepare a speech explaining what they would bring to the role and why they should be picked to represent their form. Students then presented their speeches to their form and then the form voted individually for who they wanted to represent them. For STORM Ambassadors, students had to put in a letter of application to their Head of Year who then picked two students from the year group.
Congratulations to all those who have been appointed. A full list of all those appointed may be viewed here
Another very busy week for our athletes, apologies, I failed to mention in my letter last week that our Year 9 boys played Lammas and won 12-2, what a great start back. Goal scorers were Sercan with a phenomenal four goals, Esa and Terrell with hat tricks and Omar and Haider both scoring.
Our Year 8’s team had their first game of the season this week against Holy family. In a tough well-fought game, Kelmscott showed fantastic team spirit with the match ending in an exhilarating 2-2 draw. Mr Howell has been impressed with the commitment shown by Year 8 so far, he had the luxury of an 18 man squad for this first game, keep it up Year 8!
Congratulations to our Year 9 netball team who played their first ever fixture this week. The team had a fast paced game against Walthamstow School for Girls and whilst they did not win the match, they learned a huge amount and are keen to play more. A special mention to Hannah Arthur for scoring and Arwen Brown who was given player of the match. A fantastic start for a team who have made tremendous progress and show outstanding potential.
Dance has made a positive start this week with a mixture of Year 7 and 8 girls joining, getting to know each other, becoming more confident, learning choreography and making some of their own.
The girls basketball has been very well attended by Years 7-9. It's fantastic to see the enthusiasm for the sport.
The Smiling Boys project began this week for a group of Year 10 students with the inspirational Kay Rufai and his team. The boys will spend the next few months working with Kai, exploring what it means to be a black boy growing up in London. The impact for Kelmscott boys involved in the project in recent years has been huge, so we are very excited to be running the project again. The project culminates with them having their portrait taken, we will advertise the subsequent exhibition in due course. More details about the project can be found here
Today is National Teaching Assistants Day. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our ever growing team of TAs for all that they do in our school. They are a kind, capable and caring group of professionals who work tirelessly to support all of our students, but particularly those, of course, with SEND.
A few Careers opportunities to signpost for you now;
An insight to PwC , one of the world’s leading professional services firms, offering cutting-edge solutions in assurance, consulting, tax, and technology, Virtual Event on Friday, 4th October, from 5pm to 6pm. For more information or to register please see here.
ACEN's free Evening Careers Conference for African Caribbean Heritage Students in Years 10-13. Friday, 11th October 2024, 3-8pm at Whitgift School, South Croydon. Cambridge University will host workshops on personality types and career choices. Following this, a panel of prominent young leaders in business, media, and politics will discuss how to find, create, and leverage opportunities For more information or to register please see here.
Young Professionals Parent / Guardian Information Evening on the 3rd October, 6pm - 7:30p. Bringing together 12 of the world's leading companies coming to share their insights and knowledge on how parents and guardians can best help their son/daughter on taking their next steps after school. For more information or to register please see here
There are still some places remaining on the Family learning courses for Autumn. These free, engaging sessions are perfect for parents looking to support their children's learning, improve their own skills and enjoy fun activities with the family. For more information and to see the full range of family learning courses on offer please see here.
Finally, congratulations to the following students who topped the reward point charts last week, with a particular mention to Osama Medjbour 7L and Younus Madadi 7K for topping the chart for the entire school.
Year 7, Osama Medjbour 7L and Younus Madadi 7K with 26 points.
Year 8, Tabitha Mastrangelo, 8C with 24 points
Year 9, Hamza Ishfaq, 9T with 21 points
Year 10, Deepmoy Pal and Arushi Seesungkur 10S, with 22 points
Year 11, Ruhma Zubair, 11M with 23 points
With every good wish,
Mr Sam Jones
Headteacher
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