Junior Girls Bulletin
Claires Court Maidenhead - from Nursery to Sixth Form
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Mr Spanswick's Words Summer 6
Mr Spanswick's Words Summer 6
Dear Parents and Guardians  What a wonderful feeling it has been to welcome some pupils and parents back into school. I have been lucky enough to be based at Junior Boys this week where around 100 boys and girls from Reception, Year 1 and...
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FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Saturday 06 JuneCancelled - Diamond Jubilee Ball7:00pm - 11:00pm
Sites wide news
Term Dates
The first day of the autumn term has been brought forward to Monday 7 September 2020, with the new pupil starter induction day for Year 7 and above and Sixth Form planned for Friday 4 September.

Diamond Jubilee Ball and PTA fireworks
Following the PTA taking the decision to cancel the annual ball,  we confirm that refunds to table purchasers will take place at the end of this month. We hope you support us next year when we return to our usual May event. Thank you for your patience and understanding. 

We do look forward to recommencing PTA social events when permitted, and we do have scheduled our annual fireworks for Saturday 10 October at Junior Boys.

Year 8 and 9 HPV vaccination programme
Advance notice that both year groups are to be included in the local area health authority vaccination programme for HPV, and we target early July for an appointment visit to school. 

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

Summer Reading Challenge starts today
Today is the launch of the annual, national summer reading challenge for primary school-aged children. It is the UK's biggest free reading promotion for children and is run by The Reading Agency charity and delivered in partnership with Public Libraries. This year the challenge will be run online and supported with free ebooks, audiobooks and digital events. Join the challenge here.
SPORTS FIXTURES AND RESULTS
The puppet showThe puppet show

English pupils in Year 7 have been putting their learning into action by creating puppets of themselves to feedback their favourite examples of figurative language from Berlie Doherty’s ‘The Puppet Show’ short story.
Join the silly squad for the Summer Reading Challenge 2020

Get silly and challenge yourself to read six books as part of this year’s Summer Reading Challenge.
Join the silly squad for the Summer Reading Challenge 2020
Claires Court reopens to Junior and key worker pupilsClaires Court reopens to Junior and key worker pupils

Pupils from Reception, Year 1 and Year 6, as well as key workers’ children were welcomed back to Claires Court from Monday June 1.
Divisional Updates
From Mrs Rogers, Head of Sixth Form
Mrs Rogers shares a short film clip with an update from Sixth Form this week. You can watch the full video here.

U101 programme to prepare for university and the world of work:
This bespoke range of courses for Year 13 students has now launched with full details being sent direct to both students and parents. 
 

Year 11 T101 programme; 
Taster and transition sessions for both Sixth Form studies and work experience have also now launched, and access to the programme will take place via the T101 Google Classroom with full details sent direct to pupils and parents. Applications for our Playworker training will open next Wednesday, 10 June, and all Y11 to Y13 students will be sent the information direct at that time.

From Mr Wilding Head of Senior Boys and Mrs Heywood Head of Senior Girls
Welcome back to our weekly update for the summer term. This has been another week characterised by a great deal of information issued to schools by the Government on how best to supplement online learning and their request to schools to provide for 25% of face-to-face time in school for Years 10 and 12. There is obviously a great deal of work required to ensure the safety of staff and pupils and we look forward to hearing your views on our reopening feedback form for Years 10 and 12 to enable us to plan the phased return of these pupils for over next four weeks. The form will close on Monday 8 June at 4pm, and we will confirm our developing arrangements in our academic bulletin on Tuesday 9 June, published 8pm. 

As live sport begins, a cautious start to travel and as businesses navigate reopening, the country tentatively comes out of lockdown. It was liberating on Saturday evening to have the opportunity to watch the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket, viewing from home the second orbit of the earth and receive the good news from outer space that the crew had successfully docked with the international space station.  It marked the first mission to space for astronauts launching from American facilities since 2011. 
 
In assembly this week we also recognised that the Year 9 pupils will be the first Claires Court year group in recent times to embark on their GCSE courses in June. Year 7 and 8 will be encouraged  in small groups to become more confident in the use of video conferencing so they can get the best out of the lessons. This will also provide further opportunity for pastoral check-ins so no child goes unseen or unheard. It will also help to start building pupil confidence to be more vocal. 
 
We have also completed the final ‘strengthening’ of the Year 10 programme, with Year 10 picking up an additional Geography lesson each week (Fridays for B10 at 11am, and for G10 12 pm on a Wednesday, both for 45 minutes). 
 
 
 

And finally, we do hope Year 10 and others are inspired by today’s World Environment Day, to engage with the Global Classroom event

Additional for Senior Boys
We were delighted to welcome parents and pupils of B11 to their final assembly on Monday, at which we were able to recognise their academic contribution over the past year at school. Their tutors and Head of Year, Mr Thompson were fulsome in their praise for all and in turn appreciated the ‘Bay trees’ provided in recognition for their support for their tutees. The full assembly showreel can be found here and we commend specifically the two interludes, Theo Josh on keyboards and B11 actors ‘strutting their stuff’.

Additional for Senior Girls
Mrs Ruddick also reminded the pupils about our School Values Awards and challenged pupils to reflect on the great person they are by completing the key values application form which can be found in their year group classroom. For many pupils this will be the first opportunity to apply for one of these prestige awards, whether you are going for bronze, silver or gold. Think about your service to the school during and before lockdown. These awards are aiming to make the most of your skills, talents and interest and looking beyond yourselves to help others in the school and the wider community. Please encourage your daughters ‘not to be shy and apply, they will only be seen by the pastoral team’.  

Mahatma Ghandi expressed this perfectly, I think, when he said “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”. Opportunities for service are out there and will come your way. I encourage you to take them.
 
Other Senior faculty news
  • 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.  
From Mrs King, Acting Head of Junior Girls and Mr Richards, Head of Junior Boys
Another week of firsts. Junior Boys welcomed our Junior Girls and key worker pupils to the Junior Boys site. We have worked collaboratively throughout as Junior departments and the bonds between us have grown steadily with the reopening for Reception, Years 1 and 6 together feeling right in so many ways. We have been delighted to everyone’s response to the warm welcome and all ages (adults included!) have had an extremely positive and uplifting experience. As heads, we also got a little over excited and took a few risks at break time demonstrating our gymnastic abilities. (I am not sure who has the best cartwheel!) Fortunately the nurses were nearby...

We expressed feelings of nervous excitement as we planned our return to school during half term after such a long time away. What would it be like? We’ve been at home longer than we would be from any school holiday. Below two of our Year 6 pupils share their reflections.

“I was a bit nervous coming back to school after how long we have been away. There were so many thoughts going through my head. Was I excited? Was I nervous? I did not know. But after walking into my classroom and seeing my friends and teachers again I was no longer nervous just excited. The only weird thing about coming back to school is we are at the boys school! I do not mind being at the boys school, it is just a big change. We all got used to it very quickly though and were not scared after the first hour back at school. I love being back and I will be excited to go back to the girls school.” (G6 Pupil)
 


“We have been at school for nearly a week now and we are all starting to get used to the new way of life. It is a very strange and new way of learning. It feels very clean and safe because of the safety measures put in place and I believe the school is handling this very well. Even without all the subject teachers being present I still feel like we are learning the same amount as we usually would. I am really grateful that the school has given us a safe place to learn and a sense of normality back into everyday life. Above all though, it is great seeing my friends and classmates again after such a long time.” (B6 Pupil)
 

Of course while we have been adapting to life back at school, many of our community, both teachers and pupils, continue their learning remotely. We look forward to the day when we can all be back together in our classrooms but we are as always in awe of your ability to continue to approach everything you do with such a positive and enthusiastic attitude. We are very excited that this week we have progressed our live lessons and pupils are now permitted to have their cameras on when invited by their teacher, giving them the much needed ‘face to face’ with their friends. Teachers will monitor how well this goes but please do remind your children about following the school and Golden Rules as these do still apply while working remotely and especially when working online. We would like to remind parents that for this change to live lessons, pupils should be dressed for the day (not in pyjamas) and not in their bedrooms. 

It has been a great start to the last half term of the school year both in school and for our remote learners. Keep sharing your successes with us. We really appreciate the wonderful feedback we have received about the online provision and the pupils returning to school this week.

We wish you all a restful weekend.
Mrs King and Mr Richards

Other Junior faculty news
  • 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.


From Mrs Wilding, Head of Nursery
Wow what a week! When lockdown was beginning to look like it was actually happening I rather tongue in cheek announced that the field at the College Avenue site would be covered in orange netting and each child would have their own ‘pen’ separated by two metres before the next ‘pen’. The little seed sown in my brain all those weeks ago has come to fruition but fortunately not as individual pens! My amazing team of Mrs Ainsley, Mrs Freeman, Miss Green and Mrs Irvine with the enormous support of the maintenance team of Stewart and Tony have created outdoor ‘classrooms’ using the netting as the walls and gazebos for the ceilings for the ‘bubbles’ of up to eight children. Toys and resources have been organised into boxes to be used on a rotational basis and the indoor classrooms rearranged in case the weather is so awful that we cannot be outside. We have taken on board what we are being told that the outside environment is safer for everyone so fingers crossed that the weather supports this. We all just have to dress appropriately whether for hot, cold, sunny, wet or windy days and enjoy the experience to the fullest. Having the big field as the Nursery area for our sole use makes me realise how lucky we are. So many nurseries will be struggling with confined spaces.

I have to say I was hugely impressed with the reopening of the Junior Boys site on Monday for the girls and boys in Reception, Year 1 , Year 6 and key worker children. It was incredibly well organised and the 100 children seemed so happy to be back at school. The arrival of children was calm, efficient and so friendly and the collection was done with almost military precision with all children safely keeping their distance, having their hands sanitised, and into their parents cars within 14 minutes! Now there’s a challenge for us. Not feeling quite so optimistic on that one but you never know.

Have a lovely weekend.
Stay safe, healthy and happy.

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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1 College Avenue, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 6AW
Tel: 01628 327500     Email: juniorgirls@clairescourt.com

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