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Let­ter to Par­ents Octo­ber 2021

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Cre­ated: Wednes­day, 20 Octo­ber 2021 11:02

Writ­ten by Vicky Willis

Octo­ber 2021

Dear Parents/​Carers

This term seems to have gone so quickly and we are delighted to be back in the swing of some form of ‘nor­mal­ity’. It is a joy to see stu­dents fully access­ing their learn­ing and using spe­cial­ist teach­ing areas again. The atmos­phere around the school is very pos­i­tive and this is reflected in the con­duct, enthu­si­asm and enjoy­ment seen on the faces of our stu­dents and staff.

A warm wel­come to all our new fam­i­lies. I do hope your chil­dren have set­tled in and are enjoy­ing school. I am delighted to share the news that we have a new Head of Year 7 – Amy Bur­ridge. Miss Bur­ridge has taught at KES for a num­ber of years and she has already been heav­ily involved in help­ing year 7 set­tle in suc­cess­fully so I know many year 7 par­ents will already know her. She is pos­i­tive and ambi­tious for the stu­dents — we are lucky to have her and I know she is excited to take on her new role.

In Sep­tem­ber, we opened our doors to wel­come a huge num­ber of vis­i­tors for our Open Events. It was fan­tas­tic to be able to hold these in per­son again and to be able to show so many fam­i­lies our won­der­ful school and all that we have to offer. We have received such lovely feed­back from so many fam­i­lies about how superb the stu­dents were on the evening and how proud they are of their school and the oppor­tu­ni­ties that they are offered. We also had many vis­i­tors through­out the open morn­ing who were able to see first hand the learn­ing in action and the excel­lent engage­ment, cre­ative think­ing and enjoy­ment in lessons.

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Par­ent Let­ter Octo­ber 2021

Details

Cre­ated: Wednes­day, 20 Octo­ber 2021 10:51

Writ­ten by Vicky Willis

Octo­ber 2021

Dear Parents/​Carers

This term seems to have gone so quickly and we are delighted to be back in the swing of some form of ‘nor­mal­ity’. It is a joy to see stu­dents fully access­ing their learn­ing and using spe­cial­ist teach­ing areas again. The atmos­phere around the school is very pos­i­tive and this is reflected in the con­duct, enthu­si­asm and enjoy­ment seen on the faces of our stu­dents and staff.

A warm wel­come to all our new fam­i­lies. I do hope your chil­dren have set­tled in and are enjoy­ing school. I am delighted to share the news that we have a new Head of Year 7 – Amy Bur­ridge. Miss Bur­ridge has taught at KES for a num­ber of years and she has already been heav­ily involved in help­ing year 7 set­tle in suc­cess­fully so I know many year 7 par­ents will already know her. She is pos­i­tive and ambi­tious for the stu­dents — we are lucky to have her and I know she is excited to take on her new role.

In Sep­tem­ber, we opened our doors to wel­come a huge num­ber of vis­i­tors for our Open Events. It was fan­tas­tic to be able to hold these in per­son again and to be able to show so many fam­i­lies our won­der­ful school and all that we have to offer. We have received such lovely feed­back from so many fam­i­lies about how superb the stu­dents were on the evening and how proud they are of their school and the oppor­tu­ni­ties that they are offered. We also had many vis­i­tors through­out the open morn­ing who were able to see first hand the learn­ing in action and the excel­lent engage­ment, cre­ative think­ing and enjoy­ment in lessons.

SCHOOLS’ POLICE OFFICER

We are always keen to work in part­ner­ship with our com­mu­nity and this term we have been pilot­ing a scheme with the newly appointed Schools’ Police Offi­cers (SPOs). As part of the uplift pro­gramme, Kent Police have invested in police offi­cer posts includ­ing SPOs to enhance the pro­vi­sion around schools and edu­ca­tional set­tings across the coun­try. We have been work­ing closely with our SPO in the deliv­ery of inter­ven­tion and diver­sion schemes for vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren, work­ing with our stu­dents in under­stand­ing risk behav­iours and rais­ing aware­ness of ways to stay safe as well as act as a point of con­tact. Our SPO is a friendly face around the site and at the end of school and we are pleased to be able to shape this part­ner­ship to improve the lives of our young peo­ple and sup­port their feel­ing of safety and well­be­ing in school.

VAC­CI­NA­TIONS

There has been much pub­lic­ity about the 12 to 15 year old Covid Vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme that the NHS Immu­ni­sa­tion Ser­vice is rolling out on behalf of the gov­ern­ment. As a school, we are impar­tial on this mat­ter and unable to answer ques­tions or con­cerns. On Mon­day we pro­vided a venue for the Immu­ni­sa­tion Team to carry out both flu and Covid vac­ci­na­tions. A large team attended and worked through­out the day. We are aware that a num­ber of stu­dents who had returned con­sent forms were unable to be vac­ci­nated in the time and we ask that you direct any ques­tions to the Immu­ni­sa­tion team on This email address is being pro­tected from spam­bots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The lat­est com­mu­ni­ca­tions from the DfE/​NHS on child­hood vac­ci­na­tions can be found here:

https://​www​.nhs​.uk/​c​o​n​d​i​t​i​o​n​s​/​c​o​r​o​n​a​v​i​r​u​s​-​c​o​v​i​d​-​1​9​/​c​o​r​o​n​a​v​i​r​u​s​-​v​a​c​c​i​n​a​t​i​o​n​/​c​o​r​o​n​a​v​i​r​u​s​-​v​a​c​c​i​n​e​-​f​o​r​-​c​h​i​l​d​r​e​n​-​a​g​e​d​-​1​2​-​t​o​-​1​5​/

https://​edu​ca​tion​hub​.blog​.gov​.uk/​2​0​2​1​/​1​0​/​1​1​/​a​-​j​o​i​n​t​-​l​e​t​t​e​r​-​t​o​-​p​a​r​e​n​t​s​-​o​f​-​s​e​c​o​n​d​a​r​y​-​s​c​h​o​o​l​-​a​n​d​-​c​o​l​l​e​g​e​-​s​t​u​d​e​n​t​s​-​i​n​-​e​n​g​l​a​n​d​-​o​n​-​c​o​v​i​d​-​1​9​-​t​e​s​t​i​n​g​-​a​n​d​-​v​a​c​c​i​n​e​s​-​f​r​o​m​-​t​h​e​-​s​e​c​r​e​t​a​r​i​e​s​-​o​f​-​s​t​a​t​e​-​f​o​r​-​e​d​u​c​a​t​i​o​n​-​a​n​d​-​f​o​r​-​h​e​a​l​t​h​-​a​n​d​-​s​o​c​i​a​l​-​c​a​r​e​/

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COVID GUID­ANCE, LFDs & ATTENDANCE

Whilst we are delighted to be oper­at­ing with some nor­mal­ity, we are acutely aware of the need to con­tinue to reduce the risk of Covid trans­mis­sion. Please con­tinue to ensure your child does the lat­eral flow device tests on a Sun­day and Wednes­day and the results are sub­mit­ted through our Test Reg­is­ter app. Please also help us to remind stu­dents of the following:

• Wash hands reg­u­larly for 20 seconds
• Use the hand sani­tiser pro­vided each les­son in each classroom
• Avoid close face to face pro­longed con­ver­sa­tions with oth­ers at under 1 metre, where possible
• Wear a face mask on pub­lic trans­port if you are able

Con­grat­u­la­tions to all those stu­dents who have so far main­tained 100% atten­dance since start­ing back in Sep­tem­ber. Reg­u­lar and sus­tained atten­dance at school is cru­cial not only to aca­d­e­mic suc­cess but also to an individual’s well­be­ing. Whilst we fully under­stand that the national advice can seem con­fus­ing, for chil­dren it can be sum­marised as follows:

• If you have symp­toms of coro­n­avirus please stay at home and get a PCR test, which if neg­a­tive means you can return to school

• If you have a pos­i­tive LFD test then stay at home and get a PCR test, which if neg­a­tive means you can return to school

As you will be aware, track and trace is now oper­ated by the NHS health teams. In addi­tion to reg­u­lar twice-​weekly LFD test­ing, local health teams may advise addi­tional LFD test­ing. For exam­ple, if a stu­dent is iden­ti­fied as a close con­tact, they may be asked to take daily LFD tests while they wait for their PCR test result. In this sce­nario, they should con­tinue to attend school as long as their LFD test results remain negative.

We have a clear atten­dance pol­icy which can be read here http://​www​.kingeth​el​bert​.com/​r​e​q​u​i​r​e​d​-​i​n​f​o​r​m​a​t​i​o​n​/​3​4​9​-​a​t​t​e​n​d​a​n​c​e​-​p​o​l​i​c​y​/​f​i​l​e

but in essence, as a school, we aim for at least 95% atten­dance across the year. In the event of unavoid­able absence, such as if your child is too unwell to attend school, please tele­phone 01843 836366 or mes­sage us via the MyEd app or email via This email address is being pro­tected from spam­bots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. before 9.00 am on every day of absence. You do not then need to fol­low this up in writing.

How­ever, for advanced requests of absence for excep­tional cir­cum­stances, we require a Request for Leave of Absence form to be filled in and sub­mit­ted to us in good time where we will assess the case and write to you with our out­come. These forms are avail­able at reception.

PPEs and PUB­LIC EXAMINATIONS

Thank you to year 11 and year 13 par­ents for attend­ing our Rais­ing Achieve­ment meet­ings this term. Whether you were able to attend or not, please take time to review the impor­tant infor­ma­tion we shared and is attached with this letter.

Please do stay in touch with your child’s form tutor and/​or head of year if you have any con­cerns. Given our year 11 and year 13 stu­dents have not expe­ri­enced for­mal exter­nal exam­i­na­tions before, we are keen to ensure they are fully sup­ported in their prepa­ra­tion, so please do get involved with their revi­sion and encour­age and sup­port them by test­ing and quizzing them on their learn­ing. Year 13 have been doing PPE exams this week and year 11 have theirs imme­di­ately after the half term break.

TERM 2 EVENTS:

We have a num­ber of events planned for this term. As always, we are mon­i­tor­ing the local Covid sit­u­a­tion care­fully prior to any face to face events and will update you accord­ingly of any changes.

YEAR 11 SIXTH FORM INFOR­MA­TION EVENING: Tues­day 9th Novem­ber 2021 6.00 — 8.00 pm

We are excited to wel­come our Year 11s as well as exter­nal vis­i­tors for our 6th form Open Event which is com­ing up next term on Tues­day 9th Novem­ber 2021 start­ing at 6.00 pm with an infor­ma­tion brief­ing in the main hall. We will be explain­ing and show­cas­ing the bril­liant IBCP offer that we run in the 6th form and explain why our stu­dents find such suc­cess with this here at KES.

3/​…

PRE­SEN­TA­TION AFTER­NOON – WIN­TER GAR­DENS, Mar­gate — Wednes­day 17th Novem­ber 2021 at 2.00 — 3.15 pm

We are hop­ing we will be able to hold our annual awards cer­e­mony back at the Win­ter Gar­dens in Mar­gate on the after­noon of Wednes­day 17th Novem­ber. All stu­dents will be taken by coach to the venue and will be dis­missed from the Win­ter Gar­dens fol­low­ing the cer­e­mony. Fur­ther details will fol­low next term.

YEAR 7 PROGRESS EVENING – Tues­day 23rd Novem­ber 2021: On Tues­day 23rd Novem­ber between 2.40 – 6.00 pm we will be hold­ing a progress evening for parents/​carers of year 7 to meet with your child’s form tutor and review their first term at school. Year 7 stu­dents only will be dis­missed at 2.20 pm on that day. Fur­ther details of this event will be given to year 7 parents/​carers nearer the time, and we look for­ward to wel­com­ing all year 7 parents/​carers on this evening.

YEAR 12/​13 SUB­JECT EVENING: Thurs­day 2nd Decem­ber 2021 – details to fol­low nearer the time.

STAFF TRAIN­ING : 2021 — 22

In line with many other schools nation­ally we will, for some of our staff devel­op­ment time this year, be run­ning morn­ing train­ing ses­sions for staff between 8.00 – 10.15 am – ‘Early Ris­ers’. There are five days through­out the year when these are scheduled:

Wednes­day 29th Sep­tem­ber 2021 8.00 – 10.15 am

Fri­day 12th Novem­ber 2021 8.00 – 10.15 am

Fri­day 14th Jan­u­ary 2022 8.00 – 10.15 am

Thurs­day 17th March 2022 8.00 – 10.15 am

Wednes­day 27th April 2022 8.00 – 10.15 am

On these days pupils are not to come into school before 10.30 am. Stu­dents should report to their les­son for period 2 at 10.35 am where reg­is­tra­tion will be under­taken by their sub­ject teacher. Period 3 will fol­low at 11.35 am and lunch at 12.35 pm. There will be no morn­ing break on these days. The rest of the school day on these occa­sions will run as nor­mal, with school fin­ish­ing at 3.20 pm. Please will you ensure that your child does not arrive pre­ma­turely to school as staff will be involved in pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment work­shops and there will be no staff super­vi­sion until 10.30 am.

We will be hav­ing four fur­ther staff train­ing days dur­ing the year and as all staff will be involved in con­tin­ued pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment, the school will be closed to stu­dents. These days are:

• Fri­day 11th Feb­ru­ary 2022

• Wednesday/​Thursday/​Friday 20th, 21st and 22nd July 2022

I wish you all a rest­ful half term break and we look for­ward to see­ing every­one back fully refreshed on Mon­day 1st Novem­ber 2021.

Best wishes to you and your families,

Yours sin­cerely

Mrs V Willis

Head­teacher

Career Days

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Cre­ated: Thurs­day, 23 Sep­tem­ber 2021 10:10

Writ­ten by C Edwards

Sep­tem­ber 2021 Let­ter to Parents

Details

Cre­ated: Tues­day, 14 Sep­tem­ber 2021 13:41

Writ­ten by V Willis

Septem­ber 2021

Dear Parents/​Carers

I hope you had a rest­ful and enjoy­able sum­mer break and are look­ing for­ward as much as we are to the new year ahead. We hope that you and your fam­i­lies are well. Well done to all of our stu­dents who have started the new aca­d­e­mic year really pos­i­tively. We are so pleased to be back to some degree of nor­mal­ity and we are excited to get crack­ing with them and see how well they can do!

More than ever, stu­dents have to show a good work ethic, resilience and deter­mi­na­tion, as well as receive excel­lent teach­ing, in order to do well in their end of year 11 and year 13 exam­i­na­tions. Amid the con­stant flux and chal­lenge of the last 18 months, stu­dents have shown great tenac­ity and the GCSE and IBCP results were tes­ta­ment to their efforts — we are very proud of them all and wish them lots of luck with the next steps in their jour­neys, wher­ever that may be. We are delighted that the major­ity of our Y11s choose to stay on to study the IBCP in our 6th form; our sixth form has grown sig­nif­i­cantly over the last few years and this year we have approx­i­mately 140 stu­dents tak­ing the IBCP now.

I know many of you saw our Y11 and Y13 results news on our school web­site and thank you to so many who sent in such pos­i­tive com­ments and let­ters about our bril­liant Year 11 and Year 13 stu­dents and our com­mit­ted staff. Of course none of this suc­cess would be pos­si­ble with­out the ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment of our staff team who do absolutely every­thing they can to help our stu­dents suc­ceed. If our stu­dents work hard they will have every oppor­tu­nity in the future to find the suc­cess and ful­fil­ment they absolutely deserve. We know that with your sup­port and back­ing our stu­dents can achieve great things and this makes King Ethel­bert a very excit­ing place to be. It is also sig­nif­i­cant and impor­tant for you to note that at a time of a nation­ally pub­li­cised short­age of teach­ers, King Ethel­bert con­sis­tently receives a wide field of excel­lent appli­ca­tions from teach­ers with the appro­pri­ate aca­d­e­mic qual­i­fi­ca­tions needed for each sub­ject spe­cial­ism when­ever we adver­tise a teach­ing post. King Ethel­bert is a good place to work as well as a happy place to be for everyone.

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Let­ter to Y6 Parents/​Guardians

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Cre­ated: Tues­day, 14 Sep­tem­ber 2021 09:15

Writ­ten by V Willis

Year 6 Open Events

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Cre­ated: Wednes­day, 08 Sep­tem­ber 2021 10:40

Writ­ten by Deb­bie Shallcross