Day School & Sixth Form Newsletter - 30 April 2021

Day School & Sixth Form Newsletter 30 April 2021

Sixth Form Update It has been a fantastic full week back in the building with a huge number and variety of performances and assessments being prepared for the final term.

Year 13 continue to work through the Change Makers programme in PSHE, developing skills that will help them to make positive, lasting and meaningful change in all areas of their lives. We are currently planning the induction days for our new Year 12 students, which will take place in July. At the same time I am organising next year’s Enrichment programme, which will feature some exciting new additions. We have also turned our attention to the appointment of next year’s Sixth Form Captains. Earlier in the week, Russell Clark delivered an assembly to Y12 on the dangers of Sexting.

Finally, I am delighted to welcome Amy Whiterod to the Sixth Form team as Deputy Director of Sixth Form, beginning in September.

Have a great weekend.

Mark Ferrington

School Captains Log! Hello, School Captains here!

We hope that everyone is doing well and coping with this busy half term!

It was so nice to meet all of Year 12 in their assembly on Wednesday and it’s a shame we haven’t been able to introduce ourselves sooner due to the pandemic, but it was great to briefly show our faces and have a chat. We are very much looking forward to helping decide who the next School Captains will be, so be sure to apply if this is a role you’d be interested in.

We wish everyone the best of luck with exams! You’ll all smash it!

As always, School Captains

The HPL Plan What is HPL?

Week 1: All KS3 students are to learn and understand the HPL words/phrases.

HPL stands for High Performance Learning. It is a twoyear accredited programme for ArtsEd to be awarded and recognised as the World Class School that we know it is.

Week 2: All KS3 students are to use the HPL words/phases in class.

End of the 2 weeks: At the end of the fortnight, students are to write up how they successfully used one or more of the HPL Words/Phrases at ArtsEd, in or out of lessons.

HPL provides schools with a clear framework and structure that allows students to believe that they all have the power to succeed. At the heart of the framework is the HPL language, 20 ACPs (Advanced Cognitive Performance Characteristics) and the 10 VAAs (Values Attitudes Attributes).

These write up will be used as evidence to help us pass our first HPL year on the programme. The most concise and thought-through write up will be awarded the HPL fortnight prize (a sweet treat and up to 10 merits).

Day School Pupils of the Week

Action Plan We will be continuing with HPL words of the week from each section of the ACPs (Advanced Cognitive Performance Characteristics) and the VAAs (Values Attitudes Attributes). By the end of this term, all KS3 students will have learnt all 30 HPL Words/Phrases and used them at school with the support of their teachers. This fortnight’s HPL Words/Phrases are…

Meta Thinking

Linking

Analysing

Strategy-planning: The ability to approach new learning experiences by connecting them to existing knowledge and/or concepts.

Imagination: The ability to present the problem and its categorisation in relation to more extensive and interconnected prior knowledge.

Complex and Multi-Step Problem Solving: The ability to break down a task, decide on a suitable approach and then act.

Creating

Realising

Flexible Thinking: The ability to abandon one idea for a superior one or generate multiple solutions.

Speed and Accuracy: The ability to work at speed and with accuracy.

Ava Simpson - Year 7

Olivia Walcot - Year 11

For good progress in her keyboard skills in music and always pushing herself.

For persevering with composition & performance coursework and pushing herself

Josh Pantlin - Year 9 For perseverance and great work in Art.

For supporting classmates and helping others while also staying on top of her own work. to

Hannah Twort - Year 10 for sharing her solutions on the board to some grade 7 ‘changing the subject of a formula’ questions in maths.

Sixth Form Pupils of the Week Maddie Haynes & Will Foggin - Year 12

VAAs Empathetic Collaborative: The ability to seek out opportunities to receive responses to your work; present your own views and ideas clearly and concisely; listen to the views of others; be willing and able to work in teams; take a variety of roles and be able to evaluate young own ideas and contributions.

Agile Open-Minded: The ability to take an objective view of different ideas and beliefs; become more receptive to other ideas and beliefs on the arguments of others; change ideas should there be compelling evidence to do so.

Hard Working Resilience: The ability to overcome setbacks; remain confident, focused, flexible and optimistic; help others to move forward in the face of adversity.

Ella Tronson - Year 11

For being excellent tour guides

Maisy Wignall Georgia Farrow - Year 13 For being excellent tour guides for recent applicants

Lucy Nowell - Year 12 For her contribution to the philosophical discussion in English

Jessie Sumroy - Year 13 For her intellectual leadership and raising the level of discussion in English

5 Ways to Build Resilience Every Day Resilience is the process of effectively coping with adversity—it’s about bouncing back from difficulties. The great thing about resilience is that it’s not a personality trait; it involves a way of paying attention, thinking, and behaving that anyone can learn.

World-renowned neuroscientist Richard Davidson has found evidence that mindfulness does increase resilience, and the more mindfulness meditation you practice, the more resilient your brain becomes.

For example, if you have an argument with a friend before leaving school, you can end up replaying that conversation all day, which continues to proliferate anxiety or low mood far more than is necessary.

Mindfulness reduces this rumination and, if practiced regularly, changes your brain so that you’re more resilient to future stressful events.

Here are five ways to build resilience: 1.

Nurture relationships. Have a range of positive, supportive connections within and outside your family.

2.

Find meaning in difficulties. When faced with adversity, see if you can discover some positive way in which you’ve dealt with the challenge. People often report improved relationships, greater consciousness, or appreciation of life in the face of great difficulties.

3.

Be optimistic. Use mindfulness to shift your attention from negative rumination to more positive thoughts about the future. Hope and optimism is a choice. Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable. You can’t change the fact that very stressful events happen, but you can learn to change your response to that. The tiniest of changes counts, and meditation can help.

4.

Be decisive. Make decisions and take action rather than hoping things will get better one day.

Not making a decision is in itself a decision.

5.

Accept that change is part of living. Expect things to change and adversity to occur, rather than pretend all will always be well. Change is part of life. Your goal is to cope effectively rather than avoid loss or pain.

When it comes to resilience, flexibility is the name of the game.

Reflection: What simple action can you take to begin increasing your resilience?

Violin & Viola Lessons Violin and Viola Taster Lessons Orpheus Papafilippou, our string teacher, is offering complimentary taster lessons on Wednesday 9th June for anyone who would like to have a go. There will be a violin provided for the tasters, and if a student wishes to pursue they would need their own instrument.

If you would like to sign up, please email Tom Cayley at tcayley@artsed.co.uk.