14 February 2025 - Letter to Parents

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope that you’ve had a great week. I can’t believe how quickly this term has gone. Today, we break up for half term, and pupils return on Tuesday 25th February because Monday 24th February is an INSET (training day) for staff.

Year 11 Exams Prep Information Evening – Wednesday 26th March 6.15 – 7.45pm

Parent Subject Consultation Evenings 

The dates for these through the year are as follows: 

Year 7 Parent Subject Consultation Evening – Thursday 3rd April 3.30 – 7pm 

Year 9 Parent Subject Consultation Evening – Thursday 6th March 3.30 – 7pm 

Please also note the following date: 

Year 9 Options Evening – Thursday 27th February 5 – 7pm 

To help parents and children decide together which options subjects/GCSEs they might choose to take over the next two years in school.

Catch-up

If your child has been absent and you are worried about them catching up on return, please contact their Head of Year, or Pastoral Manager. We always support students on return to school by offering a warm welcome, and if they have missed a large assessment, e.g. a mock exam, we will provide a copy of this to them so they can go through their answers. On their class’ Microsoft Teams group, previous homework is accessible, and you can find out which topic your child might be up to through the Orchard website which has ‘Learning Journeys’ under the Curriculum tab.

Attendance 

Regular patterns of attendance to school are essential. We have noticed some students having multiple Fridays off school. If your child has missed two Fridays this means they have lost over 10 hours of learning time. Catching up on missed learning is difficult, but we’re here to help so please ensure your child attends every day.

Attendance and punctuality winners:

Year 7 - Dorchester

Year 8 - Avalon

Year 9 - Butterfield

Year 10 – Work Experience

Year 11 – 11B2

Attendance and punctuality are the first steps to success

House Events

Students were excited this week to see staff compete for House points. Ms. Concannon scored 5 hoops to secure victory and Miss Pham showed her lay-up skills to secure 50 points for Dorchester! Mr. Ripley showed his true talent in the 3-legged race and Mr. Dewerson demonstrated that catching a raw egg was easy! Today, SLT were splatted with wet sponges with students in their Houses competing for the best throw; students managed to get me twice, but Mr Harrison was definitely the wettest leader! It was great fun.

Inter - House leaders this week:

Year 7 - Butterfield

Year 8 - Wisley

Year 9 - Avalon

Events This Week

We have had another busy week this week, with Year 10 out on work experience, and a busy week of clubs and sport. We’ve started a new club, Cheerleading, which is proving amazingly successful after school on Wednesday. We are also planning to start a Darts Club next term – we might produce our own Luke Littler! We have clubs to suit everyone and are always looking for new ideas to start more. You will have received an additional letter offering a range of exciting paid after school clubs which we really hope will be of interest to our students. There are opportunities for all students to get active each day, ranging from lunchtime sports on the Astro and Basketball court to organised after-school events. We strongly encourage participation in physical exercise as we see the benefits it brings in terms of students’ mental and physical wellbeing and clubs are a great way for students to feel a sense of belonging.

Safeguarding Reminder

School is closed to all staff throughout the school holidays and staff will not see e-mails or messages, so therefore if support is needed for young people in the break, please use these services:

- 999 in an emergency

- 101 for non-urgent contact with emergency services

- 111 for non-urgent health matters

- Call the Samaritans – 116123

- Off the Record (www.otrbristol.org.uk) - mental health services

- Brook (www.brook.org.uk) - sexual health services

- Call ‘Mind’ on 03001233393 – mental health charity

- Call Childline on 08001111

Whisper reports will be picked up by staff on the return to school after a school holiday and should not be used for any urgent safeguarding matters nor to resolve community matters – please contact the appropriate service as above and keep us informed of any issues when school re-opens after the holidays.

Knife Crime Support

You may be aware of an incident in East Central Bristol yesterday in which a young person was stabbed. If you have any concerns about this incident, which did not involve students at Orchard, please let our Designated Safeguarding Lead (Mr Coxon) know. Importantly, please avoid speculation about the incident and don’t share any social media posts regarding it because these can jeopardise police investigations and create additional worries or concerns in the community.

Young people can report their concerns anonymously via Fearless Give information about crime 100% anonymously | Fearless | Crimestoppers at any time. If you want support in talking to your child about knife crime, there is a useful video here: Video: How to have conversations with your child about knife crime There is also a checklist available to support you in generally supporting your child to keep safe in the community here school-holidays-young-persons-check-list.docx

Uniform Reminder

After the half term break, the Year teams will be reinforcing our uniform code. Our uniform code aims to:

Help students feel equal to others and not left out

Encourage students to wear their uniform with pride

Create a sense of belonging to the school community through a common dress code

Enable students to feel that they are a valued member of the school community irrespective of ethnicity, gender, religion or socio-economic background

We kindly remind you that nose jewellery, white socks, leggings and leather jackets are not permitted to be worn in school. Please speak to your children about this and praise them when they get their uniform right – we'll do the same at school.

 Clubs Term 4

 Clubs and Enrichment (Curriculum menu tab)

 World Book Day

Orchard will be celebrating World Book Day on Tuesday 4th March this year. This is two days before the national day as we have Year 9 Parents’ Evening on Thursday 6th March (staff may not want to hold appointments in fancy dress!). School staff will be in fancy dress and students will be able to guess the books they represent.

At lunchtime there will be activities in the Library:

Design a book cover

Design a bookmark (prize competition)

Log your reading for double Orchard Star Reader house points

Prizes for the competitions:

Choice of new books from the prize collection

Stationery

Our class focus this year is Five Great Openings; at the start of each lesson students will hear the opening section of a classic story.

To end the day, students will guess who are ‘The Masked Readers’ in Tutor Time!

Community Events - Orchard Iftar 2025

We are once again delighted to host an Iftar event during the holy month of Ramadan, for our school community. This will take place on Wednesday 19th March in school, in the early evening. More details will follow after half term, but we invite all families to join us in celebration, reflection, prayer for those who wish to pray, and a shared meal. We have also invited our students to participate and speak at the event, so please do encourage your child to take part if they would like to!

Please click on this form to let us know how many people will be coming: https://forms.office.com/e/KNp4yU8hEe

Invigilators needed for GCSE exams

We are currently advertising for people to join our team of invigilators for the summer GCSE exams. The job advert and further information can be found in the vacancies section on the school website Orchard School - Vacancies. The closing date for the application is Friday 28th February at midday. If you have the skills for this and are interested, please contact our Exams Officer, Mr Bevan.

We look forward to seeing all students back in school on Tuesday 25th February. Take care during the half term break.

Kind regards,

Mel Sweet, Headteacher