Therfield School ‘The Best for All’ - Excellence Leadership Opportunity

Newsletter

October

2013

Dear Parents It has been a first class start to the new school year and we have already had a number of highly successful events. The year 7s have had their Team building days, we have had around 150 students out on Duke of Edinburgh activities and our business partners have been providing a range of activities such as the body image workshop with Unilever and the power station development project with KBR. As you are aware the success at GCSE in 2013 broke several previous records and our analysis of forecast grades suggest that 2014 will be even better. The curriculum evenings for parents in Maths and English were very well attended and parents were issued with information on coursework and mock exams for students in years 10 and 11. The feedback we have had on these events suggest that parents find them very helpful in supporting their child. Open Evening on the 15th of October was an extremely successful evening which gained positive responses from many of our visitors. They were most impressed by the students who were tour guides and those helping in faculty areas. Several visitors said what a credit to the school they are. We know our students are our best ambassadors and we appreciate the contribution they made to showing off their school. Thank you for your support in ensuring that your sons and daughters are in correct school uniform. They are living up to our expectations and looking very smart, a number of visitors and parents have commented on it. Susan Willman Headteacher

From the Headteacher

Therfield School ‘The Best for All’

Excellence - Leadership - Opportunity

Leatherhead HUB

Unilever/Dove Year 8 Self-Esteem & Body Confidence Workshop

In September 2013, 20 employees from Unilever / Dove came to Therfield to deliver a Year 8 Self-Esteem and Body Confidence workshop. The materials in the workshop included group discussions, activity sheets and a short film produced by ‘Ranking’, one of the world’s leading fashion photographers who have worked alongside experts and Professors of Psychology. The purpose of this workshop is to help young people build and protect their self-esteem, enabling them to realise their full potential. The Dove Self-Esteem Workshop was created to open up communication on body confidence. More than ever, young people are faced with pressures to be physically perfect and live up to unrealistic ideals. As a result, many children create unattainable goals for themselves that can be damaging and long-lasting. Teachers and parents often witness the negative impact these pressures can have on young people’s lives and so welcomed the opportunity for Dove (part of the Unilever group) to run this session. The self-esteem workshop covers feelings about physical appearance and examines how images of models, actors and celebrities are fabricated or manipulated to portray a “perfection” against which our children often measure themselves. Most of all, the workshops help young people to develop the skills that lead to high self-esteem and body confidence.

This workshop supports delivery of the PSHE curriculum (Physical, Social, Health and Economic) And supports the Jan 2012 Ofsted Framework for delivering SMSC (Spiritual, Moral, Social, Cultural)

“Overall I was really pleased with how our students engaged in the workshop and was impressed with how they were able to be so honest with one another. There were some really powerful moments and some extraordinary film footage used to get the message across to students about the reality behind media images…the following quotes below from the students show how valuable this workshop was for many of our those inolved……….” (N. Woodroffe, Subject Leader for PSHE).

Comments from the students:

“I learnt that other people often want to change what they look like and would want some-thing that another person has e.g. if they have curly hair then they would really want straight hair….the point is that everyone is unique and although you want something the other person has they would want something of you…”

“I learnt that everyone is beautiful in their own way and that celebrity media are fake…”

“I learnt that no matter what you look like never be afraid to do other things….”

“I learnt to feel good about myself & enjoyed seeing how they edited photos”. “I now know that images are edited and so people don’t really look that way…..”

“I have learned that celebrities look different in real life…”

“It really helped my self-esteem and body confidence and I can now work to improve this….”

Therfield School ‘The Best for All’

Excellence - Leadership - Opportunity

Therfield School ‘The Best for All’

Excellence - Leadership - Opportunity

Year 7 House Days

In September our new Year 7s spent a day out with their tutors and Heads of House in the Surrey Hills finding out a bit more about the places behind the House names. The weather threatened rain but was fine enough all day for all the planned activities to happen. These activities included a morning hike, cooking hotdogs on Box Hill and an afternoon of team building games to help students in getting to know their new classmates and tutors. The students received a House coloured water bottle and the Year 7 House activity day was a fantastic way to mark their arrival at Therfield.

Therfield School ‘The Best for All’

Excellence - Leadership - Opportunity

MFL The MFL department had a busy & enjoyable summer term, with various activities both in school & further afield. The Year 9 Language Leaders successfully completed the Language Leaders programme which has run throughout the year. This involved learning about how to be a leader and perfecting leadership, teaching and teamwork skills at the Greville primary, where the students taught Ger-man to Year 4s. The final event of the programme was languages and sports festival with the whole of Year 5 from Trinity & Oakfield. The Year 5s spent the day having fun doing activities in French and playing a range of sports whilst calling out to one another in French. All the Language Leaders have earned their MFL colours which they will receive this term.

The language leaders At the Greville All the leaders with the Year 5s

The German Exchange ran for the first time in a few years and was a great success. It was a joint German & History trip, and saw Ms Buckell, Miss Ashburner & Mr Ridsdale taking over 20 Year 9 & 10 pupils to the Willi Graf Gymnasium (grammar school) in Munich. The students spent the week learning about the history of the area, including visits to Neuschwanstein castle, Dachau concentration camp, and the White Rose exhibition in Munich University. They also practised speaking German, went shopping, found out about Munich and learnt about everyday life in Germany by staying with a German Exchange partner and their family. The German partners vis-ited Leatherhead earlier in the year so they had had a chance to get to know each other before they travelled over to Germany.

Marienplatz in Munich At Neuschwanstein With the German partners at Walhalla

Going on the Rodelbahn Part of the White Rose exhibition

The final event of the summer term was the year 7/8 European Experience trip to the Black Forest. The group travelled with Miss Ashburner, Mr Thornton, Ms McKinney & Mrs Martin and visited both sides of the French/German border, including Strasbourg and Colmar in France and Triberg and Rust in Germany. They enjoyed trips along the river, visits to beautiful old towns, shopping, a climb up to see the highest waterfall in Germany (and try to feed some squirrels) and of course the annual trip to Europa-Park, the biggest theme park in Germany.

On the boat tour in Strasbourg On the way up the waterfall in Triberg Shopping in the old town

Tutu theme… …and umbrella hat theme… enjoying Europa-Park

Therfield School ‘The Best for All’

Excellence - Leadership - Opportunity

Attendance

Revised Leave of Absence Regulations Wherever possible at Therfield, we wish to work with parents to ensure that students achieve their potential and attending school is a key part of this. It is important that you are aware of the changes below as this will affect our ability to authorise planned absence except in exceptional circumstances. Please note the statutory changes below. Please be aware that The Education (Pupil Registration)(England)(Amendment) Regulations 2013, which become law on 1st September 2013 state that Headteachers may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances. The Headteacher is also required to determine the number of school days a child can be away from school if leave is granted. Unauthorised absence of 5 days or more may result in the issue of a Penalty Notice. Penalty Notices are issued by the Local Authority in accordance with Surrey County Council’s Code of Conduct. The Penalty Notice is £60, per child per parent/carer, if paid within 21 days or £120 if paid after 21 days but within 28 days. Failure to pay the Penalty Notice will result in you being served a summons to appear at the Magistrates Court. The school’s Attendance Policy and Leave of Absence in Exceptional Circumstances form

have been amended to incorporate these changes and are available to download from the

School’s website.

Therfield School ‘The Best for All’

Excellence - Leadership - Opportunity

Community

information

SATURDAY THE 30TH OF NOVEMBER AT THE KING GEORGE V HALL, BROWNS LANE, EFFINGHAM, SURREY. DOORS OPEN AT 12.00 NOON. CLOSES AT 4.00PM. Whatever you do, don’t buy too many Christmas presents until you have paid us a visit! You might just regret it! We will have a good range of toys from pocket money types to Hornby train sets and Scalextric. There will also be toy cars, lorries, buses, dinosaurs, cuddly animals, hand-bags, cheap watches, sweets, Christmas cakes, puddings, mince pies, biscuits, cupcakes, cards, scarves, perfumes, wrapping paper, jewellery, books, etc, etc. Refreshments will be available at reasonable prices. Santa Claus has agreed to break off from his busy schedule to be in attendance! Entry free! Car parking also free! The market is organised by the Hawthorn Leslie 3837 Preservation Society, the owners of the old steam engine that once lived at the rear of the Leatherhead Leisure Centre. All proceeds will go to the charitable society. This is not a commercial venture but is be-ing organised very professionally nonetheless. Your presence at the market will be very much appreciated.