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It has been a brilliant week of celebrating success at Roding Valley High School.

Best football team in Essex! Our Yr11 football team won the Essex cup final against a St Bonaventure's. It was an end to end game that had everything; injuries, goals, yellow cards & last minute equalisers. The game finished 1-1 with our goal being scored by Ben Harris. The game went to extra time & with a lot of tired legs, cramp and injuries the boys fought hard and held on for the game to go to penalties. The penalties swayed either way with both teams missing penalties, and it went down to the last penalty taker and eventually Roding Valley come out as victors winning 9-8 on penalties. The boys have worked so hard for this since Year 7, and they thoroughly deserve every plaudit and bit a praise they receive from this massive achievement. It honestly couldn't of happened to a better bunch of students.

Aliya Silverstone, 10X, took part in the Jack Petchey Speak Out Challenge West Essex Finals on Wednesday. She was one of 14 speakers on the night and came a magnificent 2nd! Well done Aliya. The standard was very high and Roding Valley definitely made an impact with our flags and banners. Aliya's speech was very entertaining and her delivery was flawless. Please go to https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcfAajrq5S4 to watch her outstanding performance of ‘Ginger’ Another of our students, Alice Redknapp 11Q, was the MC for the evening and both girls were well supported by representatives from RVHS. Thank you to Miss Hanlan for organising this as part of our Challenge and Enrichment activities.

RVHS had the opportunity to register two Sixth Form students on to the Lessons From Auschwitz Project earlier in the year. Jade Tucker and Nathan Mellule have completed the first Orientation Seminar and they travelled to Poland this week where they toured authentic sites and museums accompanied by one of our Governors, Mr Frank Solarz. Once all the stages of the project have been completed, Jade and Nathan will become Ambassadors for the Holocaust Trust.

We have our first STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) event coming up in June.

Mrs Claire Noble, STEM Ambassador for Roche, will be presenting to selected groups in Years 7 -9. The subject will be on Pharmaceutical Development. Each session will be for 20 students with an interest in the topic and/or a particular interest and gift / talent in science. Names to be selected shortly. We are indebted to Claire for volunteering to come into RVHS in her ambassadorial role.

It has come to my attention that students around the country are purchasing butterfly “practice” knives as gadgets to practice their spinning skills with. They are readily available on the internet at low cost and there are no age restrictions to purchasing them. Please note that at RVHS butterfly “practice” knives are not allowed. Possession of one on the school site will be treated in the same way as carrying an offensive weapon and will lead to an exclusion.

Thank you to all the parents who supported the Year 10 Parents’ evening last night, it was very well attended and a very positive evening.

At Roding Valley we continually review our curriculum and how students spend their time. If you have a child in Year 9 you would have received a letter from Mr Mammen outlining the proposed changes to the Year 9 curriculum for after half term. The new grading system, 1-9, has given the Government an opportunity to raise the bar on ‘good passes,’ so it is important that all students are ready to rise to the challenge.

The new curriculum model will give students 3 hours a week for each of their chosen subjects - some of which are new, and others where they will have more time each week than present. These changes will ensure that students are all receiving quality first teaching and focussing on the subjects that they will be sitting GCSE exams in.

Mr Banks and I have continued to focus our energies on recruitment to ensure a full compliment of teaching staff for September as per his letter sent out this morning.

Exam timetables are in the body of the bulletin, good luck to all our students at this time.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs S Jenner Head of School

Jack Petchey’s Speak Out Challenge West Essex Finals Wednesday the 10th May was the West Essex finals of the Speak Out Challenge at Passmores Academy, which saw Aliya Silverstone performing for Roding Valley High School.

As Alice Redknap was the 2016 West Essex Speak Out winner she MC'd the event, doing a brilliant job and doing herself and the school proud.

Aliya Silverstone's speech was entitled 'gingers', detailing the daily struggles and stereotypes put upon redheads and entertained the audience from start to finish, earning her 2nd place in the competition.

All in all a brilliant night and Roding Valley High School left a lasting impression.

We are currently arranging special activities around Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects for our KS3 students. There are lots of exciting opportunities being planned and the first of these is a series of visits by a STEM ambassador from Roche Pharmaceuticals. The subject will centre on pharmaceutical research and development. We will be looking at the process, ethics and the many career options in this important field. The dates and times are as follows: 14th June - P5 (Year 9) 15th June - P5 (Year 7) 16th June - P4 (Year 8) Each session will provide the opportunity for 20 students with an interest in this area. Watch out for further announcements and information on this, and other events this term.

The names of the students will be selected shortly, but in the meantime if your child has a particular interest in attending, then please contact the science faculty, details on the website, or email djefferies@rodingvalley.net regarding any questions you may have.

D R Jefferies KS3 Coordinator Science Faculty

This week in the lead up to the examinations has been mental awareness week, and to this end we had a thoughtful assembly led by Mrs Preston on Alzheimer's and on the importance of looking after your mental health.

We also had an excellent assembly led by Mr Murray on the importance of voting. If you are in the Sixth Form and are of voting age, be sure to cast you vote.

We have had two students visiting Auschwitz this week with our school Governor , Mr Solarz. These students learned more about the atrocities of the second world war and then throughout the school year deliver a series of school assemblies.

Request for help: If you would like to take part in, or indeed have a contact that would like to contribute to, our assembly programme on Thursday mornings, 8:20-9:05, then please get in touch. We are always seeking inspirational members of the community to talk to and inspire our Sixth Form on a variety of worldly matters. Please email, lsharris@rodingvalley Finally, I would like to formally wish year 12’s all the very best as they begin their formal study leave and start their examinations next week.

Mr Harris Head of Sixth Form lsharris@rodingvalley.net

Messages from the Head Girl and Head Boy It’s been a long but enjoyable journey for us all since we started in September. With exams not so slowly approaching us any more, it’s safe to say we’re all feeling the pressure. Exam periods are always stressful and challenging but it’s important to continue working as hard as we have been. Make sure you don’t overwork yourself and take the time relax; just remember that we’re so nearly there. Have the trust in yourself and your studies to know that you are prepared and ready. Good luck and I look forward to seeing you after half term!

Lauren Humphries Head Girl Roding Valley Sixth Form

With exams are about to start, I wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone the best of luck! We have all worked so hard this year, and we all deserve to do well in these exams so let’s let these last few days count! We can’t escape revision, but we can revise in a ‘SMART’ and effec ve way. As soon as you get bored, stop! Nothing will be going in if you’re not in the zone. Give yourself a break and come back to it. If you are giving yourself a break, make sure you me yourself and come back to your revision. Make sure that you’re s ll ge ng out of the house and going out to see friends because you must keep up your mental wellbeing as well as preparing the best you can for these exams! Good luck everyone!

Ma hew Tinker PG Head Boy Co‐Director of Wonderland Procedures Group representa ve for East of England.

GCSE ICT: Intervention sessions on Tuesday lunchtimes in IT3 with Mr Hussain

Access to Water in School Parents, please be aware that the canteen has jugs of water available both during lunchtime and break time for all students to access.

Bottled water is sold at all outlets Large bottle 50p Small bottle 25p If a student is overdrawn or has no money on their lunch account, they will always be sold water.

After school sessions mainly targeted at Year 11s (but any student from all key stages KS3, KS4 and KS5 are welcome) in order to help support students to close the gap in either coursework or homework/classwork.

Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10

Year 11

Highest Attendance

7U

Form with the highest Honours

7W

Student with the highest Honours

Dominic Allen 7W

Highest Attendance

8Y

Form with the highest Honours

8R

Student with the highest Honours

Mia Ali 8S

Student of the week

Mario Mendoza 8S nominated by Mrs Lafferty for kindness to another pupil

Highest Attendance

9Y

Form with the highest Honours

9QR

Student with the highest Honours

Saskia Cushings 9RS3

Class of the week

 

Highest Attendance

10X

Form with the highest Honours

10W

Student with the highest Honours

Anthony Rogers 10W

Highest Attendance

11Q

Form with the highest Honours

11Q

9A/Gg2 nominated by Mrs Barron for a great first lesson 9B/Gg1 nominated by Mrs Barron for always pushing themselves

You can follow us at www.rodingvalley.net , on Facebook at the ‘Roding Valley High School Official’ page or on Twitter (@RodingValleyHS). You can also sign up to our free electronic media release service at rodingvalleymedia@gmail.com

Lessons from Auschwitz 5am Stansted Airport 6th Form students Jade Tucker, Nathan Mellule and I check in for our day trip to Poland. We are going to Auschwitz for the day. The visit is part of a project that Jade and Nathan are undertaking called Lessons from Auschwitz supported by the Holocaust Educational Trust.

The intention is that, following some seminars and the visit, Jade and Nathan will become ambassadors for the project, both in the school and in the community. So that “never again” means just that. We find ourselves on a specially chartered plane with about two hundred other students and their teachers all embarking on the same project. Surprisingly for this number of sixth formers the plane is uncharacteristically quiet. The organisers relay information to the students in absolute silence. This apparent exceptional behaviour may be due to the fact that these students had to be up at pre-dawn to arrive at Stansted for a 5am check in, or they may be concerned about what they were going to see during the day; more of this later.

We arrive in Poland and are quickly conducted to our coaches to begin our journey to Auschwitz (German spelling).

The first stop is the town of Auschwitz. We assemble in the town square in our various groups with our facilitators.

We learn that the town between the wars had a very large Jewish community that lived well beside the Christian community. For example, when it was the Jewish Festival of “Simchat Torah” The Jewish community danced around the statue of St John the patron saint of Poland. At Christmas the Jewish community lit candles in their windows as did the Christian community. There was little evidence of anti-Semitism at that time. For the most part the town’s inhabitants got along with one another. Contrast this with the horrors that were to follow.

The next stop was Auschwitz 1. This had been a Polish Army barracks until the Germans invaded and occupied Poland. The buildings were sound and built of brick, they were weather proof and sanitation was good. Auschwitz 1 was never intended in the early days to be an extermination camp. It was meant to be a place of imprisonment for political prisoners. Around Auschwitz 1 were to be built a number of “satellite” camps where the extermination was to be carried out.

Then we moved on to Auschwitz 2 this was the main extermination camp. The buildings were poorly constructed and made of wood with very poor sanitation. In fact these wooden buildings were built using a German army design for military horses. The stables were supposed to hold 40 to 50 horses. In the event they held up to a thousand inmates in the most primitive conditions using three tier bunks.

We moved on to see where selection occurred on the platform as trains arrived i.e. Gas Chamber or work. If you were 15 or under it was automatically the gas chamber; gives a whole new meaning about lying about your age.

The students were still untypically quiet. The students saw and understood that the extermination camp was a business plan and was run on strong economic lines: overheads at a minimum and output at a maximum. The SS acted as an employment agency to I.B. Farben a large company of industrial chemists; they rented out inmates to do the work. The output of the camp also included gold from teeth, spectacles, shoes and women’s hair. Nothing was wasted.

We looked at other exhibits on the site for some three hours. The extermination camp was situated in a lovely piece of countryside that was about 40 square kilometres in area. There were groves of trees amongst the ash pits, crematoria and gas chambers (some of which had been blown up by the Germans). There was also the hospital in which Dr. Mengele carried out his experiments. Wherever we went we heard lots of birds singing.

We looked at photographic evidence of inmates photographed in their “striped pyjamas” by the authorities together with detailed records about the inmates. You were only documented if you were not going directly to be gassed.

After some time the Authorities decided that the photography was too expensive (economics again - an unnecessary overhead) and instead tattooed inmates with a number usually on the left arm.

At the end of the day the students had a memorial service for all that had perished at Auschwitz. This involved students reading poems, a minute’s silence and the lighting of memorial candles. The students (to their absolute credit) carried this out with the maximum of respect.

In talking to the students they came up with a couple of initial questions: 

How can anyone deny the Holocaust happened in the light of the evidence they had seen during the day?



Did the birds sing when this was an extermination camp?

Frank Solarz Governor

The Humanities Faculty has a Twitter account designed to promote sites of interest, pre-reading, revision, humanities information, news and general humanities support.

It is aimed at all KS3, KS4 and A-level Humanities Students and can be followed @humsrvhs

Roding Valley PTA are holding a Pamper Night on Friday 16th June 2017.

This is a great chance for mums, optionally with their children, to get together for an evening of relaxation and indulgence.

We already have: * Spray Tan * Eyebrow Treatments * Nail treatments * Virgin Beauty products * Designer bags * Ladies Fashions * Jewellery * Glitter Accessories If you have a local business, or a friend with a business and would like to present, sell treatments or sell products, we would be very interested to hear from you. Please get in touch for full details: committee@rodingvalleypta.net

Y11 English Revision Timetable The revision sessions will take place on the following dates over the next few weeks after school. 3.05pm to 4.00pm in the English Corridor.

15/05/2017 Literature Paper 1 22/05/2017 Literature Paper 2

Ladies Pamper & Shopping Evening Roding Valley High School Alderton Hill, Loughton, Essex, IG10 3JA. (enter via Brook Road)

on Friday 16th June 2017 7:00pm—10:00pm The night will include:  Beauty Treatments  Cra s and gi s  Clothing  Make up  And much more...

Tickets £3.00 in advance or £4.00 on the door, available from Roding Valley High School.

Payment by cash or cheque (made payable to RVHS PTA)

Contact: commi ee@rodingvalleypta.net

All proceeds from cket sales and raffles go to raising funds for the school.

Licensed bar (ID will be required) and refreshments will be available to purchase.

Enrolment for new ACL courses for 2017/18 goes live from the 15th May. We have ‘employment and skills’ courses including GCSEs in English, maths and biology, access to higher education, accounting, beauty, ECDL, law and hairdressing and a huge range of ‘creative experience’ courses such as art, craft, cooking, cake decorating, floristry, languages, pottery, sewing, silversmithing, upholstery and woodturning.

There are also free English and maths courses from beginners to GCSE. Essex Library card holders receive 10% discount on ‘creative experience’ courses (non-qualification) upon presentation of a valid card.

For more information or to enrol visit www.aclessex.com or call 0345 603 7635

GCSE and GCE Examination Timetables Please see on the following pages the FINAL GCSE and GCE Examination Timetables for May/ June 2017.

All students in Year 11, Year 12 and Year 13 have been issued with an Examination Booklet containing all relevant information regarding the forthcoming exam season.

Tucked inside the front cover of this booklet is a Statement of Entry, this indicates all subjects that each student has been entered for and the level of entry (where applicable). Some subjects only have one tier of entry; some have Foundation or Higher tiers.

All information must be thoroughly checked. In particular, all personal details (date of birth, spelling of names) are accurate as these will appear on certificates and could prove difficult to change once certificates have been awarded and you may be charged a fee. If you feel something is wrong or missing, you must speak to Miss Draper the Examinations Officer immediately.

Students will receive their individual examination timetables after the Easter Break.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards Jenny Draper Examinations Officer Roding Valley High School

Piano Lessons: To book piano lessons please contact rosswall@gmail.com Singing Lessons: Private singing lessons are now available. Please contact Alex Larke for more details and to book your slot. email: alex@thevocaltutor.com Drum Lessons: One to One, Two to One and Small Group lessons available. Learn with your friends! Contact: marksevel@hotmail.com Guitar Lessons: Lessons slots are available on Mondays with lessons priced at £12 per half hour. Please contact Rachel Espeute on racheleds@hotmail.co.uk if you are interested.

PE Twitter Account The PE department have activated a Twitter account where regular PE updates, extra-curricular news and curriculum information will be regularly published.

Follow @RodingValleyPE to keep up to date with our department.

KS4 Computer Science revision/ intervention sessions are running in IT4 on Thursday lunchtimes

You can follow us at www.rodingvalley.net and on Facebook at the ‘Roding Valley High School Official’ page.

Come up to Homework Club Monday after school to become a times tables expert.

Time: 3.05pm - 3.40pm Place: Learning Zone ACHIEVEMENT CERTIFICATE GIV-

Our Twitter (@RodingValleyHS) account is a great place to keep up to date with some of the latest news and activities in school.

You can also sign up to our free electronic media release service at rodingvalleymedia@gmail.com

ATTENDANCE MATTERS…..

Student Absence If your child is unable to attend School for any reason then please report their absence by phoning the school number by 9.30am, you must also ring in each day of your child’s absence.

020 8508 1173 On their return to School please ensure your child brings with them a letter or medical evidence if requested explaining the reason for the absence for our records.

Medical Appointments When possible please make sure you make any medical or dental appointments outside of school time. If this is not possible then please try to ensure that your child attends before and/or after their appointment Holidays in Term Time It is not school policy to authorise any holidays during term time except in exceptional circumstances. If you put in a holiday request a ‘Leave of Absence’ form must be completed (these are available at Student Reception). Please be aware if the absence is not authorised and the holiday is taken, the case may be referred to the Education Welfare Service who may issue a Penalty Notice for £120 (or £60 if paid within 21 days) to each parent for each child taken out of school.

For full details regarding attendance please see our Attendance Policy which can be found in the ‘Parents’ section on our website or contact Mrs Jeanette Low our Attendance Officer on the school number.

Guidance for Common Ailments Please see, on the following page, guidance from the NHS of common childhood illnesses; this advises what type of illness requires time off from school and what does not. Should you require further guidance please contact the school.