1st March 2024
Mrs Withers and Freddie are celebrating St David's day today in school with Welsh cakes and daffodils! Happy St David's day to all our families of Welsh heritage.
Dear Parents
Welcome back after our half term break. I hope it was restful for you all and you managed to spend some time relaxing. Rosie and I had a lovely four days in Cornwall playing on the beach and walking the cliffs at Lands End. Just joyful!
World Book Day 2024 Thursday 7th March
Next week is World Book Day and we will celebrating with a Trust-wide focus: reading around the world.
Each class will spend the week exploring Floella Benjamin's Coming to England book and we will create a display afterwards in the entrance hall so you can see all our lovely learning.
On World Book day children can choose to come in wearing either comfy chill-out clothes or a book-themed costume; hopefully this caters for all preferences and budgets!
We would also love each child to bring in a book for our annual class book swop - this can be a preloved book from home or a charity shop. Each child can then select a new book to bring home and enjoy.
The children will be taking part in a range of fun activities on the day so please watch Twitter for updates.
As always, please keep promoting a love of reading and books at home as we do every day in school.
Change to Friday assembly
In school we are slightly changing the way we do Friday assemblies. We are moving from 'sharing assembly' to 'values assembly'. The aim is to raise the profile of our values and create an increased sense of community and purpose. Children will be told at the beginning of the week if they are sharing on the Friday. This gives them time to think about what they would like to share and also encourages the whole class to support them in pointing out when they have shown that value. Sharing in assembly also promotes our school driver of 'communication'.
Birthday celebrations will still continue as part of our Friday assembly. The assembly celebrates the week's birthdays including the forthcoming weekend.
As always parents are welcomed to join our Friday assembly.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, Monday 4th March 2024 between 11.00-11.30am.
As you may be aware, Mrs Withers and Mrs Davies are taking part in a programme with Herts for Learning this year called 'Great Representation', which aims to address race inequity in schools. Throughout the programme, we have visited the schools in our assigned 'hub group' and next week it is our turn to host leaders from 3 schools across Hertfordshire to showcase our journey. We would like to invite parents who have been involved in the committee to come and chat with the visiting school leaders on Monday 4th March 2024 between 11.00-11.30am.
We appreciate this may be a difficult time for parents to come into school, however, we are confined to the busy diaries of 4 different schools and you can appreciate their time is precious too. Although we do hope a few of you will be able to come and talk about what we have done as a school and what you would like to see next. The host leaders will be talking to individual children about equality and diversity in each of the classes.
Additionally, the next EDI meeting will be held on Wednesday 13th March 2024 at 2.45pm where we will be reflecting on this visit and putting a plan in place for an end of programme project in the Summer Term.
New School Dinner Menu - important to please read
Our new menu can now be found on our school website. This menu will go through to the end of July and you can continue to select your children's school dinners on the Aspens Select site. As a reminder please ensure you are booking the dinners before 8.00am each morning and cancel your child's school dinner if they are absent from school. If you need your child's Aspens login details please contact the school office.
From Monday the kitchen staff will now offer children without a school dinner order an alternative meal of either pasta or jacket potato. Please can I urge parents to keep up to date with the pre-ordering so the children get their meal choice. Thank you for your continued support.
Parent Spring Term Survey
Our spring term parent survey is now available to parents via the forms section on Edulink. Please can all parents complete this survey by the deadline of Friday, 12th March at 8.00pm. Many thanks for your support.
Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel
Harpenden Academy has some exciting news for you! We are taking part in the 15th year celebration of Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel, the UK’s largest inter-school cycling, walking, wheeling and scooting challenge. The challenge runs from 11-22 March 2024. It’s free to take part and we would love everyone to be involved.
What do you need to do?
Encourage your child(ren) to walk, scoot or cycle to school on as many days as possible during the event.
Including everyone
We want to make sure that everyone can get involved in Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel.
We know it may be more difficult for some pupils to take part than others. If you want to discuss more about your child(ren)’s specific needs, please contact Mrs Curnow and we will make sure to look into how your child(ren) can take part.
Why we are taking part
Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel is a great way to build physical activity in children’s daily routine which is important for their physical health and mental wellbeing.
Active school runs also help to reduce congestion and air pollution outside the school gate. A 2021 YouGov study showed nearly half of UK children worry about air pollution near their school. And that children thought active travel was the best away to bring down these pollution levels.
Plus there are some great prizes to be won every day if we get enough children taking part!
Useful resources
To help you prepare, Sustrans has developed a handy free guide to walking, cycling or scooting to school. It is packed with advice to help you have hassle-free journey to school.
Download your free family guide using this link: https://www.sustrans.org.uk/sign-up-to-receive-your-free-school-run-guide/
For more information about the event go to www.bigwalkandwheel.org.uk . Enjoy the challenge!
Operation Encompass
Harpenden Academy is an Operation Encompass school.
Operation Encompass is a police and education early information safeguarding partnership enabling schools to offer immediate support to children experiencing domestic abuse.
Operation Encompass ensures that there is a simple telephone call or notification to a school’s trained Designated Safeguarding Lead (known as DSL) prior to the start of the next school day after an incident of police-attended domestic abuse where there are children related to either of the adult parties involved.
Information is shared with a school’s DSL prior to the start of the next school day after officers have attended a domestic abuse incident. This sharing of information enables appropriate support to be given, dependent upon the needs and wishes of the child.
SET Music Concert - Tuesday 12 March
This year’s trust concert will be taking place on Tuesday 12 March. The event is being hosted by Priory this year and will take place at The Grove Theatre, Dunstable. Tickets are available from the venue directly – Purchase Tickets Here
Harpenden Academy's choir and instrumentals will be performing again this year.
All participants should have received a letter via Operoo with further information.
We look forward to seeing you at The Grove on Tuesday 12 March!
Happy birthday this week to: Harry (R),Yo Yo (R), Kayan (R), Isobel (1), Ludo (1), Remy (1), Tristan (2), Ella (2), Bo (3), Hana (4), Shreyan (4), Phyllis (5),Sophie (5), Ella (5), and Leo (6)
FoHA Chair Position
We are looking for a parent or two parents to chair or co-chair Friends of Harpenden Academy. We are in great need urgently to fill this position. We know that there are many parents who would want to participate and we would love to welcome you into our friendly committee to plan fundraising events for our wonderful school.
Please consider emailing FoHA at friendsofharpendenacademy@gmail.com to talk through the possibility even if you're hesitant!
Please click here to view our Harpenden Academy vacancies
Please click here to view our Scholars' Education Trust vacancies
