The festive season is officially upon us! This week our secondary students have been decorating their form room doors and our primary students have decorated the primary Christmas tree. The school has continued our sustainable initiative by hiring our Christmas trees, which will be returned to their farm and replanted after the holiday season. Please do make note of the calendar updates for the festive events planned until the end of the term.

We are recruiting a secondary pastoral support officer to start in January. If you know of anyone suitable, please direct them to our advert.

Finally, I want to say a massive well done to our Year 11 pupils for completing their first round of mock examinations. The students have revised so well for the exams and their behaviour in the exam hall was exceptional. As this will be our first set of national results in the summer, we want to ensure that our students are well prepped and ready for their GCSEs. If you are a parent of a Year 11 student, please do ensure that they have time off during the Christmas break.

Have you thought about a career in teaching? Now might be your chance!

Whether you’re graduating this year, or have graduated years ago, you can Train To Teach @ Avanti.

Avanti Schools Trust has partnered with Teach First, to offer 50 graduates the opportunity to Train to Teach at an Avanti School through the School-Centred Initial Teacher Training programme (SCITT).

*The 1-year course gives you a PGCE and Qualified Teacher Status* allowing you to learn in a supportive environment. We have vacancies in: @Secondary – Maths, Science, English and @Primary too.

Funding: a number of subjects offer grants, you can get a grant of up £29,000 to train to teach. 

If you’re interested click the button below, learn about the programme and connect with our lead Salina Ventress, who can help you understand the process and answer any questions you may have! 📚 We also have a series of Virtual Information events, see below and book now!

Book your space now at one of our virtual information sessions.

Christmas tree decorating:

Winning House Team ‘Air’ won the most points this term. To celebrate the children were allowed to decorate the Primary Christmas Tree. Well done Air!

Christmas activities:

Our primary children have been decorating gingerbread this week and are looking forward to a range of festive activities in the coming weeks.

We have eight year 10 pupils will be attending a Physics trip to Oxford University in the first week after the holidays on Tuesday 10^th January. Shaylan M, Shay R, Aksayan U, Harshiv G, Shruti D, Shreya R, Vrishti M, Amara C are excited for this opportunity.

 Music and Drama Wizard of Oz Theatre Trip

Students in Year 7 went to the Curve Theatre to see ‘The Wizard of Oz’ last week. This was the Year 7’s first trip in the school and staff were incredibly impressed with the behaviour of students throughout the trip.

“I really like the singing and the acting. My favourite part was at the end when Dorothy time travelled back to Kansas and you could see all the images on the big screen behind her.” Pranay R, 7Air.

“It was really good and I liked how they used a sense of imagination in the show. The movement of the set to show the tornado at the start was really clever. The use of the screens showed the different locations was also very good. I especially liked the use of the floating goggles to show the Wizard of Oz.” Aun S, 7 Fire.

Year 11 GCSE Exam

On Wednesday, Year 11 Drama students completed the first part of their GCSE Drama. Students devised their own performances from scratch based off a stimulus given by the exam board. Students then add techniques from their chosen practitioners, including Steven Berkoff, Pina Bausch, and Paper Birds. The technology offered at the school has meant that we not only have acting candidates but also have students being assessed on their sound and lighting designs. The performances went extremely well and it was wonderful welcoming parents into the building to share in the experience of the first ever GCSE exam at Avanti Fields School.

Mary Poppins Theatre Trip

On Thursday students in the Year 11 Arts Award class travelled to London to see Mary Poppins in the West End. It was a long but exciting day! Student’s behaviour was excellent and the staff attending were blown away by how well they represented the school.

“I thought the show was really fun. The second half was really good because they had amazing animations. The lights looked like stars across the audience. I couldn’t believe it when Mary Poppins flew over the audience at the end.” Rutik B, 11 Air.

“I liked how the transitions between the different scenes happened, going from different buildings and rooms. Characters were singing during these transitions so it looked really smooth. I loved when Bert walked up the wall and across the ceiling, he was upside down!” Parth B, 11 Water.

“One shocking moment was when the dolls turned into a human person and then the giant clown doll came over the roof of the house. I really enjoyed the show.” Sachin S, 11 Air.

This week the Year 9 students held a mock Climate Change Conference. The students were very well behaved and listened extremely well and engaged in the activity. Many students showed courage to stand up and represent their country with an opening speech. It was clear to see that students had engaged in their citizenship lesson the week before as they had come prepared. Thank you to Marc Tench for attending and leading the conference.

Congratulations to the year 10 netball team for becoming East Leicester Netball Champions. We were the overall winners from East Leicester rounds, beating Madani Girls 4-0, which saw us go through to the county rounds. We had some tough competition and unfortunately lost our place in the quarter finals to Tudor Grange but the girls have shown true resilience and teamwork to get this far. I am immensely proud of them and they came away with huge smiles. A big thank you and well done to Simran N in year 8, who stepped up to the challenge to play for the year 10s after two girls unfortunately could not play. She was our girl of the match and really shone in her outstanding performance. Well done to the year 10 netball team. As always, thank you to our amazing sports leaders who always so willingly volunteer their time to help out at fixtures.

• Monday 5th December: Year 8 IET Faraday trip
• Wednesday 7th December: Reception walk to the park
• Wednesday 7th December: Secondary drama production
• Monday 12th December: Primary pantomime experience
• Tuesday 13th December: Reception flu vaccinations
• Tuesday 13th December: Primary Christmas card workshops
• Wednesday 14th December: PTFA bake sale
• Wednesday 14th December: Year 11 Gateway College visit
• Wednesday 14th December: Primary Christmas assembly and grotto
• Thursday 15th December: Govinda’s special Christmas lunch
• Friday 16th December: Christmas jumper day (£1 donation towards Save the Children Charity)
• Friday 16th December: Early finish for secondary pupils at 12:50pm, regular finish time for primary pupils

As well as electing/re-electing the Key Committee posts we are looking to expand the team with both additional committee members and active ad-hoc volunteers. We are keen to have representation from all year groups, including Primary and Nursery, as well as some school staff and would like to encourage you all to consider joining our successful group.

PTFA AGM Letter 3 Nov 22

If you would like to discuss further or require some more details about what is involved, please email us on [email protected].

We hope to see you at the AGM.

Many Thanks

Avanti Fields PTFA Committee

Reg Charity No. 1183148

The Winter Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF) will be available for children eligible for benefits-related free school meals.

This HAF round we will be sending out a letter to parents/carers of children who were receiving benefits-related free school meals on 7 November 2022.  The letter confirms a child’s eligibility and gives unique HAF Code for the parent to use when registering for a place.

We hope that this letter will widen participation from families.  However, we continue to ask for your help to reach children who may benefit from this programme.

Eligible children can register to attend one HAF programme over winter holiday and they will also receive a healthy lunch each day that they attend.

There are over 60 programmes taking place across the city for parents to choose from.  The dates, times and age suitability will differ by provider.

Spaces will be allocated on a first come first served basis to children and young people who meet all of the following criteria:

• live in Leicester City
• are receiving benefits related free school meals
• are in the age range for that programme

Please distribute the list of programme providers to parents/carers.  Parents/carers can also find details directly from families.leicester.gov.uk/haf.

We are pleased to announce the council is now accepting Household Support Fund applications.

The local authority has received funding of £3.4 million which we plan to distribute to the most vulnerable households within the City.  Our focus in this scheme is to support those who have not received financial support from the Government Cost of Living payments and the previous grant period of this scheme between April and September 2022 – therefore awards to households who have already received both of these will be limited to food only, unless there are vulnerabilities or risk factors identified in the household.  Please note, all support received is a contribution, and not a replacement for the applicant’s entire budget.

The fund will be used to support households most in need with:

• Food
• Gas and electricity (billed and pre-paid)
• Water bills
• White goods (via referral only)
• In exceptional cases of genuine emergency, it may also be used to support housing costs where existing housing support/discretionary schemes do not meet this need

A reminder that this is not a crisis service.

Funding has also been used to support various food banks around the city and to fund the Pop-Up Pantry Scheme available to those receiving free school meals in October 2022 and February 2023.

Supporting your vulnerable families

For this round of the Household Support Fund, support can be accessed by:

1. Application submitted directly by the family
2. Professional referrer form submitted by the school

Schools are not expected to act as professional referrers, this is optional dependant on your capacity.

Option 1 – Application submitted directly by the family

Families can apply directly if they need help with:

• Food
• Gas and electricity (billed and pre-paid)
• Water bills

Applications can be submitted by families, however, this will be live based on one week on and two weeks off (subject to demand).  The dates below show when the form will be live:

• 14 November – 21 November 2022 (please note form maintenance is planned from 10pm Friday 18 November to approx. 6pm on Sunday 20 November)
• 5 December – 12 December 2022
• 3 January – 9 January 2023
• 23 January – 30 January 2023
• 13 February – 5 March 2023

Full details can be found at leicester.gov.uk/householdsupportfund.

Option 2 – Professional referrer form submitted by the school (*school use only)

Schools are able to support their most vulnerable families by making an application on the families behalf via the professional referrer form.

Support available through the professional referral form includes:

• Food
• Gas and electricity (billed and pre-paid)
• Water bills
• White goods (via referral only)
• In exceptional cases of genuine emergency, it may also be used to support housing costs where existing housing support/discretionary schemes do not meet this need

Avanti Fields will be reaching out to vulnerable families prior to the holidays to offer support. If you believe you need the support of a school referral, please contact our admin team at [email protected]

Avanti Fields school is proposing to change our admissions policy for 2024-25. To engage in the consultation, please visit the Avanti Schools Trust consultation page here.

Communications – Wherever possible please use the contact form on our website to get in touch. This is detailed on the website at https://avanti.org.uk/avantifields/contact-us/. The appropriate member of staff will pick up the message and get back to you as soon as possible.

Absence

To report an absence to the school, parents should contact us by 8:00am (primary) and 8.30am (secondary) 

Email: [email protected]
Phone: 0116 326 6813 (Option 1 to leave a voicemail) 

Please remember to state your child’s full name, tutor group and reason for absence. If your child is unwell, please could you give a brief description of the symptoms. 

All education research highlights how crucial it is to a child’s academic progress and wellbeing they attend school , on time, all of the time. Therefore, a reminder that it is important that families organise events or holidays outside of school time to ensure that their child is at school as often as possible.   

The school works closely with the Education Welfare Officer at LCC, and we do seek to ensure that any requests for authorised absence are dealt with on a case-by-case basis, in a sensitive manner. However, the school can never authorise a family holiday or a trip abroad to visit family members during term time.   

This academic year, families will have two weeks at the October half-term, three weeks at Christmas and two weeks at Easter for extended family holidays. Please do ensure that if booking holidays, they fall within the holiday periods.