28 February 2025 - Letter to Parents

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope that you had a great half term week. We were happy to see students back in school on Tuesday, and we have had a good week. It was great to see parents and carers at the Year 9 Options Evening especially, a very important event packed full of key information for the year group as they make choices about their pathways through Key Stage 4. A reminder that we have a lot of important events coming up:

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 

 Attendance 

Attendance this week has increased for all year groups – brilliant news!

Attendance and punctuality winners:

Year 7 - Wisley

Year 8 - Avalon

Year 9 - Butterfield

Year 10 – Wisley

Year 11 – 11B2

Attendance and punctuality are the first steps to success

Arbor In-App Messaging for Parents

We are writing separately to Year 7 parents regarding a trial of using Arbor in-app messaging to communicate with you about attendance. Please ensure that you read the information and download the Arbor Parent app on Apple or Android devices, (it is free to use), and let us know if you have any queries. It will send you a little message on screen to let you know there is information available for you to view, a bit like text message notifications. If the trial is successful, we will switch to this form of messaging to all parents from Term 6. A reminder that all parents are already able to see key information such as reminders about trips and events, exam timetables, payment deadlines, House Points and detentions, so please do make the most of the app. If you need any support with this in the meantime, please contact info@orchard.tila.school and we will arrange a callback with one of our Admin team to support you.

Events This Week

This week, we had a KS4 Classics trip to London as well as our after-school clubs starting up again. We had a classroom full of excited students in our Make and Munch club, a new club that enables students to be creative, have lunch and be in a positive social space - a fantastic way to spend a lunchtime. Next week, pupils are looking forward to World Book Day where staff will be dressed in a wide variety of book related costumes. Make sure your child comes in every day as we don’t want them to miss out on exciting events such as these. Next week, there’s lots on, including Interhouse Badminton and the return of rowing club. A reminder that you still have the opportunity to sign up for after school clubs run by Edubox – including martial arts, sport and art clubs. The link to sign up can be found here.

Orchard Goes Fishing!

We are delighted to have secured £2000 from the Angling Trust Get Fishing Fund. This means that we will be able to buy equipment and take students on fishing trips. We ran a really successful fishing taster session for several students last year.

Going fishing whilst enjoying the great outdoors has significant mental health benefits, including; reduced stress, increased concentration, boosted mood and overall improvement of self-esteem. Fishing has been directly linked to helping people cope with the effects of depression and anxiety.

Orchard School Angling club runs every Thursday week B after school where students can learn about how and where to fish whilst discovering the benefits of fishing. Please encourage your child to come along and find out more! Not many schools offer this opportunity, so we would love to see students getting involved.

Safeguarding

Healthy friendships are an essential part of the development of all children and can help lead to positive mental health in the short and long term. If you would like to look further into how you can support your child in developing healthy friendships and avoiding unhealthy relationships, the NSPCC and CEOP websites have a wealth of information.

School Newsletter

A reminder that you can read our school newsletter from last term at the link here. It’s a packed edition! Orchard School - Newsletters

Uniform Reminder

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 in Term 4

 Clubs and Enrichment (Curriculum menu tab)

Community Events - Orchard Iftar 2025

A reminder about Orchard’s Iftar event during Ramadan, for our school community on Wednesday 19th March, 5.30pm- 7.30pm.

Please let us know if you intend to comeby filling in the form sent via email.

There will be a Community Pancake Party on Tuesday 4th March from 5.30-7pm at Ebenezer Church community hub. It’s a FREE event with plenty of pancakes, sweet fillings and pancake-related fun and games.

Stressbusting for Parents

Please find details of a powerful ten-week course which explores stress that comes from being a parent.

https://www.mpcp.info/stressbusting-course-for-parents

 Wishing you all a restful weekend.

Kind regards,

Mel Sweet, Headteacher