It was a pleasure for our year 12 students to organise our second KWSixth community tea party for local senior citizens.
We enjoyed a game of bingo, performances from students across the school and lunch served by the year 12 ambassadors.
It was a fantastic occasion. A massive thank you to the KWS canteen staff and the year 12s for organising.
What an incredible year of energy, team spirit, and fierce competition we have had for the 2025-26 House Competition!
From athletic prowess on the rounders field to the absolute concentration required for the classic egg and spoon race, not to mention the brilliant display of creativity in the Talent Show and the Christmas Card competition—it has been wonderful to see our students rewarded with house points for such a wide variety of talents.
A massive thank you to our new staff and student Heads of House for their fantastic support and leadership throughout the year!
How Was the Winner Decided?Points were accumulated across a diverse mix of academic, behavioral, creative, and athletic challenges. Here are all the areas where students earned points for their houses this year:
Academic & Behavioral: Most student recognitions, highest student attendance, and fewest behavior consequences.
Creative & Performance: The Talent Show, House Writing Competition, and the Christmas Card Competition.
Sports & Physical Activity: Sports Day, House Rounders, House Badminton, and the Sustain Run & Walk.
Fun & Novelty Events: The Student Quiz, the classic Egg and Spoon Race, and the highly anticipated Staff Curling!
The Final StandingsWith all of our new and traditional criteria taken into account, the competition was incredibly tight this year. Every single point was hard-earned. Here is how the leaderboard looks at the finish line:
|
Rank |
House |
Points |
|
1st |
|
168 |
|
2nd |
|
158 |
|
3rd |
|
147 |
|
4th |
Ali |
145 |
|
5th |
Franklin |
103 |
|
6th |
Armstrong |
93 |
A massive thank you to all the students, staff, and organizers who made these events such a spectacular success! Enjoy the victory, Nightingale, and to everyone else—rest up, because the journey to the next House Cup starts soon! 
Last week, Jess H and I had the incredible opportunity to undertake a three-day work experience placement with our local Member of Parliament, Victoria Collins MP, and her dedicated team. Working alongside the office staff and students from other schools, we were fully immersed in parliamentary politics and local campaigning.
We began our first day by working on constituency casework. Casework involves handling the correspondence and emails that constituents send to Victoria regarding local and national issues. This gave us a firsthand look at the range of challenges facing our community. We learned how an MP’s team works behind the scenes to help resolve problems for residents.
On the second day, we travelled to Westminster for an unforgettable day in London. We began with a tour of the parliamentary estate, followed by the opportunity to watch the historic Speaker’s Procession. Afterward, we headed to the House of Commons gallery to observe a live debate, where we spotted several high-profile politicians in action. A highlight of the day was sitting down for lunch with Victoria to discuss her role, followed by an afternoon task where we drafted Early Day Motions (EDMs), which are formal proposals used by MPs to draw attention to specific campaigns or events.
For our final day, we became campaign interns with the Liberal Democrats. We got a taste of grassroots politics by participating in a phone banking session, calling previous supporters to see if they would be interested in volunteering for upcoming local campaigns. It was an engaging and eye-opening experience that allowed us to speak with a wide variety of people holding diverse political perspectives.
Overall, this experience was incredibly rewarding. We gained insights into how our democracy works, showing us that politics is just as much about helping people on a local level as it is about debating in the House of Commons. We left with a much deeper appreciation for public service and skills for the future.
Some members of our year 12 history A level class went to meet the Wheathampstead u3a group on Wednesday afternoon, to discuss their experiences growing up in the 1940’s and 1950’s.
It was a wonderful occasion and lovely to see our sixth formers interacting with older members of the local community as well as learning from their experiences.
Thank you to the u3a group for inviting us.
At Katherine Warington School, we pride ourselves on providing an education that goes far beyond the classroom. From the vibrant ‘Period 7’ activities and competitive sports fixtures to the life-changing experiences of our school trips, these opportunities are what make the KWS experience unique.
However, providing these high-quality experiences comes with significant costs that fall outside the core school budget. To ensure we can sustain and grow our extracurricular offer and to ensure that no student is ever left behind due to financial circumstances, we are officially launching the KWS Enrichment Fund.
Why contribute?
The Enrichment Fund is a ring-fenced resource dedicated solely to enhancing the student experience. Your donations will directly support:
We will ensure all students at KWS benefit from these opportunities during their life at KWS, e.g all students in Year 11 having access to a Theatre Company performing A Christmas Carol funded by the Enrichment Fund.
How you can help
We are asking our parent community to consider supporting the fund through a regular monthly donation. Whether it is £5, £10, or £20 a month, these contributions provide the predictable income we need to plan ambitious projects for your children.
One-off donations are also incredibly welcome.
The Power of Gift Aid We are now using CAF Donate, which makes giving simple and secure. If you are a UK taxpayer, please remember to tick the Gift Aid box. This allows us to claim an extra 25% on top of your donation from HMRC at no extra cost to you, turning a £10 donation into £12.50.
https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/30418#!/DonationDetails
We understand that every family’s circumstances are different, and there is absolutely no obligation to contribute. However, if you are in a position to help, your generosity will have a direct and lasting impact on the opportunities available to every student at KWS.
Thank you for your continued support of our school community.
Last Tuesday, KWS was buzzing with an extraordinary amount of energy, curiosity, and excitement as we welcomed eight classes of Year 5 pupils to our inaugural Taster Day.
Transitioning to secondary school is a major milestone and our aim was to demystify the experience and replace any worries with genuine excitement. We wanted to give these students a true sense of what makes our school community so vibrant and we are delighted to report that our visiting students rose to the occasion magnificently.
The students threw themselves into a variety of taster lessons, including:
Character development is at the centre of all we do at KWS, and throughout the day it was incredibly rewarding to see the Year 5 students actively demonstrating our core values, most notably their:
KWS students involved in this day showed off a great many of our Character traits too – from the fantastic bunch of Year 7 and 8 student leaders who were tour guides for the day for their old primary schools (and fielded so many questions from Year 5s) to our Year 12 Subject Student Ambassadors helping run the taster lessons.
A big thank you to the primary school staff who brought their classes along and the KWS staff team for putting on such a fantastic array of lessons. We look forward to making this an annual KWS event.
Last week marked a fantastic milestone for our Performing Arts faculty, as we hosted our very first Junior and Senior Recital Evenings!
These special events provided a wonderful, dedicated platform for our 1:1 instrumental and vocal students to step onto the stage and showcase the incredible repertoire they have been developing this term. From our rising junior talents to our advanced senior musicians, the dedication, confidence, and musicality on display were truly inspiring.
Investing in individual tuition builds brilliant discipline and self-expression. It was a deeply proud moment for our fantastic team of peripatetic teachers to see their students perform with such poise, and to share that progress with family, friends, and the wider school community. Evenings like this highlight just how vital the arts are to our students’ growth.
A massive thank you to our expert peri teachers for their brilliant guidance, and to everyone who came out to support our young musicians. Congratulations to all of our performers, see you all at the Winter Recital Evening!
We’ve come to the end of Zero Carbon Schools 2025-26! The whole team at Green Schools Project would like to say a huge congratulations to Katherine Warington School for our hard work and collective action this year to improve climate education and action at our school.
We were one of over 180 schools around the UK that took part. Green Schools are very grateful for all the hard work and enthusiasm you’ve put in so we have received a certificate.
It was especially pleasing to welcome so many new students from other schools — we look forward to fully welcoming them into the KWSixth community in the coming months.
We wish all Year 11 students the very best of luck as they await their exam results, and we look forward to officially enrolling them into KWSixth on 20th August.
Harpenden Secondary Education Trust
Company Number: 09238779
Registered in England and Wales
Registered Address: Katherine Warington School, Lower Luton Road, Harpenden, Herts, AL5 5FH
Chair Of Trustees: Jenny Howarth, j.howarth@kwschool.co.uk
Katherine Warington School,
Lower Luton Road,
Harpenden,
Hertfordshire,
AL5 5FH
Telephone: 01582 314777
admin@kwschool.co.uk
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