The Lenham School Newsletter

Term 1 - autumn Term

Contents

Footballs and Fiction - Mr Ferguson

Welcome

Success at TLS

Pro Soccer Academy

Positive Changes

The Importance of Reading

Welcome to Year 7

Trips & Visits

TLS in the Community

Year 7 Transition Week

Half Term

Kent Family Hub

Refer Kent

How to Find Out More

Second Hand Uniform

Dates for the Diary - Term 2

welcome

Welcome to the first newsletter of this academic year. The first few weeks have gone by very quickly, but the school has settled into a good routine with students making a positive start to the new year.

Success at TLS

TLS is extremely proud of the results achieved by both our Year 13 and Year 11 students. In both areas, results were not only a significant improvement on the year before – but have also allowed our students to progress onto the next stage of their learning. Our Year 13 leavers were able to achieve grades that ensured they were able to get into their first choice Universities and we have never had a more ambitious group of students who have elected to study all over the country in courses such as Fashion Retail, Visual Effects, Midwifery, Performing Arts to name but a few. We were also incredibly proud of the outcomes of last year’s Year 11 who achieved more top grades than ever before and as a whole group made progress in line with national averages, with no significant gap made by students with SEND or from disadvantaged backgrounds. Preparations for our new Year 11 cohort are already underway with the successful ‘Aspirations Evening’ hosted in September which allowed students, parents, and carers to come into school and get important advice and guidance on the best way to prepare for the challenge that lies ahead.

PRO Soccer Academy

We also saw an increase in the number of 16-year-olds choosing TLS as their school of choice Post 16, with the new Pro Soccer Academy (PSA) proving a huge success. PSA now has a very close working relationship with TLS, with students in all year groups benefiting from their coaching expertise. This, on top of a complete refurbishment of our 3G pitch, has been well received by students as they are now competing on a UEFA standard pitch for their lessons, afterschool clubs and break periods. We will be showing off these facilities, as well as the Post 16 opportunities for our students, during our Sixth Form Open Evening on Tuesday, 26 November.

Positive changes

There have been some key changes implemented at the school that have really had a positive impact on the rhythm of the school. Firstly, we have launched our scholar stream in Year 9. This allows us to start to give the right support to our students as they go through their foundation year and start their GCSE courses next year. The changes to the school day have helped with the promotion of Academia, Opportunity and Belonging for students and all students have benefitted from the continued financial investment by VIAT in improving the 3G pitch, as well as substantial refurbishments made to our new Sixth Form area, Art classrooms and our new state of the art Media suite.

The Importance of reading

Reading continues to be an important part of our school which is why we have invited several authors into the school to speak with students about their inspiration and the importance of reading and writing. So far, we have welcomed Jon Robinson (who wrote Nowhere), JJ Arcanjo (who has written the Crook Haven Series), Gianna Pollero (who has written the 'Monster Doughnuts' series) and Ross Welford (who authored books such as ‘The 1000-Year-Old Boy’) into the school to run workshops and assemblies with our own budding writers. We also participated in the Maidstone Literary festival – taking students to meet Joseph Coelho (Waterstone’s Children’s Laureate for 2022-24) to hear about what inspired him to become an author. We have many more exciting author visits planned and continue to promote reading at the school through the use of our well-resourced library and reading programmes such as ‘Accelerated Reader’ and ‘Reading Partners’ where older students support those in Year 7 with their reading.

Welcome to Year 7

Our new starters in Year 7 have made a great start and have had a positive impact on TLS both in and out of the classroom. They are keen to learn and are already participating in extra-curricular opportunities, such as joining sports clubs or taking part in the preparation for our performing arts shows. They played an integral role in our Year 6 Open Evening guiding prospective students and their parents around the school site, with Bodhi in Year 7 also supporting Mr. Ferguson with his Headteacher speech. The evening was a great success, with more visitors than ever before who were welcomed with a performance of ‘Be Our Guest’ which was a snippet from our upcoming production of ‘Beauty and the Beast’.

Trips & Visits

Although we have only been back for a few weeks, we have already been able to take students out for a number of trips and visits. Performing Arts students in Years 9 and 10 have been able to visit the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury to see a performance of ‘Grease’ and ‘A Chorus Line’. Year 8 students also visited Nausicaa in France to support their learning in languages and art.

TLS in the Community

The school also continues to play an increasing role in the local community. This has included us inviting students from the Bad Munstereifel School in Germany to the school for an exchange day, followed up with members of the school’s choir performing for the German Ambassador at the Ashford Civic Twinning Association’s 60th Anniversary Dinner. We also raised money for the Macmillan Cancer Support Charity by hosting visitors to the school who enjoyed hot drinks and cake served by our Year 11 prefects. The event raised £405 for the charity and we will be doing more work with our local community in the coming months.

Sixth Form Open Evening

We are very excited to invite all Year 11 students and parents to our 6th Form Open Evening on Tuesday 26 November to find out about what TLS has got to offer Post 16. Booking for the event can be made here: https://events.bookitbee.com/the-lenham-school/the-lenham-school-sixth-form-open-evening-26-novem/

Half Term

We wish all of our students, parents and carers a relaxing half term break.

Our partners at Maidstone Hockey Club will be running the following sessions during the half term so please use the link below if you are interested:

Maidstone Hockey Club - October Hockey Half Term Camp 2024

Wednesday 30th October and Thursday 31st October 10am – 3pm

Focusing on a variety of hockey skills and games.

Open to Years 3-11, any ability, members or non-members.

Join in the fun here October Camp 24

kent Family hub

Kent Family Hubs offer support to children, young people and their families. They make it easier for you to get the services you need throughout your family journey - from newborns to 19-year-olds, or up to 25-year old's with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND). Click on the following link to book: Kent Family Hub Booking

Refer Kent

KCC have launched a new website that lists all the agencies you can refer into for support. These include services that would support with housing, debt, benefits, mental and physical health amongst many more.

Please find more information and a link to it below:

ReferKent is a safe, secure, and local online referral system that aims to mitigate the action of signposting. The system enables referrals to be made securely between advice agencies and their partners across Kent. ReferKent allows referring agencies to report on activity and outcomes. With this system local organisations can help residents through referrals, ensuring that residents are getting the support they need to alleviate their circumstances.

https://kentcountycouncil.refernet.co.uk/Public/index.aspx

How to Find Out More

Please feel free to join our Facebook Page The Lenham School | Maidstone | Facebook to keep up to date with all the exciting things that are happening both in and out of the classroom.

Second Hand Uniform

Details of how to access our second-hand uniform is available on our school website. With the continued rise in household costs, we hope this initiative can make a small difference by helping some of our families to access free uniform https://www.thelenham.viat.org.uk/1850/uniform.

We wish all our students a restful break and look forward to welcoming them back on Monday 4 November.