CALENDAR OF EVENTS:

Term dates can be found here:

2020/21

28 Sept Year 9 HPV Vaccinations PTA AGM 1 Oct Early closing 2 Oct School closed to

students

HOUSE POINTS:

Caversham: 10390

Grove: 10567

Mapledurham: 10041

Rosehill: 11399

w/c 28 September 2020 Week A

ParentMail We are sorry about the Parentmail issues for our Year 7 and some of our Free School Meal students. We are working hard to resolve them. Thank you for being patient and hopefully all the linking issues will be sorted soon.

Annual General Meeting—Monday 28 September at 7.30pm

The PTA plays a vital part in the school community and all parents/guardians and staff, as members of the PTA, are invited to support the AGM. This is your chance to hear how the funds you have helped to raise have been used for the benefit of the pupils at our school. Please note the AGM will be held online and anyone wishing to attend the live PTA AGM should follow the link from the website.

Absence Reporting

Please report all absences on a daily basis before 9.05 am By telephone: 0118 901 5823 or by ParentMail

Headteacher’s Letter Please click on the link to see the Headteacher’s letter to parents: letter to parents

Careers Corner

Speakers for schools are a company who work with schools to help provide students with free opportuni-ties to meet with employers throughout their school career. In light of being unable to carry out physical work experience, they have set up a number of different opportunities for virtual work experience. There are currently opportunities for students to apply for virtual work experience with property (Tesco), Con-struction, Engineering, Technology (Cisco), banking (Santander) and the Arts. If you would like to know more please go to https://www.speakersforschools.org/experience-2/vwex/ to register. Any applications will be referred through the school.

Spotlight on Careers Careers Questionnaire - Students in Years 7-11 have been filling in questionnaires which help them reflect on their personal skills, attributes and aspirations. The students will use this information to begin their action plans for the year and to help us best support their aspirations for the future. Please discuss the questions with your son or daughter. The Sixth Form questionnaire will be distributed shortly. Alumni - Are you a former Highdown student? Are you willing to share your career journey? Please get in touch by emailing hsc@highdown.reading.sch.uk if you would be willing to be part of an exciting new project .

Spotlight Interview

Amritpal Sandhu

August 2020

During the period of remote learning a number of our students completed some vitual work experience. We had students attend work experience with Tesco, Santander and a historial podcast company. One of our current Year 13 students was provided with the opportunity to complete a week-long experience with Tata. Here are some of her highlights from the week:

Exploration of advances in technology

Development of a prototype App to help with exam stress and mental health

Learning on wire framing and AI to help develop new technologies for the future

At the end of the week, Amritpal was awarded with a certificate of graduation as an Industrial Cadet.

We are proud of all of our students who take time out of their busy lives to complete some work experience. If you would like to find out more about opportunities of virtual work experience that is available currently please log on to www.speakersforschools.org and register yourself for VWEX. The school will then be informed of any applications which you choose to make.

Letter from Department of Education

Public Health England have produced a letter for parents which explains when a coronavirus test is required and what the symptoms of coronavirus are.

The intention of the letter is to help prevent children being taken out of school unnecessarily and answer some of the questions parents may have around testing. Letter from Department of Education

All Years

PE Kit All students have been shown this during their mentor time.

CORRECT HIGHDOWN PE KIT.

Compulsory – failure to have these will result in a C1being given each time.

• HD top, HD shorts, HD socks, Suitable trainers

Optional – no sanction for not wearing these

• HD hoodie

• HD tracksuit bottoms

If it is cold and students do not own a HD hoodie or tracksuit bottoms they should wear the HD blazer, HD jumper and/ or school coat to school. Non HD tracksuits (particularly hoodies and jumpers) should not be worn.

Additionally

• Health and safety guidelines are clear. All jewellery must be removed for PE.

• If a student gets a new piercing mid-term, please inform Mr Morris. They will not be able to do PE until the piercing can be removed

• Repeated failure to remove jewellery for PE will result in escalated sanctions

Protocol

• If a student is injured, unable to take a full part in PE or has incorrect kit they should bring a note from home to explain the issue and the expected return to play date.

• ‘Sick or fit – bring your kit’. Students should always have their PE kit for their PE lessons. Obviously where a serious injury prevents changing there is no expectation to do so.

• It is the start of term and some students are still awaiting delivery of newly ordered items of PE kit. Students should bring a note from home explaining what is on order and when the expected delivery date is. Plain (red, black or white preferably) sports clothes should be worn until the new items arrive. Sportwearwith slogans and logos should not be worn.

All years continued

Performing Arts Ambassador Reward Scheme This year the Performing Arts Department have created the Performing Arts Ambassador Reward Scheme. This is where we collect P points students have received in Drama and Music classes and add them up each week. Bronze Ambassador award = 100 points Silver Ambassador award = 250 points Gold Ambassador award = 400 points When they achieve the award they will receive a lapel pin and a certificate. Top scorers so far: Current top overall: Sean CURTAYNE 7C Brooke MATTINGLEY 8L Sean CURTAYNE 7C = 30 points Voke ORIFE 8C Emily TAYLOR 8G Megan PARKER 9H = 30 points Megan PARKER 9H Rohan JANJUHA 9C Lauren MARSHALL 10F = 30 points Zac HAYHURST 8L Isabel LEE 7J Ella MARTIN 8L Lauren MARSHALL 10F

Literacy Debate topic:

What decides if something is wrong or right? If animals were intelligent, and could talk to you and

tell you that they wanted to be eaten, then it would be more morally right to eat meat.

Alternative debate: It is more wrong to eat a cat than a chicken.

Divide the group in half. One half must argue “for”, the other half must argue “against”. Praise use of

more complex tier 2 language, and good debating skills (directly replying to peer comments, or

well structuring their answers).

Close the debate by commenting that this idea is in the book “The restaurant at the end of the Universe” by Douglas Adams where a cow comes to the table explaining which parts of it can be eaten.

Numeracy What is the pattern in how Can you use this fact to find the missing numbers in these squares are made? These squares?

Bonus: Is there more than one way to fill in each square? Bonus2: Is there a quick way to work out the missing numbers?

Answer: The numbers in the corners add to make the numbers in the edges.

Bonus Answer: Only one way to fill in each square.

Year 8

Thank you to all the Year 8 students who took part in a litter picking lunchtime this week. They collected such a huge amount and really helped improve our school en-vironment. We ask that all students are part of the solution, not the pollution.

Year 10

Year 10 GCSE Course Information and Excellence Presentation On Monday you will have received a letter from Ms Cave in which she welcomed Year 10 students and supporting families to the beginning of GCSE courses. The letter included links to videos for you to watch – see links below. These videos set the tone for the GCSE years, provide information about courses and assessment and sources of information and support. The overall focus is how we can together support students to be successful and excel in their studies. Please support your child to be successful by watching the videos together and by referring to the key stage 4 information booklet; a ‘one stop shop’ for all course information - See here

English - Mrs Grantham

Mathematics — Mr Dineley

Science — Ms Fathers

Ethics and Citizenship — Mr Blunt

Head of Achievement Year 10 — Mrs Taylor

Sharing Excellence It has been lovely to drop into lessons to see how Year 10 are getting on. Lots of lovely work to be seen with students attentive to the learning and keen to show me what they have been learning too. Thank you to our Year 10 teachers for their commitment to student success.

“The biggest determinant of our success is the effort we are willing to commit to it”

This week we will be sending 40 achievement letters home to our Year 10 students who have received 25 or more praise points in a week. Please talk to your children about their success and celebrate it with them too.

Year 11

Last week saw Year 11 achieve 1652 P points with 16 students achieving 20 or more P points. A particular mention to Saif Ali who achieved 37 P points, a fantastic achievement for one week.

Every Thursday in mentor time students are challenged with a Recall and Retrieve Task which will be shared with parents. During the session they are given a weekly revision tip. This week’s revision tip was as follows:

Reduce your notes into a summary of the entire topic of no more than 100 words. After you have done this, reduce any information you have not included into another summary of 100 words.

Years 10 and 11

Students have access to GCSEPod which is an online portal for accessing a large number of short videos specific to their exam specifications. These can be accessed anywhere, anytime and are a great way to keep key topics, concepts and ideas fresh in their memory! Please can parents encourage their son/daughter to make regular use of GCSEPod to

review learning and to prepare for any assessments. Research has shown these have the greatest impact on attainment by students engaging in at least 15 minutes of Pods each day – that’s just 3 to 4 Pods. These can be viewed on any device and are fully narrated so can just be listened to whilst on the way home from school!

Years 11—13

UK University & Apprenticeship Search Virtual Fair on Wednesday 4 November from 12:00-18:00. The event is free, it will feature over 80 universities, colleges and apprenticeship providers, and it's open to students in Year 11, 12 and 13.

Students will need to register themselves for the event here: University and Apprenticeship search

Mentor Stars of the Week

Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10

7C Griffin Barnett-Ward 7D Ella Toovey 7E Iman Mullings 7F Vasilisa Bogatova 7G Edward Waters 7H Saba Prins Mills 7J Ellie Jaobs 7K Lucy Ray 7L Tilly Allen

8D Francesca Tillet Hall 8E Oscar West 8G Prior O’Reilly 8H Shruthi Surendran 8J Zhun-On Ahmet 8K Charlie Johnson 8L Zac Hayhurst 8M Mohamedy Missanga

9C Seth Hayhurst 9D Jack Etherington 9E Max Lusted 9F Theo Allen 9G Ben Fraser 9H Sienna Trott 9J Bence Coulehan 9K Jessica Mullally 9L Reece Small

10C Matthew Davey 10D Sofia Prior 10E Evie Mendham 10F Ed Kelsall 10G Jude Sullivan 10H Toby Betts 10J Lily Mae Sykes 10K Mo Zulqarnain 10L Lexi Coffie

Year 11 Year 12 Year 13

11C Fortune Oyegbata 11D Megan Mather 11E Oliver Smith 11F Ella Boswell 11G Ellie Sherfield 11H James Nelson 11J Victor Gleie 11K Phillip Agyeang

12A Dylan Jagatia 12B Frances Booth 12C Charlie Jones 12D Max Forster 12E Mia Turner 12F Amelia Butcher 12G Amber-Sophia Fone-Barrow

13A Charlie Hayward 13B Phoebe Hayward 13C Rory Tietema 13D Douglas Jones 13E Charlie Henderson