World Book Day took place on 7th March and provides a fantastic opportunity to focus on reading for pleasure, support children’s autonomy in book choice, and celebrate the many benefits that reading brings.
Last Friday, a group of year 10 students travelled to London to watch an interactive maths show hosted by Maths in Action. The purpose of the event was to enhance mathematical understanding, improve problem solving skills and, above all, to raise awareness of the maths that is all around us. Students enjoyed presentations on a variety of topics ranging from Mathemusic and Maths v Sport, to The Maths of Optical Illusion Design and The Maths of Luck. There was also an Exam Masterclass in which students were invited to mark questions to see if they could spot some common pitfalls.
Questions discussed during the day included: “Are you more likely to be struck by lightning or win the lottery?”, “How many galaxies are there?” and “Which part of the goal should you aim for to maximise your chances of scoring a penalty?”. The answer to that is apparently 60cm inside the post and 1.79m high, although not everyone agreed!
Students conducted themselves extremely well throughout the day and were engaged and courteous. We hope the trip has inspired them to continue their study of maths to A Level and beyond!
World Book Day celebrations
In the library we celebrated World Book Day with a display of the free books available to students with their Book tokens. These were emailed to students or they can visit the library to pick up a Token. There are many great books to choose from, pop by the library to see them or go to your local bookshop to pick up a free book!
Design a book token competition
We have templates for students to design a book token for a national competition. They could win book tokens for themselves and their class and the winning designs will be seen in stores! To enter, pick up a template in the library and hand it back to us when your design is complete. The deadline for us to send in your entry is Wednesday 27th March.
Blue Peter badge
Lastly for World Book Day we have applications for the Blue Peter Book Badge in the library. If you earn a Blue Peter badge you can gain entry to over 200 UK attractions, for FREE! Pick up your Book Badge entry form in the library and bring the completed form back by Wednesday 27th March.
The week commencing 4th March will see the start of the KWS house charity fortnight.
There are various activities planned throughout the fortnight to raise money for our school charities which are The Ollie Foundation and Cancer Research UK. Students can contribute using card or cash. House representatives have coordinated various events to support these great causes.
5th March- Armstrong have arranged a “guess the eggs in the jar”
6th March- Franklin have arranged a sweet sale in the Courtyard at 3.30pm.
8th March- Ali have arranged a “dunk the teacher” event. This will be held at lunchtime in the courtyard.
11th March- Keller have a bake sale in the Hall at lunchtime.
12th March- Nightingale have a movie screen in Room 41/43 at Lunchtime.
13th March- Tesla have arranged “The great KWS bake off”. All entries will receive achievement points. The deadline for submitting cakes will be 12th March, these will then be judged and winners will be announced. On the 13th March all cakes will be sold in the hall at lunchtime.
Miss Fatima
Students across different year groups have enjoyed a cultural lesson on Chinese New Year this week. We held a lantern-making workshop during lunchtime on Tuesday. 龙年快乐🧧
This week KWS celebrated Safer Internet Day. The theme this year is “change online”
Students looked at:
Here at KWS we think online safety is very important, as a school to keep children safe online Hertfordshire police run Cyber prevent sessions, we have e-safety lessons in PRE and Computing lessons. We communicate with parents about online safety issues. If parents have missed our e-safety parent briefings this year, you can access information and support through our website.
Here is the latest HFL online safety bulletin.
Here are a few tips from Safer Internet Day to help you deal with online safety:
Staying up to date with what children are doing online can feel like a challenge sometimes. However, you don’t have to be an expert in every new app or service. Simply having conversations with your children about their lives online, and what to do if they need help or something goes wrong, is what’s most important. Here are a few simple steps you can take to help bridge the gap.
Talk little and often
Having a regular open dialogue with your children about their favourite apps, the games they enjoy, and their online friends, will help create an environment where chatting about online experiences becomes a normal part of family life.
Stay proactive
As a result of discussions with your children about their online activities, take time to research the apps they’re using, the accounts or channels they’re following, and the games they’re playing, to get a better idea of what they’re experiencing and what your thoughts are towards it.
Seek support
Knowing where to get help is essential. Each app or platform will have its own safety guidelines and reporting features, and having knowledge of how to use these will ensure you can make a report, seek help, and support your child to get the best out of the services they’re using.
Miss Fatima
It has been a busy week at KWS marking the upcoming Lunar New Year. Throughout the week students have been enjoying arts and crafts activities alongside an animated film before enjoying a special lunch menu on Thursday organised by our caterers.
As well as making lanterns with Miss Hu and Mrs Kilby, Mrs Chow created some beautiful cut out decorations out of red card (pictured) with hidden messages in Mandarin of Spring.
Thank you to Mr Lee who kindly put together traditional envelopes full of chocolate coins that are given out to children at Chinese New Year for our students who attended our film showing.
We at KWS wish all of our families who celebrate the Lunar New Year (also known as Chinese New Year) a prosperous one.
There have been lots of positives in PE this week. Our Year 10A netball team had a fantastic 15-9 win against STAGS, with the player of the match identified as Eden A. Great work from our Year 7A netball team on their 7-1 win against STAGS. Some superb passing and interceptions throughout. Sophie K was recognised as the game’s most outstanding player. Meanwhile, our Year 7B team showed great elements of play despite a loss to St Columba’s in a recent league fixture. Sophia D was acknowledged as the most effective KWS player.
After being affected by the weather in previous weeks, we had our first blocked Saturday football fixture of the season for Years 7-10 against Samuel Ryder. All teams equipped themselves well, with Year 7 drawing 2-2, Year 8 winning 3-0 and Year 9 managing to come through a tight game to prevail 3-2. Our Year 10 side, unfortunately suffered a loss, however they can be encouraged by the performance.
Our Year 11 boys football team had a brilliant 8-0 win in the county cup. They now progress to the quarter finals. Some excellent performances throughout the side but special mention to Jordan C for scoring 4, including a contender for goal of the season. Lewis N in central midfield was everywhere, breaking up play and showing composure when pressurised in possession.
The Year 8 boys have a county cup quarter final to look forward to on Monday, our Year 9s have a district cup fixture today and our U13 girls also have a district cup game on Monday too.
In basketball, our Year 7 team had a great 20-2 win against Townsend and the Year 8 side won 37-11 against St Albans School. Both teams put in a good team performance at both ends of the court, with excellent rebounding from Marley M and Charlie R. Well done to all of those involved.
On Thursday this week, 11 Year 9 students attended the Herts county inclusion champions training at Hertfordshire Sports village. The session started with a talk from Steve Frew, an ex team GB gymnast, and two young athlete role models about the importance of inclusion in sport. They then spent an hour experiencing 6 different inclusive activities and discussing different ways they could be adapted to include people with different needs, including wheelchair users and those with visual and hearing impairments.
Once they had finished the activities, they spent some time working with school games organisers and young athletes to come up with a plan for how they will deliver the various activities within KWS to their peers. Thinking about the who, how and what will it look like and also the implementation and impact this would have. All the students conducted themselves brilliantly throughout the afternoon and demonstrated all the KWS values representing the school fantastically.
Lastly, Year 7s have Sports Hall Athletics team trials before school at 8am in our sports hall on Monday.
It’s been fantastic to see so much usage of the astroturf over the last few weeks and how well students have adhered to ensuring that the space is getting looked after and being maximised. Long may that continue!
We have also had a series of fixtures recently. Our Year 11 netball team had a superb 17-11 win against Stags and all students were fantastic – some great passing and interceptions throughout. Jasmine D and Thea O were identified as players that excelled.
Great work by the U12, U14 and U16 girls futsal teams in a district tournament. The girls were superb! Stand out performers were Alice T, Sophie K, Poppy D and Mikalya C. Our u16 girls finished 3rd overall.
The year 11 boys football team had a fantastic 3-2 win in the county cup at home on our brand new astroturf.
Our Year 7 basketball team had a 23-22 win against Aldwickbury yesterday. They also have another fixture against Nicholas Breakspeare later today. The Year 8 rugby team completed their final game of the rugby season with a highly competitive game against Verulam, being edged out by one try. Some fantastic defence throughout though.
Finally, huge congratulations to the six students who competed at the Zonal trampoline competition in Solihull last Sunday. Matthew P, Josh P and Riley W were crowned Zonal Champions in the year 7-9 Elite category, qualifying for the National Finals in March in Telford and Matthew qualified in 5th place individually. Ollie T and Jude D competed fabulous routines to place 7th and 9th respectively in the year 9-10 Novice category, with Ollie only 0.1 away from qualifying individually for his first National Finals. To finish the day off, Will E competed in a tough category for the intermediate boys. Will completed great routines and placed 4th overall qualifying for the National Finals. Thank you to all the parents who supported their children on the day and to parents who volunteered as helpers for the competition.
Well done to all involved.
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