Friday 10 November 2023

Dear Parents and Carers 

I hope this letter finds you well.  

Today we held a two minute silence at 11.00 am for Armistice Day.

House Dance this week was a joy, well done and thank you to all students and staff who gave so generously of their time and to parents and carers who supported the evenings.  Results as below, but all performances were absolutely brilliant, #AHSWalksTall, I am so proud of them all.

Missenden - 1st

Hughenden - 2nd

Ascott - 3rd 

Science News

In other news, this week, we welcomed Dr Sarah Murray from NASA to speak to Year 12 and 13 students from AHS and AGS.  She spoke about her life, choices and career at NASA. Hosting such an incredible role model for our students was a huge privilege, and we would like to thank again @isset_space and Sam McKee (@MolecularSamm) for the opportunity.  Our students also attended a STEM talk, kindly hosted by AGS because of House Dance preparation, by Dr Dennis Alexander, a renowned Geneticist and Immunologist.   Again, huge thanks to those who made it possible and to our students for showing such interest.

Sports News 

Our U14 and U16 elite badminton teams competed in the Victor Cup competition for School Sports Magazine. 

Both teams won their matches 6-0 taking them both through to round 4 of the competition. In Netball, our Y7 A team played John Colet on Monday also winning 19-2.  A very busy and successful week with many students also competing in House Dance. 

Today, our Junior and Senior Cross Country Runners will be competing in the ESSA Cross Country Regional Finals. We wish them all the best and will report on the results next week.

Merit Marks for the last half term

Congratulations to the following students for gaining the most merit marks in their form during the last half term!

The Middle East - understanding and connecting with compassion

AHS is working hard to support our students at this terribly difficult time.  Mr Annat and Ms Quesne have kindly undertaken further training and run a specific History and Politics Discussion Group to give our students a voice.  The foci were how to access accurate and reliable news, how to evaluate news reports and how to keep safe on social media.  Mr Annat and Ms Quesne will extend this session, using feedback from Student Voice, in the coming weeks, again always with the aim of supporting our students to understand and connect with compassion.

If any parent or carer has any particular concern about their child, we ask that they reach out as soon as possible via the Heads of Year or our Wellbeing Team; our doors are always open and we very much want to work with you.  Attached again are some good sources of advice for students, which we shared with you previously.

Childline has some good advice for children who are worried about things happening in the world.  

There is a useful resource here from Unicef on How to talk to children about conflict and war. 

Donations of football boots and trainers please

If you have any football boots or trainers that no longer fit, please could you consider donating them to the PE Department so that we can help some of our students who are in need?  We have some families who are struggling financially at the moment and we do not want our students' opportunities to be overshadowed by not having the equipment they need. Thank you for your support.

Wishing all a very happy Diwali, we very much hope you enjoy your celebrations.

With my sincere thanks again to the whole School community for their ongoing support, and best wishes for the weekend.

Marieke Forster