Windsor High School and Sixth Form

Executive Headteacher: Mr K W Sorrell, B.Ed. (Hons), MA

Richmond Street Halesowen West Midlands B63 4BB

Tel: 0121 550 1452

Email: info@windsor. windsoracademytrust.org.uk

Website: www.windsor. windsoracademytrust.org.uk

Company registration no. 07523436 Place of registration: England

Headteacher: Mr Stephen Lanckham, B.Ed. (Hons), NPQH

A part of the Windsor Academy Trust rust

Our ref: SRL/lga parentsletter150716PC(1SRL/parentletters/2015-16)

15 July 2016 Dear Parent / Carer As many of you will now know, last week we received the tragic news that one of our students, Phoebe Connop had suddenly passed away. Phoebe was a confident, warm and caring girl who was heavily involved in all aspects of school life and our thoughts and prayers are with Phoebe’s family at this difficult time. Phoebe will be lovingly remembered by all who had the pleasure of knowing her and we are liaising with Phoebe’s family on a number of plans dedicated to her memory. A book of condolence is available for people to offer thoughts, reflections or best wishes. Should your child wish to add a message, please guide them toward a member of the Pastoral team or email the school address info@windsor.windsoracademytrust.org.uk. We will keep the book open throughout the summer and into the new term. An area in our spiritual garden has been chosen by Phoebe’s parents to be dedicated to her memory, allowing those who knew her to visit, reflect or pray. Phoebe’s family would like us to express their sincere thanks and appreciation of the care, love and support that not only the school but the whole community has and continues to offer, not only to Phoebe but the entire Connop family. Funeral arrangements will be communicated as and when we are informed by the family. Yours faithfully S R Lanckham Headteacher

Windsor High School and Sixth Form

Website: www.windsor.windsoracademytrust.org.uk @windsor_tweets

Newsletter

15th July 2016

Issue 38

Special points of interest:

WHSA – for information about joining phone Brian Darby on 0121 550 1452 or 07966 882214

Lost Property is kept for two weeks. Students are notified of items via the daily message sheet.

Sale of Uniform – Parents or students wishing to purchase items of uniform can do so from school each morning from 8.30 – 9.15 am only. If you have any queries please contact Mrs Goodman

Academic Year 2016-2017 Monday 5th September: INSET Day (School closed to students)

Tuesday 6th September: Year 7 should come into school by 8.40am Year 8, 9, 10, 11 & 13 should arrive at school by 10.40am

Year 12 – collect timetable from Sixth Form study room at

times indicated below: 11.00 – 11.45 am Surnames A – M 11.40 – 12.30 pm – surnames N – Z Wed 7th – Fri 9th September Y12 Residential - Y12 classes start

on Monday 12th September

Debate Mate 2015/16 Debate Mate is a fantastic charity organisation that looks at bringing students, teachers and curriculum together through the art of debate. It is a nationally run organisation that works with both primary and secondary schools with the aim of developing a number of core skills, such as communication, public speaking, teamwork and last but not least confidence. From the start we had a core group of students in both year 7 and 10. The year 7s really took a shine to Debate Mate. They had their own mentors (Undergraduates studying Law, Government and Politics) and with all the snacks they could hope for, they delved into some of the everyday issues that arise within the education and legal systems. They really enjoyed themselves throughout the year and are already looking at enhancing their group numbers for next. They have been a pleasure to work with and although they were too young to compete, they have developed important skills. The main competition is aimed at year 9, 10 and 11 and comprises of 2 local competitions and then an invitation to the Urban Debate Mate regional competition. After some tough competition in the early 2 rounds the students held a regional ranking of 7/59 competing schools. From this they were invited to the Urban Debate Mate Cup. For the winners, it meant a trip to parliament, to represent the West Midlands for the National Title. Held at the University of Birmingham our 12 students, making 3 teams, took part in 3 gruelling debates with only 15 minutes to prepare for each. After that, based on a points based scoring system the judges would announce the top 5 schools, with first and second matched against each other on stage, in the Grand Hall, in front of 400 people in a live debate. I was so proud to hear that our students were placed 4

th and 2

nd. Our students, some of whom have never debated before in their lives were on stage with a chance

to represent the West Midlands in a National Competition. With little preparation they planned their points, sat down and with confidence and dignity expressed their arguments. After a long day of competition the students finished as runners up. A fantastic achievement for all their effort and hard work. Students: Emma, Joe, Freya, Joseph, Anabelle, Francesca, Liana, Isabella, Hope, Emily, Emily and Jessica

Windsor High School Calendar The back page of this Newsletter is the school

Calendar of events for the forthcoming academic year.

Please detach this and keep it to refer to during the year.

It can also be found on the Windsor website (www.windsor.windsoracademytrust.org.uk)

Our Value of the Fortnight is:

Opportunity: When one

door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.

Alexandre Graham Bell - Inventor

Dance Success!!! This last half term has been very busy for the dance department. The students have been dedicated and rehearsed for a number of events and we are really proud of all of their hard work. During our American Exchange week we had our Summer Showcase held at the Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton. The show was predominantly a showcase of sixth form work accompanied by WASPS Dance companies, Urban street dance club and Year 9 Dance Company. The show was an emotional rollercoaster for the audience with a range of styles included; from Jazz to ballet to street dance to contemporary as well as tear jerking choreography from our BTEC Dancers who showcased work they had created in their Choreographic principles and choreographing dances unit. During week commencing 4

th July a small selected group of students in Key Stage 3 were given the opportunity to

participate in the national event that was ‘Big Dance’ this involved the students working with particular movement and developing their own piece to share with other schools in the midlands at Forest Arts Centre, Walsall. 8 of our sixth form BTEC Dancers then went on to do a 2 day workshop at the Forest Arts Centre to create a curtain raiser piece with Flexus Dance Collective. The students who performed the piece they had learned on the Thursday night were also able to watch the performance by Flexus Touring Company and were thoroughly inspired and encouraged by the whole experience.

It was wonderful to see so many dancers perform at our Summer Fun Day this year, namely ‘Windsor by the Sea’. The students showcased work they had been doing in a club or in their lessons and thoroughly enjoyed yet another performance opportunity. Following this some of our students from year 7 to 12 performed in the Summer Arts Festival alongside musicians and there was a showcase of work created in Art and Technology. The event saw parents listening to a collection of music performances followed by dance pieces and then the opportunity to wander to the art and technology gallery. A thoroughly enjoyable evening was had by all and the opportunity for the students to share their work with parents was excellent. During our WAT Games the dancers performed a cheer leading along with students from Kingswinford School. The 13 students from year 7 – 9 had the opportunity to join together to create an opening ceremony piece which was performed before the games began. Towards the end of the event our students who will perform at The National School Games opening ceremony in September had the opportunity to perform their dance as a closing ceremony. This was a brilliant chance for the students to perform the piece in preparation. Our BTEC Dancers have been touring over the last few week to local primary schools including Hasbury Primary and have presented their ‘Performing to an Audience’ unit taking the audience around the world in their Peter Pan adventure of styles of dance from a number of different countries. Well done to our Sixth Form dancers for their continued hard work. We are looking forward to rehearsals over the summer for the National School Games opening ceremony piece as well as the performance on September 1

st. Thank

you to all students involved in Dance this year, we look forward to starting all over again in September with a long list of events planned. If you’re not already involved in the dance department extra-curricular opportunities, consider it for September.

Congratulations to the following students who have read in excess of one million words as part of the Accelerated Reader Scheme:

Zara Pearce 2,817,038

Isobel Parkes 1,770,934 Unhye Mvika 1,500,662

Sophie Matthews 1,380,361 Rameesha Batool 1,183,765

Billy Adams 1,325,168 Tristan Morley 1,113,601

Alice Locker 1,315,961 Jaspal Bhogal 1,105,548

Milly Allen 1,315,248 Rebekah Howell 1,086,780

Chloe Cooper 1,213,673 Martha Barnsley 1,086,395

Madihah Maan 1,194,886 Shaila Rajput 1,075,914

Lauren Morby 1,191,483 Emily Smith 1,065,549

Farah Al-Kutbi 1,051,467

Wishing all our students a happy and safe Activity Week, and a lovely summer holiday.

See you on the 6th September

Congratulations to the Year 8 Rounders team who came 2nd in the Dudley schools finals after coming top in their league. The girls have been very committed this year attending lots of training sessions and have a fantastic team spirit. Well Done! Mrs Whitehouse and Mrs Rhooms

Congratulations to this week’s ‘Artist of the Week’ from Miss Dovey and the Art Department

YYeeaarr 77 Lydia Surman and Leon McCallam for their excellent efforts with artist replicas

YYeeaarr 88 Emilia Dyer and Joshua Marston for their imaginative and creative ideas applied to Iain Macarthur style images

YYeeaarr 99 Sophie Bradshaw for excellent effort both in and out of the classroom on her final piece

Warren Cutler for using a variety of methods and media within his work

KKSS44 Emily Wimbush for great presentation and dedication to personal study

Abi Munro for her well-produced photos

B Row Edgbaston Regatta Success

The Windsor rowing squad participated in the Edgbaston Regatta this week. The day started with a skills test on the water followed by several races in single sculls.

Windsor came home with 4 Gold medals, 3 silver and 4 bronze medals!

Congratulations to all.

The rowing club will continue in September and we are seeking new members – no prior experience necessary. Rebecca Roughsedge 10S1 and Francesca Martin 10T1

School Meals We hope you can appreciate that there has not been an increase in price for school meals since February 2015. During this time the price has been held at £1.95 for a hot lunch. With the ever increasing costs to the school for supplying school meals, we regrettably now have to pass on some of the increased costs in order to maintain our high standards of provision. With effect from September 2016 the cost of a hot lunch provided by the school will therefore increase to £2.10. Other products will increase by a similar proportion. We hope that you understand the reasons for this increase and we believe that our prices remain highly competitive compared to other secondary schools and to Dudley borough.

Uniform open days: For students moving to Y8 through to Y11. In addition to being open every morning before registration to purchase uniform, we will be holding 2 uniform shop days during the summer holidays on Friday 22

nd and Thursday 28

th July 9am - 3pm.

So if you need to stock up please pop along.

Windsor 'By the Sea' Summer Fair

Another fantastic event was shared by students (present and prospective), staff and members of our school community last

Friday at our annual Summer Fun Day. This year it was especially themed around Windsor by the Sea and this was a huge success.

Thank you to all of the hardworking members of the PTA and

staff, the many students that helped to make this possible. Congratulations to the Cash Raffle winners: £100 J Armishaw

£50 R Gibbons

£25 M Burns

As a school, we have taken part in the Big Read’s Book Bench 2016

creative education event for Birmingham and the West Midlands.

The event aims to celebrate the region’s creativity as well as the

written word. We are one of a number of Schools and community

groups who have decorated benches shaped as open books with

designs inspired by their favourite novels, comics, poems and

prose.

For us the project has been a wonderful way for our students to celebrate their love of reading and

writing and given them opportunity to express this creatively. Students were challenged to use their

creative writing skills to describe the experience of reading for pleasure. Some excellent creative

pieces were produced by students from across Key Stage 3. Following this, the whole school were

invited to ‘translate’ selected creative responses into images. These images formed the basis of our

bench design. Students wanted to communicate the opportunities and experiences that reading for

pleasure has given them as well as celebrate our school’s culture of reading.

As part of the project, the Big Read are displaying the adorned Book Benches around the region and

have created a series of free indoor art trails, giving everybody the opportunity to enjoy young

people’s creativity during the summer holidays. Our Windsor Book Bench will be in Grand Central

Station in Birmingham. Please see the attached trail map or alternatively visit

http://www.thebigread.org.uk/trail-activities-map/ for more information.

It would be lots of fun to complete the book bench trail over

the holiday. When you find our Book Bench, please try to take a

‘bench selfie’ for our Summer Reading Competition.

After the display, our Book Bench will be returned to school to be

enjoyed by the whole school community.

Special thanks to Mr Neville, Ms Sterry, Ms Stevens, Mr Hardy and Ms Clifford for the time and

enthusiasm that they have commited to this project

Our book bench challenge – find what we’ve achieved at Grand Central Station in Birmingham.

Designed by Eliza Stafford Cockin (Y8)

Words into images: the winning design

Windsor High School and Sixth Form Calendar 2016 – 2017

The dates shown on the calendar are those we have been able to fix at the start of the academic year. Other events will be arranged as the year progresses and you will be informed of these as they occur, usually in advance through the weekly Newsletter. Please note, occasionally dates may be subject to change but again, you will be informed of this

through the Newsletter.

We hope you find this Calendar of use

Autumn Term 5th September – 1th December 2016 SEPTEMBER

Mon 5 INSET Day: School closed for students

Monday 19th Whole School Photographs

Wednesday 21st Y12 Parents’ Information Evening

Monday 26th Open Evening

Tuesday 27th Open Day

Wednesday 28th Open Evening

Thursday 29th Open Day

Friday 30th September INSET Day: School closed for students

OCTOBER

Thursday 6th Y8 Girls HPV Injections

Thursday 13th Sports Award Evening

Thursday 20th Sixth Form Open Evening

Half Term Week: Mon 24th – Fri 28th October

NOVEMBER

Thursday 3rd Y11 and Y13 Progress reports to Parents

Thursday 8th Y7 and Y8 Progress reports to Parents

Thursday 10th Y9 and Y10 Progress reports to Parents

Thursday 11th Annual Awards Evening for Y11 and Y13

Monday 14th Y11 Mock Exams begin

Tuesday 15th Y12 Progress Reports to Parents

Thursday 17th Y13 Parents’ Evening

Fri 18 WAT INSET Day – School Closed to Students

Friday 25th Y11 Mock Exams end

DECEMBER

Friday 2nd WHSA PTA Christmas Fayre

Monday 5th Carol Service

Wednesday 7th School Production

Thursday 8th School Production

Friday 9th School Production

Monday 12th Y11 Mock Exam Results

CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY: Mon 19th December – Monday 2nd January

Spring Term Tuesday 3rd January – Fri 7th April 2017 JANUARY

Monday 9th KS5 Mock Exams begin

Wednesday 11th Y7 Parents’ Evening

Friday 20th KS5 Mock Exams end

Wednesday 25th Y11 Parents’ Evening

FEBRUARY

Tuesday 7th Y9 DTP and Meningitis Injections

Wednesday 15th Y10 DTP and Meningitis Injections

Half Term Week: Mon 20th – Fri 24th February

MARCH

Wednesday 1st Y10 Parents’ Evening

Thursday 2nd Y11, Y12 & Y13 Progress Reports to Parents

Tuesday 7th Y7 and Y8 Progress Reports to Parents

Thursday 9th Y9 and Y10 Progress Reports to Parents

Wednesday 15th Y9 Parents’ Evening

Monday 20th Y10 Mock Exams begin

Wednesday 22nd Y9 Options Evening

Friday 24th Battlefields Trip (3 days)

Friday 31st Y10 Mock Exams end

APRIL

Thursday 6th Y8 Girls HPV Injections

EASTER HOLIDAY: Mon 10th – Fri 21st April

Summer Term Mon 24th April – Friday 21st July 2017 APRIL

Wednesday 26th Y8 Parents’ Evening

MAY

Mon 1 MAY DAY BANK HOLIDAY

Monday 2nd Y9 Core Exams (3 days)

Monday 15th External Exams Begin

Wednesday 17th Y12 Parents’ Evening

Monday 22nd Y8 Core Exams (3 days)

Half Term Week: Mon 29th May – Fri 2nd June

JUNE

Monday 12th Y7 Core Exams (3 days)

Thursday 15th Y12 Post 18 Evening

Monday 19th Y12 Exams begin

Thursday 22nd Alternative Curriculum Day / Alton Towers Trip

Monday 26th WAT INSET Day: School closed for students

Friday 30th Y11 Prom / Y12 Exams end

JULY

Tuesday 4th Y6 Induction Day

Wednesday 5th Y9 and Y10 Progress reports to Parents

Thursday 6th New Intake Parents’ Evening

Friday 7th Y7 and Y8 Progress reports to Parents

Tuesday 11th Y12 Progress reports to Parents

Thursday 13th Awards Afternoon and Evening

17th – 21st Activities Week

Friday 21st End of Term: Summer Holiday

AUGUST

Thurs 17 A2 / AS Level Results Day

Thurs 24 GCSE Results Day