Events coming up
October
1st Work Experience Information Evening for Year 10 students and their families
1st Open Morning for SEND and year 6 families
2nd Open Morning for SEND and year 6 families
2nd Rwanda Information Evening
4th Year 7 Team building day
4th Year 7 Welcome Disco
9th KS3/4 Celebration Evening (Invitation Only)
Saturday 30 November – Christmas Themed Craft Fayre. All funds raised will be going towards our International Fundraiser. If you would like to book a table to sell your goods, or know someone who would, please click this link.
We would also love to have donations brought in for the tombola that we will be running at this event. Please do bring donations to main reception
Tickets are now on sale through Arbor for this event in the Shop.
Message from the Leadership Team
Dear Noadswood families,
We hope this newsletter finds you well. Year 11 Historians have done us proud this week at their trip with Mrs Hobbs and Mr D’Arcy to Fort Nelson, learning all about WW1, so much so that their Education Officer wrote to me to say, "This is a quick message to let you know what a fantastic job your Year 11 students did today during their First World War Visit to Fort Nelson. Every student behaved exemplarily, asked good questions and showed excellent critical thinking skills. Various staff members from different departments even came to me and said how well the students conducted themselves; they are a real credit to your school’.
Mr West, Redwood Social, Emotional and Mental Health Lead also had reason to celebrate, having won a Celebrating Neurodiversity Award 2024, nominated by a member of our Noadswood community. We would like to congratulate him and all at Team Redwood for their tireless work, along with all in our Learning Support Department across the school. We believe in them, their work and in all your children who benefit from their work.
We’ve enjoyed another week of speaking to year 6 families and showing them the very best of Noadswood - our students! We have been blown away by their assurance in lessons and their confidence when speaking to audiences large and small; they have been a credit to themselves, you and to our school. Their honest insights about Noadswood, whether in formal speeches or in the many tours they have helped with, or in the activities they supported at Open Evening last night, or just in the lessons people have popped into have been so valuable - they make me so proud.
I will end this week with my often written thanks to you for your ongoing support and partnership with us, including when you bring matters to my and other leaders’ attention that we need to continue to work on or that bother you. Term is well underway now, so don’t wait to raise a worry or a question. One of our student speakers said to the Y6s last night, ‘don’t bottle it up, it will make things worse’, so talk to your young people about how things are going and get in touch with the right person if you need to. Our contact details are here on the website.
We have thoroughly enjoyed our professional learning day today, working on matters as diverse as cyber safety, inspiring input on neurobiology to support your young people even better, and a chance to set ourselves valuable objectives for the year ahead.
Looking forward to seeing everyone back together on Monday. Wishing everyone an enjoyable weekend.
Kathryn Marshall and the Noadswood Leadership Team
Hairdressing Salon update
A massive ‘Thank You’ to all parents/carers who have contacted us regarding our Hairdressing salon. We’ve been so pleased with the amount of young people who are interested in this. Please bear with us whilst we collate the names. More information on the course itself and the running logistics will be sent out within the next few weeks.
Wear Something Different Day
We will have five wear something different days this year where students have the option to wear complete non-school uniform or just one item of clothing that is different. We ask all students for a £1.00 contribution to take part in these events, but they can wear their school uniform if they wish. All funds raised on four of these events will get split between the Student Voice Group and the PSA to help develop areas around the school that have been identified by both students and staff. This year we will be offering parents the option to pay £5.00 for the academic year by the 24 October, or you can pay the £1.00 donation before every event. Both will be set up in Arbor under the Shop section. All students who pay their £1.00 (or £5.00 for the year) will be entered into a prize draw to win various prizes.
The first Wear Something Different Day will be on Friday 25 October and will be a Green themed day. Students have the option to dress completely in green or wear just one item of clothing that is green. This year we will be supporting two charities outside of Noadswood. The first one is Oakhaven Hospice, and the second will be Air Ambulance. Both charities are very close to our heart, but in the summer term we unfortunately had to use the services of the Air Ambulance on one of our residential trips for one of our students who injured themselves. The donations we raise for this event will be split between both
To help support both charities, we will be hosting our very first coffee and cake morning for grandparents and carers of Noadswood families on Friday 25 October. More information on this and how to sign up for the event will be emailed home next week.
Student Voice
Student voice reps meet every three weeks to talk about issues around school and areas they feel could be developed if we were able to fundraise. On the agenda this week we talked about the following:
• Outdoor Library – fundraising for a new canopy
• Wear Something Different Day – Coffee & Cake for grandparents and which charities to support and the reasons why
• Craft Fayre – this will be going – ideas and ways to promote
• Modeshift Active Travel Ambassador Programme – Survey to be sent home
• World Mental Health Day on 10 October
More information on what was discussed will be distributed to all tutor groups next week so that we can get some feedback from tutor groups before we meet again on Thursday 17 October.
Literacy - Noadswood Reads
Literacy is hugely important and is woven throughout all areas of our curriculum. At Noadswood, we pride ourselves on the culture of reading that we are creating and constantly developing.
Reading has never been more important. New research states that almost one in five (18.6%) children in England between the ages of five and eight do not have access to books at home. In addition, according to a report by the National Literacy Trust, the percentage of children in this age group who do not have a book of their own at home has risen by 1.9% since before the pandemic and is now at its highest point since 2019.
At Noadswood, we understand that Literacy is key to unlocking the curriculum for all our students. Beyond this, as they move into adulthood, literacy gives them more opportunities for future success, open communication which will foster healthy relationships.
As well as adapting Literacy lessons to bridge the gap in Key Stage 3 and extra provision for our wonderful library, we have extended this idea of reading for pleasure further, with each year group allocated a specific text that is read to them by their tutor three times a week.
We have chosen books that are age appropriate, but challenging, as well as being socially relevant. Tutors read the novels aloud, whilst students follow their own text to support spelling and vocabulary. No student is asked to read; the adult must shoulder the burden of the fluency of reading to enable students to hear cadence, intonation and emphasis.
Analysis by Kirsch comparing the engaged reading time of 2.2 million students found that –
• 0-5 mins per day = well below national average
• 5-14 mins per day = sluggish gains, below national average
• 15+ mins = accelerated reading gains
20 mins per day = likely score better than 90% of their peers on standardized tests. National Center for Education Statistics
Therefore, there are clear links between children who read independently and their academic outcomes and as well as benefitting future grades, we are striving to show students that reading can be an enjoyable pastime.
If you’d like to discuss literacy at Noadswood more, please contact jeldridge@noadswood.hants.sch.uk
Careers Day 2025
We hope our next Careers Day will take place on the 2nd April 2025.
Last year, Year 7, 8, 9 and 10 came off timetable for the day and were given the opportunity to explore different jobs across the curriculum. As part of this day, we had a brilliant talk from Dr Akbar, who shared his experiences as a medical professional. Our wonderful staff also spent the day sharing their expertise and the love of their subjects.
In April, we would like to offer our students the opportunity to visit our local colleges, and we’d also like to invite more outside speakers in. If you, or someone you know, has followed a particularly interesting career path or has something they’d like to share with our students, please contact jclews@noadswood.hants.sch.uk or jeldridge@noadswood.hants.sch.uk
Year 10 Work Experience
Year 10 work experience will take place on the week commencing Monday 7th July 2025. In preparation for this, a work experience information evening will be held on Tuesday 1st October at 6pm-7pm for year 10 parents and carers to attend. In this briefing, we will outline the Careers provision for year 10 and all the information you will need in regard to finding and arranging a work experience placement.
All Information and paperwork will be sent out following the event. If you have any queries or concerns, do not hesitate to contact either our Careers Advisor, Gordon Lewis, at glewis@noadswood.hants.sch.uk or myself at jclews@noadswood.hants.sch.uk.
We hope to see year 7 at our PSA welcome disco- all details below.