Senior Boys Bulletin
Claires Court Maidenhead - from Nursery to Sixth Form
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Mr Spanswick's Words Summer 2
Mr Spanswick's Words Summer 2
Dear Parents and guardians I hope you are well and a huge thank you to all of you who have contacted me this week with feedback on your experiences of becoming a temporary support teacher while juggling so many other plates at the same time...
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FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Friday 08 MayPOSTPONED Year 10/12 Silver DoE Training & Practice ExpeditionAll Day
Sites wide news
May bank holiday - Friday 8 May
Don’t forget there is a bank holiday to honour VE Day next Friday 8 May and that ‘school’ will not be in operation.

Academic bulletin 
An academic bulletin highlighting A Level, BTEC and GCSE news for Year 11 to Year 13 can be found on our website.

Keep up-to-date
Please have a look at our website and social media which are updated regularly with news, activities and creative ways our community is supporting one another. Please follow us on facebook or twitter.

Your views count
We are carrying out a short anonymous survey to ensure we are providing the right levels of wellbeing support and education. We appreciate your time to give views and ask that you complete the survey here by Tuesday 5 May.

Trips
Letters sent home this week:
22-24 May - U13 Cricket Tour Cancellation
SPORTS FIXTURES AND RESULTS
Year 8 delight in readingYear 8 delight in reading

Teddy, Louis, Fraser and Arthur have proved that reading for pleasure is a great way to spend the time during lockdown!  
Food for thought as Senior Girl volunteers at local food bank

As Britain’s food banks soar in usage amid the coronavirus pandemic, members of the Claires Court community have done their part for the local community by volunteering their time at Maidenhead’s food bank.
Food for thought as Senior Girl volunteers at local food bank
Feast your pies on this, it's the Claires Court Pie Challenge!Feast your pies on this, it's the Claires Court Pie Challenge!

Can you ‘rise’ to the challenge of baking the perfect pie? Whose crust will come up short as the winner ‘bakes’ all in the Claires Court pie challenge?
Divisional Updates
From Mrs Rogers, Head of Sixth Form
Mrs Rogers shares a short film clip with news of Sixth Form’s first full week back at school in active lessons, as well as news of some fantastic fundraising activities. You can watch the full video here.


From Mr Wilding, Head of Senior Boys
Whilst I have thoroughly enjoyed our Executive Head carrying the lead for communications to parents, I wouldn’t like anyone to think I haven’t missed working across the school community. Like all of us, my focus of activity has been reduced to a keyboard on my dining room table, and my sphere of influence focussed very much on the delivery of our curriculum, the support of our academic and pastoral teams and the reaching out to families to support technical delivery of services to their desktop, as well as modelling some of the most innovative short-cuts in the myriad Google Chrome teaching tools available to promote further pupil engagement. It might sound ‘sad’ but both teachers and learners are getting rather excited using ‘Jamboards’.

Mrs Heywood details so clearly below the joy and sense of achievement emerging from this work, and her ‘voice’ speaks this well. We’ve also been handling the closure of the public examination series this summer throughout the Easter break, and the weekly A Level, BTEC and GCSE hangout on Tuesdays at 10am have brought a sense of growing realisation to all that we have a really good handle on this - our latest academic weekly bulletin on that can be read here

You will see my blog post this week, “An extraordinary social experiment like no other…”,  is as much a letter to our own community as it is an outward facing communication to the world at large. Please do read it and by all means comment there or back to me directly by email. As Mr Richards writes lower down, we want our community back, and whatever post-lockdown we need to do, we’ll be back up and running for everyone as soon as we can.

From Mrs Heywood, Head of Senior Girls
The sense of belonging for our pupils is really important so it was lovely to have the opportunity to connect with the Senior Girls community once again on Monday afternoon bringing a sense of normality back to our working week. And, as we continue to master our skills online, our confidence grows and we are witnessing increased levels of pupil engagement. This is particularly evident during pastoral  sessions and we feel reassured as we step up the pace each week, that we are getting it right and value all the constructive feedback from our pupils and parents. Thank you for all the positive comments confirming the value of the new daily routine, increased opportunity for ‘live meets’ with subject teachers, an increased variety of late afternoon sessions and stimulating tasks to get the whole family involved. To all pupils who have embraced the new way of working, for all the lovely videos, making the best of what you have and demonstrating your determination to keep on learning whatever the challenges maybe in all your individual circumstances.  

From Mr Richards, Deputy Head Operations Senior Girls 
Hardy people and the importance of community.  

We miss you and all of us want to be back at school together. I think what we are missing most is the sense of community we get from being at school. Joni Mitchell taught us that ‘we don’t know what we have got until it’s gone’. We are doing our best to preserve a sense of community online and, by working together, we will all come out of this more ‘hardy’. 

The hardy personality trait is often cited as the most desirable by employers and can ward off stress in difficult times. Hardy people, like our Year 8 historians, see problems as challenges as they rose to the task of producing 1,000 word essays, analysing Cromwell’s reign, when they never thought they could. Hardy people take control of their lives in tough circumstances. At Claires Court, we have rewritten our summer term timetable to include more control for hard pressed parents and hard working pupils. They have access to teachers all day; live lessons in the morning and more flexible, independent tasks in the afternoon. 

People who have control over their lives are more optimistic and feel a sense of personal power. Finally, hardy people are committed to the world around them; they get involved in everything on offer in their communities. That is why we have produced our extensive (and growing) remote activities programme as a way of maintaining and strengthening our school community. You can get involved in the numerous challenges, from learning how to putt with our Academic Principal and listening to your Executive Headteacher muse on falling in love to cooking live with Ms Irons - or any of the wide range of challenges on offer throughout the week. 

There is a wonderful community at our school and we must ensure we come out of this more hardy by seeing problems as challenges, taking control and being committed to the world around us. 

Other Senior faculty news
  • Live link to Week 2 Activities here
  • Please join either Mr Wilding or Mrs Heywood daily for gate duty between 8.30am to 9am if you have anything to discuss
  • Please remind your son or daughter that ‘school’ starts 8.45am with a Year Group assembly on Monday, Form Tutor time Tuesday to Friday. Academic lessons start at 9am, 10am and 11am each morning, and pupils should arrive in their ‘classroom’ in advance of these times, so they are ready to start learning promptly. Whole School Assembly is Monday at 12noon
  • If your son or daughter is unable to attend lessons due to illness or ’absence’, please email the relevant school office on:
Senior Girls: girls@clairescourt.com or leave a voicemail on 01628 327500 before 9.30am
Senior Boys:  seniorboys@clairescourt.com or leave a voicemail on 01628 327600 before 9.30am
This is to let us know if your son or daughter is not well, or is not going to be accessing the morning sessions. That way we know not to expect them to submit work and therefore will not mark it as missing. Thank you
  • If your son or daughter is saying they have completed their work already or there is not enough work, please ask them to go back and read the instructions again and to check their work carefully. Feedback is already returning from their teachers, directing them to add or make improvements; the less time they spend to start with, the greater the improvements needed immediately afterwards. We want all pupils to be fully engaged with their learning and producing quality work, and we are now seeing some absolutely fabulous examples, which set a good standard for us to see what can be achieved under ‘lockdown’. 
From Mrs King, Acting Head of Junior Girls and Mr Richards, Head of Junior Boys
We have completed our first full week of the summer term and home learning is in full swing. Our pupils continue to make us proud every single day with their ability to adapt to these strange and challenging times. We have thoroughly enjoyed hearing about and also seeing on our desktops the amazing work in all curriculum areas that has been completed. This week we have had several trials of our first live hangouts where pupils and teachers can interact with each other, trying to bring something a bit more ‘normal’ to our home learning experience. The feedback from teachers, pupils and parents has been wonderful and once again we must thank you for your unwavering support in adapting with us. Over the coming weeks we look forward to welcoming more pupils and their teachers into live hangouts.

On Thursday it was Captain Tom Moore’s 100th birthday. What a fantastic example of determination and compassion. I’m sure we have all heard how he set out to raise £500 for the NHS by walking 100 lengths of his garden. He certainly smashed his goal and on writing this has raised over £30 million. His birthday was honoured with an RAF fly past and the Queen promoted him to honorary colonel, very well deserved. I think the message we should all take from this is that setting ourselves manageable goals is what drives us forward, who knows what can be achieved one small step at a time.

Yesterday a colleague said: “We are all in the same storm but in different boats.” Wonderful words to simply illustrate that the current situation poses different challenges for all of us. We are here to support our families so please keep in touch or catch up with us on gate duty from 8.30am to 8.50am each day throughout the week. Please remember our online sessions are 45 minutes long and that we are trying to provide suitable work for all. If your child has made a really good effort in the time and there is still more to do, it is not a problem. We are not judging individuals or homes. Please submit what you can and be reassured we do not wish anyone to be concerned that they have not ‘finished’ it. If you are also feeling overwhelmed by email traffic created from within the classroom, there is a process to switch off notifications. However, this does mean that pupils need to remember to look within the classrooms. Please do contact your classroom’s teacher to ask them to do this.
 
Wishing you all a peaceful weekend.

Mrs King and Mr Richards 

Other Junior faculty news
  • For Junior Girls: Please join Mrs King daily for gate duty between 8.30am to 8.50am 
  • For Junior Boys: Please join Mr Richards daily for gate duty between 8.30am to 8.50am 
  • Please remind your son or daughter that ‘school’ starts at 8.45am. Academic lessons start at 9.15am, 10.15am and 11.15am in the morning, and the pupils should arrive in their ‘classroom’ in advance of these times, so they are ready to start learning promptly 
  • If your son or daughter is unable to attend lessons due to illness or ‘absence’, please contact the school office via:
Junior Girls: girls@clairescourt.com or leave a voicemail message on 01628 327500 before 9.30am
Junior Boys: Juniorboys@clairescourt.com  or leave a voicemail message on 01628 327400 before 9.30am
This is to let us know if your son or daughter is not well, or is not going to be accessing the morning sessions. That way we know not to expect them to submit work and therefore will not mark it as missing. Thank you.


From Mrs Wilding, Head of Nursery
This week seems to have flown by and I can see from photos you have sent in to your child’s class leader that your children have been busy having great fun and learning. Seeing RS following Miss Green’s counting routine so incredibly well is a delight, AR’s writing is coming along incredibly well and JB’s planting activity in the garden is super. Well done everybody this week and I hope that those of you in Transition have learnt lots about plants and growing them. Certainly my conservatory seems to be changing into a greenhouse as so many of my seeds are growing well and the runner beans are nearing the top of the canes. Possibly time for another story (not sure that I will find a hen laying golden eggs at the top of mine though). This topic will continue next week for you. The Nursery classes have had fun with farms and animals this week and again very well done for all your activity and learning. On Monday the topic changes for you to ‘the lifecycle of a frog’ which I hope you will find interesting. 

Many thanks for those who have let the registrar know about moving on to their new school in September and just a reminder that notice needs to be in by this coming half term if your child is leaving us in July.

Stay safe and have a lovely weekend.

Other Nursery faculty news
  • You may continue to contact the Nursery Office on: nursery@clairescourt.com or you can leave a voicemail on 01628 327500.
READ OUR PRINCIPAL'S BLOG
From the photo galleryFrom the photo gallery
From the photo galleryFrom the photo gallery
MORE SNAPS OF THIS WEEK IN SCHOOL
Ray Mill Road East, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 8TE
Tel: 01628 327600     Email: seniorboys@clairescourt.com

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