Events coming up 15th April Year 11 invited Progress Event 16th April Year 11 GCSE Spanish Speaking exam 16th April Ironbridge Information evening 17th April Year 11 GCSE Spanish Speaking exam
Dear Noadswood families, As we end a busy and successful term, we would like to take a moment to thank you for your continued partnership, challenge and support. It makes a real difference to our school community, and we are very grateful. My three highlights this week are particularly easy! As mentioned last week, we had an external review of our school’s provision from Challenge Partners this week. We had a team of five reviewers with us from Monday to Wednesday, from schools all over the country, who were led and worked expertly with all of us. The highlights then: firstly, the work I saw going on around our school as we joined together to carry out Learning Walks. For me personally, a highlight was Year 9 students in the D and T workshop with Miss Mansbridge and Mr Willoughby. They were showing such skill and care with all the equipment available to them and had worked hard at every stage of the project, from design onwards. Secondly, the student panel I was massively privileged to be in with students who access our Flexible Learning provision and our Learning Support Department. They were so mature and reflective about their school experience, what has helped, what hasn’t and things they, too, have needed to work on. The reviewers, in fact, spoke time and time again about how lovely so many of our students, your young people are, and how much they had enjoyed talking to them about their learning and the care they receive. We are incredibly proud of our students, and the staff, for the warm and supportive hallmarks of this place that they create every day and that sustain us when days and times are tougher. We look forward to sharing more about our visit once the report is ready! My third highlight has got to be the five celebration assemblies I attended a little earlier today with our year groups, and I want to make mention of Year 11 today – their final end of term assembly with us. I had quite the flashback to our very first times together, in assemblies, really powerful memories. As I looked round the hall, to people who’ve smashed it through to people for whom it’s been really difficult, my main emotion was thankfulness that we’re all still here, and they can all get over the line. Moving away from highlights, we would also like to extend our thanks to all families who expressed interest in our recently communicated about financial grant. We experienced unprecedented demand, and our finance team is currently working through applications. They will be in touch with families where we have been able to process these successfully. Families who were not successful on this occasion will be placed on a waiting list should we receive further funding. We understand that this time of year can bring additional pressures, and families may wish to access additional support. The following organisations can help you find local food banks and community support:
- https://www.trusselltrust.org/get-help/find-a-foodbank/
- https://www.givefood.org.uk/needs/
- https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/help-if-on-a-low-income/using-a-food-bank/
We look forward to seeing many of our Year 11 students at our Easter Revision Support Day on Monday 30th March. Registration will take place at 9:10am in the hall. While the holidays are an important time to rest and recharge, it is also a valuable opportunity for students to consolidate their learning and keep building the confidence ahead of their exams. We encourage all students to make the most of this support as they continue their journey towards success. If your child hasn’t signed up but wants to, please email erollett@noadswood.hants.sch.uk We hope that you all have a restful and enjoyable Easter break. As always, if you have any urgent concerns over the holidays, please email info@noadswood.hants.sch.uk and mark your message as urgent and we will make sure the mail goes to the right people. Remember, we will have our usual bumper newsletter in the first week of the summer term to welcome you all back with this term’s highlights to inspire us on! In the meantime, best wishes, and my genuine thanks, Kathryn Marshall and the Noadswood Leadership Team
Golden Ticket Winners
Golden Ticket Prize Draw – This Term’s Winners! 🎉 A huge congratulations to all of our Golden Ticket Prize Draw winners this term! Your hard work, positive attitude, and commitment to going above and beyond has truly paid off — well done! 👏 We would also like to say a big thank you to our generous sponsors — St George’s Educational Services and our amazing PSA (Parent & Staff Association) — for making these prizes possible. Your support helps us celebrate students who consistently demonstrate our values and strive to do their very best. St George's Educational Services supports students in reaching their goals. Click the link to find out more. Students — keep earning those Golden Tickets! 🎟️ Remember, it only takes one ticket to win, but the more you earn, the greater your chances of a prize. Keep showing kindness, effort, resilience and excellence… next term’s winner could be you! Finally, if you or your business would like to support this fantastic initiative, sponsorship is a great way to give back to the school community while helping us recognise students who go above and beyond. If you’re interested in sponsoring a future prize draw, please get in touch — we’d love to hear from you! 🙌 Please email us at info@noadswood.hants.sch.uk
Safeguarding Guidance
One of the most popular ways for young people to spend their screen time is on TikTok. However, as with all social media platforms, alongside entertaining and harmless content, there is also access to material that may be inappropriate for certain age groups or misleading in its accuracy. The guidance below may help you to provide support to your children about using this app if they are old enough to be using it. We would actually urge everyone to put their phones to one side as much as possible this Easter break and enjoy time with their hobbies, time with you, time with friends, time out in what we hope will be some decent weather! If your young people are on TikTok, take a look at the guidance – young people really do need our guidance and support about boundaries and safe phone use.
Roller Skate Questionnaire
We have been written to from Roller Collective CIC, a local community interest company dedicated to improving the physical and mental wellbeing of young people in the New Forest East area. They said this: ‘We are currently applying for a major two-year grant from the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Community Foundation (HIWCF) to bring a mobile roller-skating fleet directly to students in your community. Our goal is to create an inclusive, non-traditional space for movement that is co-designed by the young people themselves—focusing specifically on those who may not feel they "fit in" with mainstream sports. To ensure our application is successful, we need direct evidence that this activity is wanted and needed by your students. Following a meeting with the CEO of the Foundation, it was suggested that hearing directly from local youth through a quick survey is the most powerful way to secure this funding for the area. Our directors, who have backgrounds in the NHS and Public Health, are keen to ensure this project supports physical literacy and social connection for students.’ Please click the link to complete the quick survey to give your views: Roller Skate Survey
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Created with an image by firewings - "Crocus flowers in green grass"