12 minute read
Parents/carers of current year 6 students
from Newsletter 39
Year 6 Transition Programme
We would like to take the opportunity to say thank you so much for engaging in our virtual transition process this year. We still remain so disappointed that we have not been able to get to know you all in our usual way over the past few weeks. We do hope that the information we have provided has helped to make you all feel a little more comfortable about making the transition to Highfields in September. We hope that you all have a safe and restful summer break, after what has been an incredibly strange few months for us all. We are very much looking forward to meeting you all on that first day in September. Remember, you will have the whole of lower school to yourself and you will spend the entire day with your form class, getting to know your tutor and new class mates.
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A letter will be sent to you during the summer to activate your Parentpay account. We would advise you to pay for ‘activity day’ and locker key as soon as possible after this has been activated. Please add money to the school dinners account on 1 September ready for your child’s first day.
Again, thank you for your continued support throughout this whole transition process. If you do have any further questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch directly with Mrs Green via email tgreen@highfields.derbyshire.sch.uk as this email address will be monitored once a week. Please do not message the school system with your questions as this will not be monitored in the holidays
Please keep an eye on the school website during the holidays in case there is an update on the school response to government guidance.
Stay safe everyone and we look forward to seeing you on Wednesday 2 September!
Year 7 Team
A recap on activities and information issued during lockdown Subject activities
We hope you liked the hand activity. If you have not completed this yet, please try to get this done during the school holiday and send it in to us. We really would like a hand from you all!
Subject activities you will have had are:
An introduction to your new language. The year 7 forms will be studying the following languages: 7RHE and 7OM - German 7RP and 7BC - Spanish 7LT, 7SB and 7PH – French
Music activity - our year 7 and year 8 students have been doing this in their lessons during lockdown. Have a go and see what you can create (full details are on the email you have received).
Year 6 parents - introduction to Highfields
We were sorry that we were not able to meet you on our year 6 parents evening. This would have been an opportunity for you to meet your child's form tutor and the year 7 pastoral team in person and to share any concerns you may have. Instead, Mrs Green has emailed out a presentation that is based on what you would have received on the evening - we hope you found this helpful.
During the year 6 evening you would have had the opportunity to meet our Headteacher, Mr Marsh, and he would have welcomed you all to our school. Mr Marsh’s welcome message has been emailed out to families to watch ready for September. Please let Mrs Green know if you have not received it.
SEND department
Mrs Green has sent out some useful information from our SEND department. If you have any queries or concerns regarding funding/additional support for your child, please email Mrs Leverton (lleverton@highfields.derbyshire.sch.uk). Students who have a keyworker in September have been notified and further details provided.
Map and form room information
Students now know the friend from their friendship card and so will have a familiar face in their class in September. However, it is also incredibly important to us at Highfields that students build new friendships, join clubs and have many positive relationships in school. This will enable them to develop into a resilient Highfields student. Our club list is published by 1 October and we encourage all year 7 students to join at least one club to make new friends and learn new skills.
Please remember that classes are for learning and seating plans are frequently changed in order to encourage your child to develop new relationships and encourage new ideas in the classroom. In each lesson there may be a different seating plan, so your child will learn to work with lots of different people. We hope that by November they will know all their new classmates really well. There is plenty of time at break and lunchtime for students to meet and socialise with friends and attend clubs with them or even do homework together in homework club.
We issued an email notifying you of your child’s form tutor along with a profile of them to look at. They are very much looking forward to meeting students in their form on 2 September. There was also a map attached showing where their form room is to help them get to know Starkholmes before September. Please reassure your son/daughter that staff will be there on the first day to guide them to their room and around school in the first few weeks of term.
If you have not received information on your child’s tutor or form room please contact Mrs Green.
School Library
You should also be in receipt of information on our library and Accelerated Reading Programme. Mrs Robinson, our Library Manager, has completed a profile for you to read and sent a link to a survey so she can help support students in September.
Dietary requirements
Year 6 families were sent two forms about dietary requirements for your child in school and at Lea Green. For Lea Green it is essential that you confirm if your child is vegetarian or if there are any allergies or special requirements. For Derbyshire County Council it is essential that you confirm if your child has any allergies or special requirements if you wish for your child to eat in school and to enable them to cater for this. Please email tgreen@highfields.derbyshire.sch.uk with the special diets form asap to allow her to contact Lea Green before the end of term with all the relevant information. If you require a medical diet form for your child to eat in school, please also contact Mrs Green.
Y6 Additional consent forms
Y6 parents/carers should all have received the Cat 1 Blank Consent form, Social Media Use Agreement and GDPR consent form to complete along with related correspondence. If you have not received these please contact Mrs Green.
We do appreciate your support in completing these forms on time and have tried to stagger the information we have issued to allow you time to do this.
We also enclosed the answers to the Information Booklet quiz that we sent out and we hope that this booklet has helped them learn more about Highfields. Please return the anagram activity if your child would like to take part in the competition for most words.
Year 6 ‘hand’ activity
Mrs Green has emailed out the hand activity task instructions that we would really like students to do. You can print and colour in with your personal design and then scan back in to tgreen@highfields.derbyshire.sch.uk
Or if your child is a computer whizz and can do this online to add their own images/colours from the computer, then you can send back to the same email address.
If you are not able to send your hand electronically it would be really good if you could post it back to school so that we can get our poster ready for September. We want to be able to make a new mane for our lion with your hands so you know we are all part of Highfields.
Year 7 booklet, map quiz and anagram challenge
You will be in receipt of our new Y7 booklet for you to have a look through along with a quiz for you to see how well you have read it! There was also a map of the school with an example timetable along with a further quiz. Hopefully, this has helped you learn your way virtually around the school and familiarise yourself with the layout before September – remember you can revisit the virtual tour we issued previously to you to help.
Answers to the quiz were sent to parents/carers on 26 June - we hope you had fun and enjoyed doing the activities.
The Y7 booklet is also available on our website: http://www.highfields.derbyshire.sch.uk/pdfs/InfoPDFs/Y6Booklet2020.pdf
Derbyshire County Council School Dinners
Families have been emailed information regarding school dinners, including a current price list and items available to purchase (this is also displayed near the kitchen area for students to view while queuing), to give families an idea of the range of food available. Each week the latest menu is also included in the school newsletter.
A medical diet letter was also included in the communication. Please contact Mrs Green via email (tgreen@highfields.derbyshire.sch.uk) if you require the medical diet form to ensure that DCC are able to cater for your child's school dinner.
Year 7 Activity Day Induction Programme
We issued information on our year 7 activity day which is part of our induction programme and included a leaflet about this exciting day. There are two forms to be completed and returned.
The price includes a year group t-shirt to wear on the day. We would advise you pay for this as soon as our ParentPay information is sent to you (you should receive this by August). ParentPay gives you access to pay for trips and meals on line.
We are hopeful that this event will be able to go ahead. We walk there or walk back depending on the form group your child is in (we will let you have further information in September). Parents/carers either drop off or collect so there is no concern about social distancing. Lea Green have confirmed that they should be able to adapt the day to comply with this as well.
If your child has any special requirements as indicated on the form Special Diets 2020 please complete and return this to tgreen@highfields.derbyshire.sch.uk
Year 6 families will have received an email with two attachments – ‘pyramid worries’ and an ‘all about me’ activity.
Thank you for your ‘All about Me’ documents. We have enjoyed reading them and getting to know you. We have shared this information with your form tutor.
The top concerns from you all were getting lost/bullying and too much homework and we will ensure that we reassure you about these in September and pass on to our Theatre Company. We intend to give you a really good tour of the school in September so please do not worry about getting lost.
Geography on a plate activity
Thank you to year 6s for your ‘geography on a plate’ activities. We featured some of the ones we received in recent newsletters - well done to you all!
This activity was to replicate what year 6 students would have done if the usual visit to Highfields had taken place as part of the ‘taster lesson’.
Pastoral profiles
You will all be in receipt of the pastoral profiles we have emailed out. We hope this helps you start to remember names and put them to the faces of our year 7 team.
Starkholmes virtual tour
Our transition programme started with a virtual tour of our lower school site at Starkholmes to help our soon to be new year 7 students familiarise themselves with Highfields.
Year 6 Transition timetable
Our transition programme of information is now complete and you should have all received the information you need to prepare students for their learning journey at Highfields.
From September, there will be some very focused ‘year 7’ time and activities will depend on what has been possible throughout the summer term.
We will keep in touch to make sure students have the best possible transition experience in this climate. Our priority remains that students feel part of our community and to allay as many worries
as possible whilst beginning to outline our expectations. In this way, together we will be able to ensure that every student begins their Highfields journey as smoothly as possible.
Year 7 PowerPoints and student magazine
Some of our year 7 students have put together PowerPoints for students they know in primary schools moving up to Highfields in September and these are being emailed out separately. We hope year 6 students will find it useful to know there will be familiar faces of students who were previously at their primaries to help them when they join us in the new academic year.
Our current year 7 students have also been working hard and put together a magazine for year 6 students. It has been compiled by them to give a little insight into what it is like at Highfields in advance of students starting with us in September – see link below: http://www.highfields.derbyshire.sch.uk/news/269.html
September 2020 – Transport to school for year 6 parents/carers
The link below is to the Derbyshire County Council website that aims to answer any questions you may have on school transport in September 2020: https://derbyshire.gov.uk/education/schools/your-child-at-school/travel/school-transport.aspx
The site provides information on the options available for travelling between school and home, including details on free bus travel, timetables and DCC plans and policies for school transport.
We are waiting on final information for the start of September regarding transport arrangements in light of the Covid-19 outbreak. Once government guidance has been interpreted we will issue transport details out to families as soon as confirmation has been received. Please ensure you have completed the home to school transport survey emailed out this week.
