A very warm welcome back to all of our pupils and staff (despite the cold weather). Even though I’ve worked for the Trust for a number of years, I never fail to appreciate the 3-week Christmas break; that additional week means that the school community can spend quality time with their friends and family and come back refreshed for the term ahead. I hope you all feel the same and are looking forward to the Spring Term.

Primary pupils, parents and colleagues have welcomed back Miss M Sicotray from her maternity leave and secondary students have seen a new face of Miss Roberts join the English team. Please read below for details on some KS3 curriculum changes.

I am excited with what the new year will bring for Avanti Fields and look forward to sharing the wide number of extra curricular activities we have planned within the school. In upcoming bulletins, please look out for primary workshops, KS4 STEM masterclasses, UKMT competitions, a wide range of trips and visits, Year 8 Avanti Quest residential, as well as events to celebrate National Apprenticeship Week and World Book Day (just to name a few!)

Secondary Calendar

• Monday 15th January: Sparks Academy ATG programme
• Tuesday 16th January: Y8 Parent consultation Evening – Secondary school finish at 12:45pm
• Thursday 18th January: Sparks Academy ATG programme
• Friday 19th January: Y11 Mock Interviews

Primary Calendar

• Monday 22nd January: Primary workshop – Jungle Jo

Our activities programme for the new year has launched on 3rd January and we are happy that we have over 25 different activities on offer over the week. There is still time to join for the remainder of a 12-week class. Please see the flyers below for more information on the activities. There are limited spaces remaining for each activity.

If you have any enquiries, feel free to get in touch [email protected]

Primary News

Happy New Year!

We have made a positive start to the new year; children have come back energetic and eager to learn! We started the week off with a Pantomime which the children loved and Year 1 pupils also attended an art workshop run by a specialist artist!

Parents Evening

Parents evenings will take place on the 30^th January and 1^st February.

We have decided to have our parents’ evenings face to face so that you can see your child’s learning environment and some of their pieces of work.

Each parents meeting will last no longer than 10 minutes to ensure everyone gets the same amount of time. The parents evening meeting will cover the following-
How has your child has progressed since the last meeting?
What have we noticed they are excelling in?
What are your child’s next steps and how you can support this at home?

Please click on the following link below to book in a slot by 26^th January.

https://avanti.wufoo.com/forms/q1kmon4y1doqy9p/

Please ensure when you book in the slot you have inputted the correct class.

Primary School Calendar

January

30^th – Parents evening 3.00pm- 5.30pm

February

1^st– Parents evening 3.00pm- 5.30pm

13^th– Nursery parent/ carer workshop 8.00am- 9.00am

14^th – Reception parent/ carer workshop 1.30pm- 2.45pm

19^th-23^rd – Half Term

28^th – AST staff training day, school closed.

We have an abundance of exciting events taking place throughout the academic year. Please ensure you keep up to date with the Primary school calendar to ensure you do not miss out on anything: Calendar – Avanti Fields School

Spring term pastoral focus: Standing up for diversity

In the Spring term, our pastoral focus will on ensuring that disrespectful, racial, or homophobic language is not tolerated within our school, including being spoken in a language other than English. We will be launching an initiative to promote upstanders to report unkind behaviour and stand up for diversity within the school. Although this is not a problem at our school, we believe that having a term’s focus on this will support all students to continue to feel save and valued within our community. Please click here to view our assembly slides.

More Good Days at School

Anna Freud research project into wellbeing support at school.

All Year 8 and 9 parents an e mail has been sent regarding Avanti Fields involvement in a nation-wide research project in to wellbeing provision at school. If you do not want your child to be a part of the research project there is a link to follow to opt out.

https://redcap.idhs.ucl.ac.uk/surveys/?s=4YWYX4WH7TPRFHMX

Memorandum of understanding Research project_

NHS Mental Health Support

We would like to warmly welcome and introduce Demi from the Leicestershire NHS Mental Health support team. Demi will be starting with us in January on   18.01.23  for one day a week on a Thursday  to offer support to some of our students with their mental health and wellbeing in school,  Demi  is part of the city Mental Health hub for our area.

Update to the KS3 Curriculum

We would like to welcome Miss Roberts to our school this term who has joined the English department and is our new Head of Year 7. Miss Roberts is excited to work with the pastoral team to support our Year 7 cohort. Please read further for Miss Roberts profile and introduction.

Unfortunately, we must also inform you that our Sanskrit teacher will be on long-term leave until the end of this academic year to prioritise her health. To help maintain a consistent and meaningful learning experience, Year 7 and year 8 students will now receive an additional science, maths and Spanish lesson on rotation. For Year 9, an extra English lesson will be delivered by Miss Roberts until the end the end of this academic year.

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation during this time. Our priority is to ensure the continued success and wellbeing of our students, and these adjustments to the curriculum for the interim period will ensure students have a consistent and meaningful learning environment. Thank you for your continued support.

Head of Year 7 update

My name is Miss Roberts, and I am writing to formally introduce myself as the new Head of Year 7. I will be overseeing the year group pastorally and it is my role to support students both emotionally and academically to ensure that they feel comfortable, cared for and can, in turn, make the right choices and achieve the best they can as individuals.

Whilst I am here to support each individual student, their first port of call will be their form tutors as they are the most familiar with the students and have the time to touch base with them each morning. Any praise, queries or issues which the form tutor feels should be taken further will then be passed on to me and I will deal with these matters in the best possible way.

Please also bear in mind that subject-specific matters can be sent directly to the teachers.

I believe that communication is key to a student’s success, and I encourage you to get in touch if you have any questions or concerns. If you need to contact me, my email is: [email protected], or feel free to call me at the school during normal school hours.

I look forward to working with you to create a positive year for the students.

Kind regards,

Miss Roberts

Y11 Mock interviews

We need your help! We are looking for enthusiastic and helpful volunteers to conduct our year 11 mock interviews which are held for all our year 11 to allow them to prepare for college interviews. As a volunteer you will be asked to do the following:

• Deliver and ask pre prepared questions in a professional manner to mirror the college interview process.
• To give appropriate feedback on their strengths and areas of development to allow them to improve for actual college interview.
• Have a supportive and age-appropriate approach towards students to help build their confidence.

There will be a member of staff present in the interview room to support the process.

Please could you complete the short form (2-3 mins) to indicate your availability for the week beginning 15.01.24 and week beginning 22.01.24: https://avanti.wufoo.com/forms/qcyz4d50o7v45r/, if you could complete this prior to 15.01.24, we would be extremely grateful.

PTFA  – Annual General Meeting

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

21st January 2024

To be held at Avanti Fields School, Hamilton at 3:00pM

Please email your request to attend meeting and nomination for a  committee role to  [email protected]

The deadline for nominations is Thursday 18th January 2024.

please see the link below of meeting letter

PTFA AGMupdated letter

Parent Teacher Friends Association (PTFA)

 PTFA  

Garden Project Volunteers

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.