Events Coming Up
6th - ‘Light the South' trail in Southampton starts
7th - Year 7 trip to Bude
8-12th - Activities Week
8-12th Year 10 Work Experience week
17th - Sports day
18th - Vaccination catch up
19th - Wear Something Different
23rd - Last day Celebrations and Presentations
Message from the Leadership Team
Dear Noadswood families,
We hope this message finds you well as we enter July. It is with enthusiasm that we write to you today, as we have much to look back on and to look forward to in equal measure.
We started the week by joining Cover Supervisor, Mrs Davy at her ordination service to become a Deacon. Winchester Cathedral was full of members of the Noadswood family, all there to support her – just like with our young people, love hearing about and supporting what our colleagues do to enrich life and community outside of Noadswood.
Whether we have a Christian faith, a different faith or none, we recognise Mrs Davy as a force for good and light, and how lucky we are to have her in our school family. Our very warmest congratulations to her and we are thrilled still to have her with us for the rest of the duration of her training!
We have also had a great time welcoming Year 6 to the Noadswood family and can’t wait to see many of them again for our summer camp. I had a fantastic time singing with them in their assembly – they belted out ‘Best Day of My Life’ with two tutor groups winning a tub of Celebrations each for themselves to be presented on the first day in September for their especially good voices! Can’t wait for some of them to join my choir in September, too – we are so proud to be singing again tonight alongside Mrs Rees’ incredible choir, soloists and groups, as we welcome the Kazbaas to Noadswood for our international fundraiser. The event will sadly have to be indoors as the heavens are opening today, but we will all have a smashing time. Ticket sales have been super!
Elmers Court Hotel hosted our fitting celebration of our Year 11 students at Prom last night; it was a fantastic event celebrating our wonderful students and colleagues together, and it was so good to see lots of you as we welcomed them. We have loved hearing all about their post-Noadswood plans and look forward to seeing them once more for their results day in August. A huge thank you again to Mr Marsh and Miss Fitzgerald for their leadership, care and support with year 11.
With a view to the week ahead, we would like to remind you about our upcoming Activities Week. this is a highly anticipated event where students can participate in a variety of engaging and hands-on work and fun outside of the traditional classroom setting. From adventurous outdoor challenges to creative workshops in school, Activities Week promises to be a good experience.
We’d like to thank all our staff for their hard work and planning, there are hours of work that go into making such a fantastic week! Whilst Years 7-9 are enjoying all this, Year 10 will be out making us proud on work experience, meeting new people and learning new skills.
Students will take this invaluable opportunity to find out more about the job or industry they will belong to for the week, and will learn a lot about themselves, too. I genuinely can’t wait for the feedback.
By now, the students will know not only where their placements area and what their working hours will be but hopefully what their all-important lunch arrangements are, too! We also ask that students ensure that they arrive to their placement punctually each day.
If they are unwell during the week, please call both the school and the placement to inform of any absence.
Should you have any queries or concerns about work experience, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our Careers Advisor, Gordon Lewis, at glewis@noadswood.hants.sch.uk or our Careers Lead, Miss Clews, at jclews@noadswood.hants.sch.uk.
We hope all our Year 10 students have a brilliant week and we look forward to seeing and hearing them out in the world of work – remember, for the minority every year who don’t love their experience, that’s really informative for the future, too. Advise them to dig deep, show resilience and take forward self-knowledge for the future.
We are looking forward to Sports Day, just around the corner when we all come together from Activity and Work Experience week. This annual event is a highlight of the school calendar, bringing together students from all year groups to compete in a range of sporting activities - a day of friendly competition and a celebration of teamwork, talent, and healthy living.
We are always thankful for the spirit of support for those who watch the main events later on in the day, too. Let’s do a sunshine dance!
Please remember our ‘Wear Something Different’ day payment is available on Arbor now - note this is in the school shop. All students who wish to take part must have made payment by Friday 12th July. If you would like to pay in cash or are worried about paying, please do remember to reach out to Mrs Wyse.
Finally, we would like to draw your attention to our end of term timings:
Tuesday 23rd July 2024
Tutor time 8:45 - 9:00
Period 1 9:00 - 9:50
Period 2 9:50 – 10:40
Break 10:40 – 11:00
Tutor Time 11:00 – 11:10
Year 7 Assembly 11:10 - 11:30
Year 8 Assembly 11:30 – 11:50
Year 9 Assembly 11:50 – 12:10
Year 10 Assembly 12:10 – 12:30
Once our final assembly has finished, we will ring a bell and all students will be dismissed. Please note that there may be some flexibility in our 12.30pm finish time as sometimes assemblies can overrun by a few minutes – there's always much to celebrate!
A reminder that Monday 2nd is September is an INSET day, Tuesday 3rd September will be Year 7 only with prefects and student leaders and the rest of the school will return on Wednesday 4th September. If your child is a prefect/student leader, we will be in contact about arrangements on Tuesday 3rd September.
Thank you for your continued commitment to and involvement in Noadswood life – if you have anything on your mind, don't hesitate to drop an email to info@noadswood.hants.sch.uk, or make use of the Class Charts messaging service, or any of the email addresses at our contacts page on the website:
With all our best,
Kathryn Marshall and the Noadswood Leadership Team
Attendance Challenge Update
Just short of 600 students achieved their 10-day attendance streak and will receive their voucher for a free cookie which can be redeemed any time before the end of term.
A massive well done to all students who have risen to this challenge and brought themselves into school every day, despite any challenges.
We’re now on the 15-day streak challenge – keep it going everyone!
Safeguarding
A reminder that we have our annual safeguarding audit this week. Thank you so much to all the students who have completed the survey (this link to which can be found here Judicium. We will share further details of our safeguarding action plan in the next academic year
Literacy
This week, we have loved welcoming our new cohort of Year 6 soon-to-be 7s. On Thursday and Friday, they all enjoyed an English lesson and we chose to use this time to introduce the new summer reading challenge. We have lent every new student a brand-new copy of Ele Fountain’s wonderful novel Lost. We have been lucky enough to have Ele come to Noadswood and speak to our students before, so we reached out to her again and asked what inspired her to write this story. She was thrilled that we had chosen her novel and shared this with us:
“I lived in Addis Ababa for three years. It is an exciting, bustling city. One day when I was driving home along a busy road, I saw a young girl begging. A woman was lying next to her. The woman seemed unwell. I couldn't pull over - there was no hard shoulder, and my two young children were in the back of the car. Later in the day, when someone was able to look after my baby and toddler, I went in search of the girl and the woman. … I later discovered that the woman had in fact been the girl's mother. She was poorly and they needed money to take her to hospital. I never found them and always wondered what happened to them.”
From this experience, Ele went on to create a wonderful tale of adversity and friendship and we can’t wait to see the new Year 7s’ book reviews in September.
Mrs M Eldridge, in the Library, has launched our new Summer Reading Challenge for students in Year 7, 8, 9 and 10. Please see the poster and information below.
Finally, thank you to those of you who encouraged your child/ren to return their library books. The deadline has now passed, however, we would appreciate any final returns.
Mrs J Eldridge