We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all our parents and carers that took the time to complete our recent Annual Parental Survey and/or our Thank a Teacher form.  

The Survey has been reviewed by the senior leadership team and has helped to inform our strategic priorities for the coming academic year.  The Schools Survey platform we use enables us to benchmark ourselves against ‘schools like ours’ (based on Free School Meal proportion) on all of the scaled check box questions.  From this we can see we are outperforming other schools. 

Communication and school systems were two areas that were both praised and flagged as areas for focus in the Survey.  As your views suggest, both are a considerable challenge for schools to get right, particularly in the current technology enabled world.  We have put in place two things as a priority to support with this:

1. We have created a summary of our Systems for Parents – with a clear outline of what each is used for and access links. Ideally we would work with one system that does ‘everything’ we need for our school to run, but this just does not exist currently.  Instead we use a number of different systems which we have chosen because they provide the best functionality to run our processes efficiently as a school.  
2. We will be writing to all parents in September to provide you with the link to a Welcome to the Year webpage.  This is curated by the Head of Year and will provide a tailored outline for each year group of the curriculum they will be studying, alongside key areas of focus and important dates for the year ahead.  If you would like to review any curriculum in detail ahead of this, it can all be found on our website via the subject links on the right hand side here.  In addition our 26/27 calendar will be published to our website in early July. 

It was fantastic to see such high levels of written praise for our school on both the Survey and Thank a Teacher form.  Our staff are committed to ensuring your children don’t just learn, but truly thrive. Hearing that you recognise our staff and appreciate the rich tapestry of opportunities we strive to provide means more than you know – be this the extra curricular activities (through Period 7, Academics, trips, clubs, performing arts, sports and many more opportunities) or the pastoral care and personal development we place at the heart of our school. 

Education goes far beyond the textbook, it is about building character, sparking curiosity, and opening doors. To see so many parents highlight these specific efforts tells us that our vision is resonating in your homes. In a profession that demands so much, having that hard work seen, valued, and celebrated by our parent community is a massive boost to staff morale. It fuels our passion to keep raising the bar.

We must also highlight that beyond our immediate school community, your recorded feedback serves as a powerful testament to any external agencies.  A parental body providing objective yet overwhelmingly positive evidence of the exceptional work we do at KWS plays a vital role in firmly establishing our reputation as a truly great school – a school is only as strong as its community. 

The KWS Senior Leadership Team

This year, Rayden Solicitors were very excited to bring our Work Experience Competition across the four Secondary schools in Harpenden – Katherine Warington School, Roundwood Park, Sir John Lawes School and St George’s.

This is the third year the competition has run, and the second year across the consortium schools.  

Rayden Solicitors is an award-winning specialist family law firm with 10 offices, including an office in Harpenden High Street. Rayden Solicitors specialise in all aspects of family law and are experts in financial and children matters.

Last term, students in year 12 were invited to submit written entries setting out how they would determine a family law scenario. We were delighted by the number of entries received and the calibre of those entries which made choosing the 8 finalists very difficult! After very careful consideration, our eight finalists consisted of two students from each school.  Charlie A and Owen Y of Katherine Warington, Bella B and Immy M of St George’s, Isla M and James W of Sir John Lawes and Emily D and Hasnain F of Roundwood Park were chosen to participate in an all-day Mock Trial on 2 June 2026.

Katie Skinner (Senior Associate Chartered Legal Executive, Rayden Solicitors), Kendra Jeffries (Associate, Rayden Solicitors), Jenna Lucas (Barrister, Pump Court Chambers), Cordelia Williams (Barrister, Pump Court Chambers),  Albert Gibbon (Barrister, Pump Court Chambers), Claire Johnson (Trainee Solicitor, Rayden Solicitors) and Olivia Faulds (Paralegal, Rayden Solicitors) attended with trial papers in hand ready to meet the students, and to prepare and deliver cross-examination and closing submissions on a case scenario which was based on an application by one parent to relocate abroad with the child, which was opposed by the other parent who wished for the child to remain in London.

We started the day by splitting up into two teams, one team for the applicant and one team for the respondent and then spent some time going through the case papers, getting top tips from the barristers on the skill of advocacy and agreeing a strategy for how we would conduct the case. We were all thoroughly impressed by how quickly all of the students got to grips with the nuances of the case and with the challenging techniques of cross examination. The students then had the opportunity to deliver cross-examination, the questioning of the other side’s witnesses – they really held their own against the curveballs thrown at them by the parties who were being questioned, played by Claire and Olivia from Rayden Solicitors. They did this in front of their ‘Judge’ for the day, Jenna Lucas. It was no doubt intimidating to have a go at this in a room full of legal professionals but the students did an amazing job – confidently delivering their questions and thinking on their feet. We then enjoyed lunch together before spending time preparing closing submissions in our teams; this a summary of your case for the Judge. The students then delivered these and all persuasively and robustly put forward their client’s respective cases. The Judge then delivered her decision. It is safe to say our Judge was very impressed by the skill and care in which both cases were presented and, regardless of the outcome, all eight students should be incredibly proud of how they conducted themselves in the Mock Trial!

A very big congratulations to Charlie, Owen, Bella, Immy, Isla, James, Emily and Hasnain for your fantastic work throughout the day! It was a pleasure meeting and working with you all. We wish all of you the very best in whatever you choose to do and have no doubt you will have a successful future ahead.

We had a very tough decision on our hands to select our overall winners but are delighted to share that Emily D and Owen Y will be joining us for work experience later this year as our competition winners!

Thank you to everyone from all four schools for working with us to make the competition such a success.

In tribute to Pride month at KWS, we are thrilled to showcase our large selection of books celebrating LGBTQ+ stories and voices. Our school is proud to be a welcoming, inclusive space for every student.