Friday 22 March 2024
#AHSWalksTall
Headmistress' Introduction
Dear Parents and Carers
I hope this letter finds you well.
I’m delighted to inform you that we won the Best Defence Lawyer Award at the Mock Trial in Milton Keynes last Saturday. Many congratulations to the whole team for their amazing performance, and to Sri who won the award. Our thanks goes to Mrs Gamero and Mr Martinez who made the event possible.
One of our Alumnae, Chloe Panter, very generously, gave up her time to come into school on Tuesday to talk to Year 11 in their assembly; Chloe left AHS in 2007. She qualified as a doctor and has since gone on to have an incredible career, working in a variety of hospitals, including Stoke Mandeville and currently The Sir John Radcliffe Hospital. She has had a variety of roles, including working in A&E, and being with a paramedic team for a day. She is also currently working for Thames Valley Air Ambulance. It was amazing to hear her talk to the Year 11 students and to learn all about her inspiring career. Thank you so much for coming back to AHS.
Monday is a non-uniform day to highlight Epilepsy Awareness Day (poster below). A suggested donation of £1 should be made via ParentMail.
A gentle reminder to all about the AHSA Quiz on tonight, starting at 1830. We look forward to seeing our community there.
Sport this week
On Saturday 16th March Gabriella (featured in last week's letter) raced in English Schools Nationals Cross Country in Pontefract. She finished 219/339 in a Y8/9 race, and tied 7/8 Bucks girl. The combined Bucks girls' teams (Juniors, Inters and Seniors), won the B Counties Trophy. Bucks Junior girls placed 7th overall (out of 41), and 3rd out of the B teams.
Hockey
U12s: The final score was 4-1 against Pipers Corner, two goals coming from Surani, with a goal each for Sitara and Davida. A couple of great saves from Harriet too. Player of the match was Surani - well done all!
The U14s played in the District Tournament yesterday and they came 3rd after some extremely close matches.
Netball
In the end of Season tournaments, we were placed as follows:
Y11 1st place
Y10 1st Place
Y9 3rd Place
Badminton
U13 a vs St Michaels 7-0 to AHS
U13 b vs St Michaels 7-0 to AHS
U15a vs St Michaels 7-0 to AHS
U15 b vs St Michaels 7-0 to AHS
Parent Survey
Huge thanks to those parents and carers who kindly completed our survey. We had 286 responses, and we will now work through your feedback and comments to shape our future.
I am absolutely delighted that parents and carers are so positive in their feedback, and this will be of huge value to our brilliant staff. Thank you.
We are, of course, focused on all feedback, and our initial responses are below. We will update you further through this letter as we further improve practice.
Please accept our apologies for the quality of the bar chart pictures.
Our initial responses include:
We will contact all who shared their email addresses when leaving direct feedback to strengthen our links with you and to ensure we address any areas of concern.
We will invite all parents who said they would like to know more about AHS' plans for the future to an afternoon/evening in the next term. If you missed the parent survey and would also like to be invited, please complete this two-question Google Form.
We will continue with remote parent evenings for 2024/25, again based on your feedback and that of staff, but we will review this at this time next year.
We will continue to run our termly Parents' Afternoons to ensure the School is accessible, and if you would like to attend the next one on 17 April, please complete this Google Form.
We will ensure that we run at least one Parent Information Evening for each Year Group in the next academic year.
We will continue to invite all parents and carers to our Open Mornings.
Please note we are not allowed to ask our staff to do more Parents' Evenings under union guidelines. This is the same in all schools.
We are reviewing our data sharing; Mrs Burt (Assistant Head Data) has contacted all parents this week. Please email Mrs Burt directly vburt@ahs.bucks.sch.uk if you have any questions.
We plan to launch a new website next September and we will ensure all parents have full access to our curriculum plan by year group. This is also available on our current website here and here, but we appreciate that the website is not always user friendly.
Art this week
Thank you to all that came to support House Art last week. The students had worked really hard to put the show together and highlight the work.
This year the House Captains looked at the theme of 'Landscape Artist of the Year' at AHS. The work was all amazing which made judging super tricky! However, after much discussion, it was decided that the overall winners are:
Gold - Hughenden
Silver - Claydon
Bronze - Missenden
We had such an amazing response with our Year 12 art students during International Women's week that we also felt we had to highlight the work they produced and congratulate the overall winners as:
Gold - Noor Q for Ascott
Silver - Hester LE for Claydon
Bronze - Alice G for Hughenden
We showcased Show Racism the Red Card as well and judged the house overall entries and quality of work produced.
The overall winners are:
Gold - Stowe
Silver - Claydon
Bronze - Missenden
All these awards will contribute toward the House Art cup at the end of the year with all the art competitions judged throughout the year.
Gold Award - Stowe
Silver Award - Claydon
Bronze Award - Missenden
Epilepsy Awareness Day
(Non Uniform Day)
Monday 25 March
Arabic Calligraphy Competition
Ramadan Fundraiser
Boys Do Cry
Sir Henry Floyd Grammar School- 27 March
Wishing you a very Happy Holi and a reminder that we still have spaces on the Holi run on Monday. Please pay via ParentMail beforehand if you would like to take part.
We hope that you have a lovely weekend, and a very happy Easter and Eid celebration to all in our community. We will be celebrating Eid in School with a non-uniform day on Tuesday 16 April.
Also, our very best wishes to students travelling on the French, German and Swedish Exchanges over the holiday and those taking part in the Gold Practice DofE, and our thanks to all staff and parents who are supporting.
Due to the short final week of term, we will not send a Headmistress' Letter next week. We look forward to welcoming our returning students on Monday 15 April at 0845.
With warmest wishes
Marieke Forster
The AHS School Fund
The AHS Fund helps us to enrich the curriculum and develop the school's facilities to ensure that every student is able to fulfil their potential, wherever their strengths lie. Support from our Parents, our Alumnae and our wider community allows us to provide the outstanding education you expect and the students deserve.
