RTS Parents' Newsletter 08 October 2021

Head Teacher's Message

It's been another busy week at school. Plenty of students have been representing the school at fixtures and we have also hosted two sessions for parents - the Year 8 Parents' Coffee Morning and a second Parents' Technology workshop. This is alongside a further Open Morning event for prospective parents for 2022 entry.

You should have all received your invitation to the Parent and Tutor Consultation evening which takes place on Wednesday 20 October.

To support students with the next steps, we had the pleasure of welcoming Dan Dean, Principal of Esher Sixth Form College this week. RTS has an agreement in place with Esher Sixth Form College, which guarantees a place for post-16 study to all RTS students who meet their entry requirements. We look forward to building our relationship with Esher Sixth Form College to further grow our school careers and work related programmes from Year 7 through to Year 11.

Today there has been much excitement in school as, after a long week of campaigning during their hustings period, the voting took place for students to decide on their inaugural Head Students. RTS is built upon its five core values. Being able to say ‘I belong’ within the school community is central to the school success. With this in mind, RTS has a rigorous Student Leadership structure, providing students with numerous opportunities to develop core skills, build experience and add to their CV and college applications. The Senior Leadership are looking forward to working with the Head Students as they represent their student body.

Ms K Dooley

Dates for the diary

  • Wednesday 13 October

    • Parent Forum, 18:30-19:30

  • Friday 15 October

    • INSET Day - School closed to students

  • Wednesday 20 October

    • Years 7-11 Parent & Tutor Consultation Evening (remote)

      • Reminder that school will close early at 15:00 for this event

  • Friday 22 October

    • Nasal Flu Vaccination

Contacting the School

If you wish to contact the school, the School Office is open:

  • Monday-Thursday - 08:15-16:30

  • Friday - 08:15-15:00

Telephone: 020 8891 2985

Email: info@rts.richmond.sch.uk

Please use the Parents Communications Summary for guidance on types of query and where advice may be found/who to direct your query to.

RTS Art Gallery

As we head on into Autumn the Year 11s have been working on developing their natural forms theme - here is a selection of pumpkin studies, inspired by Yayoi Kusama.

Creative Arts Busy Creating!

Announcement.pdf

Sporting Achievements

The girls are working and playing hard during fixtures and our netball teams had a fantastic time against Twickenham School on Thursday. The Year 10/11 team won 22-0 (picture 1) and the Year 9 team won 18-1 (Picture 2).

Well done to both teams - exceptional effort!

The Year 8 boys rugby team took a resounding win against a strong and spirited Hampton School team on Tuesday. After having played two games already this week they look forward to playing against Sir Richard Reynolds this weekend in our Saturday fixture.

The Year 9 boys were not to be outdone by Year 8 and achieved a great win against Turing House School on Thursday. The boys go through to the Borough finals without losing a game.

Thanks has to go to Mr Roberts who has worked hard at setting the fixtures up, training and encouraging the boys, and also escorting them to and from various locations around the borough!

The RTS Way

We are pleased to share with you the incredible endeavours of two of our students.

During the weekend of 25-26 September Lottie and Elsie took part in the RYA British Youth Sailing Regional Championships. The event was held at Queen Mary's reservoir, Sunbury. The event attracts some of the best junior sailors from all over the South East and the competition is tough.


Lottie was sailing an RS Tera boat in the Regatta class. The competition was run as a low points scoring system with multiple races over two days - the same as the Olympics!


Lottie showed determination, perseverance and skill to achieve 1st place and win overall gold. I hope you can join us in congratulating Lottie on her fantastic win. Below is a picture of Lottie sailing the same boat as the one she won with.


Elsie also sailed well, achieving 13th place overall, a very respectable placing.

School Street

The School Street scheme in Egerton Road outside our school was presented and discussed at the September Transport and Air Quality committee and we are delighted to share that the committee approved the scheme being made permanent. The Council will be making the traffic order permanent and there are currently discussions about how we can improve the signs and make the School Streets more visible. Please see the link to the decision making page. You can see from the monitoring data that the scheme enjoyed many positives including good increase in active travel and reduction in car travel to school. Thank you for your ongoing support with this scheme.

Parenting Podcasts/Articles

Ms Carrick-Steele is pleased to share with you the following podcasts that she has discovered this week:

  • Parenting: The Teenage Brain - Women's Hour podcast (12mins)

  • 7 things parents should know about adolescent behaviour quick read - What makes the adolescent brain different and why is that an 'easy child' can become a challenging teenager. Interview with Professor Sarah-Jane Blakemore, author of The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain

  • Parenting Podcast - Radio 4 - Women's Hour - You don’t need qualifications to teach your children about science. The founder of Nanogirl, aka Dr Michelle Dickinson, talks about the significance of nanotechnology and easy ways for non-scientific parents to get their children into it.

AP2 - Reporting

As part of keeping you informed of your child's progress, you will be receiving Assessment Point 2 reports on Friday 15 October. These reports will be available on Arbor.

All students

These reports contain information on attendance, as well as the merits and demerits that your child has received so far this year.

Year 7 only

All Year 7 students have also completed GL and CATs testing as part of their school induction. These hard copy reports have been posted out to you today. Please see this video which will explain how you can use the information sent to you.

If you have any queries, please contact your child's Form Tutor in the first instance (via info@rts.richmond.sch.uk).

Parent Technology Session

Thank you to those parents/carers who were able to join us remotely for the two parent technology sessions held on 22 September and 06 October - we hope that you and your child found them useful. For those of you who were unable to attend, or would like a refresher, IT guru and Lead Practitioner, Ms Grewal, has shared this video with you.

LFD Testing

LFD at Home Tests - Students

Thank you for your ongoing support and cooperation in continuing to encourage your child/ren to take LFD tests on Wednesday and Sunday evenings and to report the results to school (via the app on their iPad). It is important to keep the school community protected and safe.

Additional kits will be distributed next week to those who are taking part in the programme.

School Meals

School meals at break and lunch-time should continue to be pre-ordered by students. Google Forms have been shared on all Google Classroom Year Groups for students to make their selections in advance. Tutors will assist any students experiencing issues using the forms next week. Please ensure that all ParentPay accounts are topped up in advance.

FoRTS News

FoRTS AGM – *Date Delayed*

We are looking to move the AGM, which was planned to be held remotely on Wednesday 13 October. We will let you know the new date as soon as possible. This does however give you more time to consider if you’d like to volunteer for a specific role within FoRTS! We are looking for the following volunteers:

  • Chair

  • Treasurer

  • Secretary

  • Committee Members

  • Rugby Parking Co-Ordinator, and marshals

  • School Uniform Sales Co-ordinator, and volunteers to help process and sell second-hand uniform

Please contact FoRTS for any further information. Even if you don’t want to volunteer for a role, we would value your feedback and hope to answer any queries you may have.

Car Park Clean Up

At the last rugby parking session, the marshals decided that the car park needed a bit of a tidy up! If gardening’s your thing, or you’d just like to help out, please let us know. We’ll advertise a date soon, so if you have a half an hour free on the day, you can just turn up and lend a hand. Many thanks.

Have a great weekend & stay healthy, your FoRTS Team,

Vanessa (Chair), Mark (Treasurer) and Carey (Secretary)


To contact FoRTS at any time, please email forts@rts.richmond.sch.uk

Second Hand Uniform Donations email fortsuniform@rts.richmond.sch.uk

Second Hand Uniform Sales oldschooluniform.co.uk

Safeguarding

If you have concerns in relation to a student at RTS or indeed with regards to your own child, you may want to contact Single Point of Access (SPA) which acts as a central information hub for all professional agencies in Kingston and Richmond.

Richmond and Kingston SPA

The SPA phone lines are now open as follows:

  • Monday-Thursday 08.00-17.15 and Friday 08.00-17.00 - the phone number during these times is 020 8547 5008

  • Out of hours: 020 8770 5000

Hounslow Early Help Assessment

NSPCC:

Speak to a counsellor 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

  • Telephone number: 0808 800 5000, or text 88858

  • Email: help@nspcc.org.uk or

  • Signvideo using British Sign Language (Mon - Fri, 9am - 6pm)

Local News - Please note RTS does not endorse items included as Local News

Harlequins Rugby Sessions

Harlequins' are offering free Rugby HUB sessions which start this Monday at London Welsh Rugby Club (TW9 2AZ).

The HUB is designed to give brand new players (aged 14+) the opportunity to develop their rugby skills, in a safe & welcoming environment before, hopefully, going on to join a grassroots rugby club.

If you needed any inspiration about the power of grassroots sport, please look at this short clip of our previous participants (Kingsley Academy) who took part in Adidas London's recent #ReadyForSport campaign:

https://twitter.com/quinsfoundation/status/1445306399576272899?s=20

The sign-up link can be found here: "SIGN UP HERE: https://forms.gle/s47WZ8LPYpeTx6xN9"

Richmond Borough Mind

Richmond Borough Mind has received a grant to research and develop a mental health support service for young people. You might be interested in helping them with their research as your views are very important to them.

They are currently running a short systems change research programme, where they are researching views on the wellbeing and mental health support of young people aged 12-18. They are contacting young people, parents, and others working with young people to listen to their thoughts about the topic. After listening to their ideas, they are planning to co-produce and pilot a local service that will support young people in a way that they find helpful and enjoyable. Please view the research project overview if you’d like to know more.

They would like to invite young people, parents, teachers, and others to be involved and join them for a 1-1.5 hour discussion to understand your experiences and views. This can be over the phone, online, or face to face if preferred. They are also happy to do drop-in sessions in schools and youth clubs to explain the project in more detail and have a short discussion with everyone on the topic of wellbeing. They would like as many people as possible to have their say and to be involved!

If you would like to help with the research, please follow this link to the form and just fill it in. Alternatively, you can download it, complete it and send it to; johanna.habicht@rbmind.org.

Richmond CVS Trustee Recruitment Event

On Thursday 14 October Richmond CVS are holding a free online trustee recruitment event for the community. Being a trustee is a specialised form of volunteering and fulfils a vital role in any charity. Richmond CVS’ friendly, informal event is one of the best ways to learn more about it, as well as hear directly from a range of local charities that you could get involved with right now, whether trusteeship is a completely new idea for you or you’re on the lookout for a new role.

The event is open to anyone aged over 18 years old and can be booked here. Please see the flyer for more information.

Term Dates 2021-2022

Full term dates and Inset day information is available on the website:

  • Half-Term: 25 October 2021 - 05 November 2021

  • Christmas break: 16 December 2021 - 04 January 2022

Parents' Calendar