THIS WEEK AT FRENSHAM
Friday 26th May, 2023
A MESSAGE FROM LAURA
Dear Parents
As we approach the end of the second week of external exams and have completed all of the internal assessments, I am incredibly proud of how our students have approached the challenges that exams and assessments bring. Yes, there have been nerves but there has also been an air of expectation and readiness. Our approach to assessment has been based on the high value, low stake principle and it is only when students enter the formal external exam season that the true impact of this principle can be seen. Our students are ready for their exams, they are prepared, they understand what is required of them and they have experience of what such situations feel like, so when the time finally arrives to sit them, they are ready. I wish all of our Year 11 and 13 a restful half term, which has a healthy balance of down time as well as revision.
The Malawi trip is fast approaching as our students and staff finalise plans however, the students have not yet reached their fundraising aim. As always, Lynn is doing a great job getting the fundraising wheels in motion and is working on a list of fundraising ideas. The first of these will be a Malawi stall at the Rowledge Village Fair this coming bank holiday Monday, 29th May. If you could find the time to pop by and support the fundraising efforts of the students, that would be very much appreciated.
Have a lovely long weekend,
Laura
SAFEGUARDING UPDATE FROM JO AND JACK
One of the hottest topics nationally in Safeguarding at the moment is Attendance. Recent news stories have shared how across the country schools have been hit by low attendance since the return to classrooms after the pandemic. While it can be tempting to think that lockdowns showed us how being in school may not be as necessary as people once thought, in fact the opposite seems to be true as the impact for school children of all ages being out of school on their educational attainment, social development and mental health is becoming clearer. An interesting blog from the Department of Education on this can be read here: Why is school attendance so important and what are the risks of missing a day? - The Education Hub (blog.gov.uk)
One powerful statistic on attendance is that “Among pupils with no missed sessions over KS4, 83.7% achieved grades 9 to 4 in English and maths compared to 35.6% of pupils who were persistently absent” (The link between absence and attainment at KS2 and KS4, Academic year 2018/19 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk) . Of course, we understand that there are many completely valid reasons that children cannot come into school at different times and the mental health issues we wrote about last week can often be one of these, but we also believe that being in school, learning and enjoying time with peers is of great benefit to students. As a result, we are planning an increased focus on attendance going forward and will do all we can to work with families to help you to help your young people to be in school as much as possible. Please do get in touch with Jack or Jo if you want to discuss this at all further.
Best wishes,
Jo and Jack
SCHOOL NOTICES
AUSTRIA SKI TRIP 2024
The next ski trip has been launched. We are going to Schladming, Austria over February half-term (10-17 Feb 2024) https://www.schladming-dachstein.at/en. Letters have been sent out, but you can also click here to read it.
IMPORTANT UPDATE ABOUT TIMETABLES FOR INDIVIDUAL MUSIC LESSONS
We just wanted to make you aware that after half term, Peripatetic Music Teachers will be responsible for preparing their timetables. Sally will then upload them onto Schoolbase. Music teachers will ensure that events in the School Calendar, pre-arranged fixed lessons and clashes of any sort are allowed for. If there are any issues with timetables, we would ask you to contact the relevant music teacher directly about queries and required amendments. Please note that these timetables will be finalised during the half term holidays, so please do check your child’s day/time before we return to school. As a reminder, timetables can be accessed via the Parent Portal under your child’s Real Time Timetable. Timetables will be available on Teams for senior school students as usual and to Junior School teachers via Schoolbase.
With our thanks for your support during this time - Josh
STUDENT LIFT REQUEST
If you live in the Moor Park area of Farnham and are able to provide lifts for a senior school student, please contact lindseyboyce@frensham.org
FARNBOROUGH CONCERT BAND
Two of our teachers, Tamzyn and Esme, play in Farnborough Concert Band of The Royal British Legion and they're putting on a Spring concert on the 3rd June. They'd be delighted to see any friendly faces from Frensham supporting them in the audience. Please click here for details.
SHYNEFEST - 2nd & 3rd JUNE
A couple of our parents run the annual Shynefest music festival in Guildford. Click here for more info.
ELSTEAD GIRLS FOOTBALL
Elstead Sharks is a friendly, inclusive club who are on the hunt for more 13-14 year old girls for next season. Click here for more info.
RESIDENTIAL TRIPS - LOOKING AHEAD
We are very lucky that we have a large number of staff who are very happy to run school trips that enrich our school experience – including over weekends and holidays. We know that trips require a lot of planning and in general residential trips are scheduled a year in advance so that we can organise them and allow you time to plan/save as neede. Below is a live link to our working document that shows our plans so far. The further ahead the trip – the less details we may have – but hopefully it goes someway to help give the overview.
THANK A TEACHER!
The Thank a Teacher campaign recognises all staff working in UK schools and colleges; school leaders, teachers, teaching assistants, and all support staff such as lunchtime supervisors, caretakers and cleaners. If you’re feeling shy you can send a card anonymously! Click here to send a thank you.
POSITIVE FEEDBACK
Got something amazing to shout about? Click the logo to use our Parent Voice Frensham Heights positive feedback link.
FIRST WEEKEND AFTER HALF TERM – Sat 10th June 12-5pm
Aldridge Theatre, drama studios and arts plaza
Come and join in the fun family activity day in aid of Cherry Trees, Clandon.
We have worked together for 6 months looking at adaptive clothes for those who cannot wear off the peg clothing in regular shops, for many various reasons! Nursery to Year 6 have an ECA making clothes to express who they are and we welcome them to walk in our fashion parade at 1pm, celebrating their creativity and imagination. There are various cool activities such as an outdoor stage for musicians(would you like to share a performance with us?), Messy play room, Boogie Pumps dance classes, family portraits being taken and a personalisation station where you can revitalise a piece of clothing in your own way. On top of this, our professional designers have their own stalls to share their marvellous work and we have items that we have been exploring and making along the way for sale too.
At 4pm, we have the pinnacle of the day!! A fashion showcase, organised by Emma Tweed, in our Aldridge Theatre with amazing student models from different schools to show the adaptive clothing that has been created over this 6 month project. Refreshments of burgers, hot dogs and chips are available from our Holroyd Howe caterers and treats such as candy floss, ice cream, popcorn and pancakes too. It will be a lovely celebration of self expression for everyone to enjoy! Visit the What’s on page to book your spot https://www.frensham.org/event-details/family-fun-day
FRIENDS OF FRENSHAM FUNDRAISING UPDATE
FINAL FIGURES ARE IN
Huge thank you to everyone who sponsored, donated auction lots, helped organise, bid on items or came to the Vegas Ball. We raised a total of £8653! Thank you! We will donate £865 to the wonderful Eikon Charity and the pod fund is now at £7,788. What a great start!
We have already launched our next fundraiser towards the outdoor pod, which is a limited edition labelled “Glass of 2023” Hawkins Bros Brut sparkling wine. What better way to spend a summer’s afternoon, or to keep as a memento for your 2023 leaver, while supporting FOF fundraising? These will be available for a limited time to order, so if you would like to place an order please follow the link below:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/friendsoffrensham/921915
JS and SS SPORTS DAY
This year FOF will be running a refreshment stand selling Aperol Spritz, Beer and Soft drinks at both the Junior School and Senior School sports days (June 8th and June 9th- weather permitting). We have also arranged for an ice cream van to be there – so we hope to see you there for a fun filled afternoon of sport and sunshine.
FRIENDS OF FRENSHAM COMMUNICATION
Alongside the school newsletter and the year WhatsApp groups you can now find us on Friends of Frensham Instagram (@friendsoffrensham) to see some of our events and plans for upcoming activities. We are always looking for more help and ideas so if you would like to get involved please contact us on chair@fofrensham.com (please note the new email address).
SCHOOL EVENTS
SPORTS DAY 2023
Wednesday 7th June – 8:30am Start
Early Years Sports Day (Nursery and Reception)
Thursday 8th June – Approx 1:00pm Start
Senior School Sports Day (Year 7-13)
Friday 9th June – Approx 1:00pm Start
Junior School Sports Day (Year 1-6)
Please come along to support the children. Bring chairs, blankets, grandparents...
PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP
Saturday 10th June | 10am - 4pm
Photography Studio | FREE
We need you! Shout out to Years 7 to 13 photographers for two workshops:
13th May - get to know your camera & camera skills
10th June - practical event photography
Own camera desirable!
RSVP to sarahfarr@frensham.org to reserve your place.
THIS WEEK AT FRENSHAM
YEAR 12 COMPUTER SCIENCE
Last week, as part of a careers initiative to explore careers in Cybersecurity, Sarah Cull took 3 year 12 students to visit the Microsoft Enterprise Security team to find out about different career options within cybersecurity and to get an understanding of the sort of threats they deal with every day.
The students were incredibly fortunate and met several different people there, including the Chief Security Advisor who leads the incident response and forensic investigator teams as well as new graduates who have been involved in the Aspire program. This initiative has led to the students securing a work experience placement in the summer where they will be given a project to work on with 20 other students across the UK.
One of the students on the trip said that “The trip to Microsoft was brilliant, we talked to 5 cybersecurity specialists about the work they do at Microsoft. We also discussed university and internship options as well as resources to keep pace with the always changing world of technology.”
If you are a parent who has a role within a cybersecurity, gaming or other technology that would be of interest to A Level computer science students, contact Sarah Cull sarahcull@frensham.org
DIVERSITY DAY
On Thursday last week Year 10 had their Horizons Day which was this half term devoted to diversity and inclusivity. The students heard from speakers from various charities about disability, neurodiversity and LGBTQ+ identity, all of whom talked to them about not judging people on being part of a group but rather celebrating everyone’s individuality and helped them to develop empathy and compassion. The students were great and the speakers were really impressed by their thoughtfulness and social awareness. A real highlight was the return to school of the two speakers from Show Racism the Red Card who came to talk to Year 8 last year. These included former Premiership Football star Ken Monkou who again impressed the students with his cool calm and kindness. They also had a catch up with the students they had previously met who are now in Year 9 which was again a real positive experience for everyone. It was great to see the students living by the values of Spirit of Togetherness as well as Respect of Individuality and I hope they enjoyed this as well as learned from it.
YEAR 3 MATHS CHALLENGE
On Tuesday this week four children from Year 3 took part in a Year 3 Inter-Schools Maths Challenge at Halstead School in Woking. There were twenty two teams from eleven different schools at the event and competition was fierce!
The children took part in three rounds, a Maths Kahoot, Code breaking and a Cross number puzzle. Our Frensham team came second in the Kahoot with their quick thinking!
The Code breaking round involved using a Caesar cipher and once the question had been found a mathematical problem needed solving. The children showed their ability to work as a team on this as there was a tight time limit.
The final challenge was a Cross number puzzle with fiendishly tricky clues! The children had to use their initiative to find the questions they could do quickly and gained a mark for every correct digit they found.
The children worked fantastically all afternoon and showed great perseverance. After all the hard work they certainly deserved the post competition refreshments.
The children from Frensham were a credit to the school and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
MALAWI PARTNERS MORNING TALK
Please look at the donation lists that we are collecting to take out to Malawi in July!
We listened to Peter Everett from Malawi Schools Trust to learn about the impact and value of our partnership with Malawi and met some of the student team who are going to work out in Malawi this summer. Slides from Phoebe asked for teenage clothing and George asked for used laptops and chargers, as part of our project work out there. Sally finished it off with a passionate reflection of her Malawi memories and how she was inspired by Andrew Fisher(Ex Head Frensham Heights and Michael Masudi(Ex head All Saints, Malawi) to give her time and energy to this worthy partnership.
SALLY - Malawi 2023 is coming close. Seven weeks and five days to be exact. It will be my final one, but I hope the next expedition will happen in July 2025. Have a think.
Which year will you be in then?
Do you like the idea of helping people in a third world country?
Do you have some skills that would be useful?
Most importantly, do you see yourself as part of the next team to go out to Malawi? Will you carry on the legacy of so many students before you?
I really hope so.
Click for more info on Malawi Schools Trust and the Frensham Malawi Trip.
MAIN HOUSE BOARDING UPDATE
This half term has seen the Year 10s complete their exam week which they took on with a sense of determination and maturity. Their Sixth Form experience week then saw them engage in a variety of topical sessions ranging from charity work, diversity and inclusion and careers. The Year 11s have settled excellently into their GCSE exams and are coping well with the process.
As well as academic work and prep we have enjoyed some great evenings and activities including pizza nights, house/room decorating, campfire and marshmallows, swimming, tennis, and football on the front lawn - it has been a productive and fun half term.
Key dates and times for half term:
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House reopens after half-term: Sunday 4th June (4pm) supper will be provided.
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The Waterloo bus will be running as normal on Sunday 4th June.
