Junior Girls Bulletin
Claires Court Maidenhead - from Nursery to Sixth Form
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Mr Spanswick's Words Summer 3
Mr Spanswick's Words Summer 3
Dear Parents and Guardians It is a big weekend coming up! Everyone is waiting to see what Boris Johnson says on Sunday evening when he announces his plans for the next set of proposals to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. Whatever direction the...
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FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Tuesday 19 MayA-Level, BTEC & & GCSE Update Discussion forum Join Hangouts Meet meet.google.com/cam-xgqu-mht10:00am - 11:00am
Sites wide news
May bank holiday - Friday 8 May
Please don’t forget there is a bank holiday tomorrow to honour VE Day and that ‘school’ will not be in operation.

Academic bulletin 
The academic bulletin of 5 May highlighting A Level, BTEC and GCSE news for Year 11 to Year 13 can be found on our website

Taskmaster
As the week 3 Taskmaster challenge draws to a close, please find current standings in the leaderboard.

Your views count
Thank you to everyone who gave us feedback on last week’s questionnaire. Your views are very important to us and will help us shape our activities and provisions.

Sailing online results
Team racing online, and competing as a team from home are new concepts for our sailors, as they are for everyone involved in the new BSDRA eSailing Championship which kicked off this week. Despite these hurdles, and occasional technological glitches, our three teams of sailors, who between them represent the entire Senior school and Sixth Form (boys and girls from Year 7 through to Year 13) made it through their first matches this week (five races per match) with a total of seven wins and eight losses between them:

U17  
 Claires Court Blue
[Loss] 2 - 3 Ryde Junior  
 Claires Court Red
[Win] 4 - 1 Clifton College A  

U19  
 Claires Court Green
[Loss] 1 - 4 RGS Green  

Well done to team red and better luck next time team blue and team green. Full results and the league can be seen here and videos of this week's races can be found on YouTube.
SPORTS FIXTURES AND RESULTS
A galaxy not so far from homeA galaxy not so far from home

Claires Court living rooms have been transformed into the Milky Way as Senior Girls in Year 8 delve into space as part of their science topic.
Baking for key workers

Inspired by a weekly ‘ virtual bake-off’ outside of school and the ‘cooking live’ sessions provided by Food Studies teacher Mrs Irons as part of distance learning, Junior Girl Megan has been baking delicious treats for the...
Baking for key workers
Eating for Victory CompetitionEating for Victory Competition

On Friday 8 May 2020 we mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day and the Second World War in Europe. Typically VE Day would be an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on this important moment in history and would see us all marking the occasion with our...
Divisional Updates
From Mrs Rogers, Head of Sixth Form
Mrs Rogers shares a short film clip with news of the learning Sixth Form has undertaken this week, including the new initiative #LockdownLearners. You can watch the full video here.
 

From Mr Wilding, Head of Senior Boys
As we entered lockdown, I met virtually with the entire academic faculty in order to ‘future cast’ what we might look and feel like at the close of this phase of our lives in school. One of the promises I have made is to come back to school in June, lips perfect on the mouth-organ. Silly me, I have simply haven’t had the time. The second promise I made was to ensure we created memories during this period that we would never forget, Mrs Heywood talks below how some of the staff outcomes are shaping up. 

More directly, I’ve scheduled some ‘major events’ in the diary, and referenced those in the school diaries, bulletins, and assemblies too. Last week we were due to have our whole school photograph taken, and of course it was cancelled. This week we have set our Senior Boys and Girls the challenge of joining us in the ‘remote learning’ school photograph, with the simple idea of capturing that snapshot for posterity. No, we won’t sell it to anyone, though we will share it freely and individually only with the pupils and staff who choose to take part. I do understand just how difficult it is to ‘herd’ our young people ‘from a distance’ so any assistance their parents and guardians can give us, so much the better. There is a simple explanation here of what we are looking for, a ‘head and shoulders’ of each Senior pupil and Sixth Form student showing their ‘best self’ during lockdown.

It’s worth saying that most of the best memories from lockdown will not come from things we have planned, but by pure accident, and these will be very personal bits of fun for those involved. 

One of our singing teachers, Mrs Freya Barton (Sixth Former 2001 to 2003) is one of the singing trio, “The Candy Girls”. Bearing in mind that tomorrow, Friday 8 May, is the 75th anniversary of VE day, Freya sent me a link to their song written to celebrate the life and times of war veteran and retired NHS worker and volunteer, Joan Rich, aged 102 years, an awesome lady by any standards. Please have your 2020 VE day memory cemented by watching this very short video of the Candy Girls tribute to Joan Rich.

From Mrs Heywood, Head of Senior Girls
Whilst working this week I was reminded about the power of music. Having the opportunity to listen to the third 'isolation tracks' recording and reflecting back on the powerful memories and emotions of times gone by. 

If you have ever been asked what your favourite music is, you may struggle to come up with a satisfactory answer. On some level, we all know our musical taste can say much about our personality. So for the last two weeks Mr Richards and Mr Gravett have reviewed the musical choices and journeys of three well known characters within the Claires Court community, Mr Justin Spanswick, Mrs Vicky Ruddick and Mr Joel Waring.  

The broadcast according to Mr Richards shows no similarity at all to the BBC radio programme ‘Desert Island Discs’, that goes all the way back to 1942, where interviewees are asked by the host, to imagine they have been marooned on a desert island and can take eight pieces of music with them. 

As Joel, Justin and Vicky discussed their choices and related them to their personal stories, it produced an autobiographical account of their life experiences. As we sat back, listened and analysed their music, we begin to understand a little more about them; how difficult it must have been to select their top eight, without giving away too much about their inner selves. And, that perhaps there might be a correlation between some musical genres and choice of occupation.

It is no wonder that many of us struggle when asked about our favourite tracks. We need time as we are being asked to define who we are. So thank you Justin, Vicky and Joel for taking a risk and allowing us all a little insight into your musical tastes and carrying us along a little part of your life journeys so far. I eagerly wait for next week's selection to reveal another aspect of what builds into the deeper persona of someone through their music. 

To staff and pupils who have also shared other skills and taken a risk to keep the school community ethos and togetherness going in this different time, you have been equally inspiring to us all. 

Other Senior faculty news
  • Secondary survey feedback and follow up.
    • Very many thanks to parents who participated at secondary level, circa 25% of the population.
    • Please can all parents read the section below on remote learning reminders, which we do feel will help to reinforce where parents feel the school can try harder.
    • Do ring the school secretary if you wish for a quick response; there is so much data flying around, it’s lovely to hear the human voice!
  • Live link to week three activities here
  • Please do join either Mr Wilding or Mrs Heywood daily for gate duty between 8.30am to 9am; we do hope to see some others on our lonely watch. 
  • Please remind your son or daughter to upload a photograph of themselves to their ‘Tutor Group Pastoral Breakout Classroom’ by Friday 15 May, so they can be part of our whole ‘home school’ photograph. The photo should preferably be a head/shoulders shot and does not need to be in school uniform.
  • A reminder for Year 11 Parents to please complete this questionnaire by Monday 11 May, so we can put plans in place to support your child in transitioning to their next stage of education. 
  • 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

Remote learning reminders
  • Please remind your son or daughter that ‘school’ starts 8.45am with a year group assembly on Monday and form tutor time Tuesday to Friday. Academic lessons start at 9am, 10am and 11am each morning, and pupils should arrive in their ‘classroom’ promptly for the advertised start times.  The video conference MEET can’t start until the teacher arrives, and will stay after the main lesson briefing concludes to help any individuals, so do stay back and ask for support when you need it.  
  • There is a whole school assembly is Monday at 12noon.
    • BOYS - please join your Head of Year in your Pastoral/PSHEE Classroom to watch the assembly and then discuss with your Head of Year and Form teachers any outcomes as appropriate. Parents are still invited to watch the ‘livestream’ here
  • 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. After a second week of lockdown, feedback in subjects for all classes is directing them to add or make improvements; the greater time students are spending on their work now means we have many examples of high quality work. Thank you to the boys & girls for their feedback too; our students are telling us that the MEETs are really useful, but teachers might be talking too much in them, preventing the students getting on with the work set. 
From Mrs King, Acting Head of Junior Girls and Mr Richards, Head of Junior Boys
Hello all, once again we appear to have raced through the week with a number of new initiatives and experiences for us all to celebrate. We were delighted with the response and feedback to our live hangouts. Pupils and teachers have been energised by hearing and sharing stories. Relationships are at the heart of all teaching. Over the next days and weeks teachers will, when it adds value, invite and set up these sessions. An example of this has been the well attended and excellent cardio sessions from Mr Pennington and some small groups and whole class academic sessions in selected year groups. Participation is of course optional but we hope by offering these during the mornings and afternoons we encourage more to engage and enjoy the feeling of togetherness. Mr Pennington’s fitness soundtrack was also a hit with both young and old!

This week we have shared with you some optional afternoon activities for pupils to participate in and enjoy. Cookery on Tuesday afternoon was very popular and we hope you enjoyed to Mr Laouira’s first family quiz earlier today (Thursday 7 May).

We also hope at the time of writing that both our whole school ‘live’ celebration assemblies passed without a hitch today. The pupils have done incredibly well and produced many fine examples of work, great determination and lots of problem solving. It was great to hear that one pupil on a call helped solve some technical issues others were facing.

Do enjoy a great long weekend and please send in photos of your VE Day front lawn parties. We have attached a link to a few VE Day activities that might help as well.

Stay safe.
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
Another week has flown by, albeit a shorter one, and my new found home activity is beginning to show progress. The seeds I bought before lockdown were planted in a variety of pots, including yogurt and other recycled containers which I had melted drainage holes in using a skewer and my gas hob top, and they are growing really well! Whether they will produce food later on in the season is unknown but I have managed to put them into larger pots and even planted some outside so fingers crossed!

It has not been just the seeds that are growing well but my learning and that of my staff has come on leaps and bounds since lockdown and we are now all coping so much better with technology. Learning through play is the fundamental way of learning for young children and I feel sure the Nursery children will be doing lots of that at home but I hope that our weekly planning guidance and regular linked videos will be helping with ideas and giving a bit of support. Just seeing their teachers faces and hearing their voices will keep the sense and spirit of Claires Court Nursery alive for them I hope.

VE Day tomorrow will have to be celebrated in a way quite different from that originally planned but I am sure it will be celebrated with neighbours talking to one another across their gardens, creating a sense of community. What we need next is a V for the W day and a world celebration of the defeat of this terrible virus. 

Other Nursery faculty news
  • You may continue to contact the Nursery School Office on nursery@clairescourt.com or you can leave a voicemail on 01628 327500.
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MORE SNAPS OF THIS WEEK IN SCHOOL
1 College Avenue, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 6AW
Tel: 01628 327500     Email: juniorgirls@clairescourt.com

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