RTS Parents' Newsletter

RTS Parents' Newsletter 21 October 2022

Head Teacher's Message

It has been an intense two weeks for students to take us to the half-term break. Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 have been sitting their AP3 assessments whilst Year 11 have sat GCSE mock examinations in Science and English. All students have worked exceptionally hard and conducted their assessments with maturity and composure. Sitting assessments under GCSE exam conditions is vitally important for students to experience and feel comfortable with before the real exams. Assessments continue after the half-term break.

We have also held the last of our Open Events and welcomed another 200 prospective parents and children through the doors of the school. Thank you to all those families whose children have represented the school so well as student ambassadors - week on week they have demonstrated the RTS values.

The Sports Department have also been extremely active with fixtures and there have been some great games and results which I am delighted to share with you.

Wishing you all a restful and relaxed two week break and I hope that you are able to spend it with family and friends.

Ms K Dooley

Dates for the diary

Monday 24 October-Friday 04 November
- Half-Term
Monday 07 November
- Back to school - 08:35 (normal timetable)
Wednesday 09 November
- Early finish at 14:00 for whole school due to Year 10 parent/subject teacher consultations

Contacting the School

If you wish to contact the school, the School Office is open (term time only):

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.

Year 11 Visit to Stratford

This week Year 11 GCSE Geography students had the opportunity to visit the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park over in Stratford. It is now ten years since the Olympics and the park has matured into a green area open to the public 24/7. Many students stated how impressed they were that the site 'looks so new 10 years on' and that there is much to do and see - including sporting arenas, swimming pool, football stadium, boating lake and many other attractions.

The students visited the park as part of their human fieldwork enquiry. Students collected primary data at 5 different sites to help them to assess whether the Olympic Park Development has been sustainable. Students used a variety of data collection methods to gather data: Environmental Quality Surveys, land use surveys, pedestrian counts, field sketches, observations and questionnaires. Students will continue this investigation in class combining their results with secondary data research before analysing and reaching conclusions. Thank you to the Year 11 students that conducted their research with exceptional behaviour.

Spooky Goings On!

The RTS Kitchen team absolutely surpassed themselves this week with a Halloween Spook Fest on Wednesday! Students and staff alike were surprised to find spiders and bats had taken over the serving counter and that the cakes had eyeballs and teeth in them!

RTS Art Gallery

RTS students have been working hard on their pottery pieces in Art Attack enrichment.

Here Kaia, Georgie, Jocelyn and Tilly are completing their lovely pots. @potterythrowdown better watch out!

RTS Fixtures

Last week the Year 9 Girl's Netball team had a strong win against visitors Turing House School with a winning score line of 11-6.

Yuxin, Jasmin, Libby, Elizabeth, Isabella, Amy, Eva, Julia and Sophia all played exceptionally well.

Not to be outdone, the Year 10 Girl's Netball team had a 9-3 win against Twickenham School.

Tabatha, Layla, Nevaeh, Lara, Amisha, Olivia, Velina, and Maggie showed great teamwork.

Meanwhile, the U16 Boy's Basketball Team headed over to Christ's School Tournament. The team had a narrow 20-14 loss to Teddington in the first game but then went on to beat Christ's, last year's National Champions, 8-6!

A huge well done to the team - Jamie, Josue, Liam, Harry, Ellis, Kieron, Chester, Keshav, Wabi, Charlie, and Adam.

Post-16 Information for Year 11 Families

open event flyer 22 finalised.pdf

Aim High Flyer Oct 22.pdf

Half-term Online Career Discovery Days for Year 11 students

If you are interested in a career in Business, Accountancy, Finance, Law, Engineering, Construction, Property Development or Technology read on.

Please read the information below for the opportunity to sign up to a range of online career discovery days. You will have the opportunity to participate in online workshops and seminars hosted by a variety of different companies and you will receive a certificate if you successfully complete the day. This is a brilliant opportunity which you can reference during college interviews and include on your CV.

When signing up please use a personal email address to ensure you receive the zoom link to join the session.

Monday 24th October, 9am - 4pm we’re hosting a virtual Careers in Business, Accounting and Finance Work Experience day. We have Big 4 constituents PwC and KPMG as well as Grant Thornton, Mazars and CIMA joining us to run a variety of workshops and real-life case study activity sessions to give students a taste of professional life at each company.
- Registration link here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Business-Accounting-Finance-WEX
- Tuesday 25th October, 9am - 4:30pm is our virtual Law Work Experience with Browne Jacobson. If you're interested in a career in the legal profession and are looking to secure a training contract, work experience, a Solicitor apprenticeship, an in-house GC role or gain a Pupillage – then attending this event will increase your chance of success.
- Following on from the student day time event we are going to be running a shorter parent / guardian event that will discuss the kinds of careers within the legal industry, legal apprenticeships and where to find them with a Q&A to wrap things up. This is from 6:00pm - 7:15pm. The same Zoom link will be used for both events.
  - Registration link here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Browne-Jacobson-Law-Work-Experience
- Tuesday 25th October is our online Careers in Engineering, Construction and Property Development Work Experience. We have Mott MacDonald, Berkeley Group, British Airways, Babcock International and Siemens joining us for a day of interactive sessions and workshops.
  - Registration link here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Engineering-WEX
- Wednesday 26th October from 9am - 3pm is our virtual Careers in Technology Work Experience taking place on. For this we have BT, PwC, Capgemini, WTW and World Wide Technology joining us again to run various workshops, activities and Q&A sessions.
  - Registration link here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/TechTheFuture-WEX

FORTS NEWS

FoRTS Volunteers

With the Christmas fair approaching we’d love to get a team of volunteers involved to help with planning as well as being there on the night. You can be involved as little or as much as you like. If you think you’d like to help, please get in touch by emailing forts@rts.richmond.sch.uk.

Rugby parking - Website update

We are seeking a volunteer to help with some updates to our rugby parking website. Would be suitable for someone with a marketing or website design background. Could be a parent or RTS student. Just need help with the design and content, so probably half-day of work at most. Please reach out to fortsparking@rts.richmond.sch.uk if you are interested.

Committee Member Role Vacancy

We have a free position as Committee Member, so if you’d like to find out more or step up to this role, please contact us on forts@rts.richmond.sch.uk.

Have a great weekend, your FoRTS team,

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

forts@rts.richmond.sch.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

Telephone number: 020 8583 6600
Out of hours: 020 8583 2222
Email: earlyhelp@hounslow.gov.uk

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

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

Living Support campaign

With more people being expected to come into hardship due to the rising cost of living in 2022, Richmond Council has developed a campaign to help de-mystify and de-stigmatise hardship support and to empower and enable residents to access the support they need.

You can help support the campaign by sharing the assets and social media copy below on your own channels.

Visit the Richmond Cost of Living Hub

Resources

The Richmond Cost of Living Hub has gathered information about lots of schemes, benefits and support services - both national and local - into one place. Residents can either browse the information on our website or use our helpful calculator, that will tell them exactly which scheme or support they may be able to access.

You can also sign up to email updates on cost of living support to receive useful information and tips straight to your inbox.

Where people cannot access the internet, we are encouraging them to ask a family member, friend or caregiver to help and look at the information for them. Alternatively, they can visit their local library and a staff member will be able to help them use a computer to find out what you could be entitled to.

Free Food for Families

This October half-term Heatham House Youth Centre will be offering free food to families across LBR & RBK as part of our Triple F Programme. The aim is to assist those parents/carers who are finding that the current financial pressures impacting communities are compromising their ability to provide meals for themselves and their children. As such we will be getting a major delivery of frozen microwavable meals. These include:

80 x Vegan Bacon Mac + Cheese
80 x Lasagne Gnocchi
80 x Creamy Spinach Gnocchi
80 x Cottage Pie

These meals will be delivered next Tuesday 25th October between 12-1pm. They will be delivered frozen and will need to be picked up by 3pm that same day. We do not have the capacity to keep them here any longer and they are of course perishable so what is not picked up will go to waste which would be a great shame.

If your family needs support please order the number of meals you would like at heathamhouse.eventbrite.com. There will be a link to each meal option and parents will be able to book 3 of each meal option.

Meals can be collected from:

Heatham House Youth Centre

Whitton Road

Twickenham

TW1 1BH

Arts Richmond

Arts Richmond is delighted to announce the Young Writers' Festival for 2022! The competition is open to all young people who either live or attend school/clubs in the London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames.

The rules are simple - write about any subject of their choice, in any format. They could write a story, a poem, a script as long as it's under 500 words or 25 lines for a poem.

Entries close Friday 02 December. The competition rules and entry template can be downloaded from www.artsrichmond.org.uk

Young Writers Poster A3 2022_Arts Richmond.pdf

Tween Tribe

Tween Tribe had a number of children from the area on their sold out summer dates and have therefore generated a bespoke discount code for the school.

The Tween Tribe is a boutique holiday club exclusively for "tweenagers" age 10-13.

www.thetweentribe.co.uk

Harlequins Rugby Camps

Get your kids out and active this October Half-Term with our Rugby Camps!

Running from Monday 24 - Friday 28 October at eight different locations across London and the South East, our rugby camps are the perfect place for your kids to develop their skills and make new friends.

Available for for children age 6-14, our Rugby Camps are designed with fun in mind and run by our experienced and qualified coaches to make sure every child has the opportunity to learn and enjoy in each session.

Camps are available across the South East and start from just £47, click below to find out more.

Find out more!
BOOK AT THE STOOP: Mon 24 - Tues 25 Oct, Ages 6-14

Richmond Rugby Camps

Richmond RFC Half Term Camps - October Poster.pdf

Heatham House Half Term

Heatham House Youth Centre are thrilled to be offering an absolutely awesome holiday programme this October half term which is filled to the brim with free activities for ages 9-19.

This October we are celebrating events like Black History Month and Halloween. Both of these events will form a major part of our activities programme with Afro Caribbean culture being front and centre of our half-term activity offer for young people. Our multicultural staff team looks forward to introducing young people to traditional African and Caribbean activities across sports, art, and music to provide fun and new experiences for young people. These are in addition to our usual offer.

The full program can be found and booked on: heathamhouse.eventbrite.com.

AfC Local offer (SEND)

Achieving for Children have developed a new leaflet to raise awareness of the Local Offer in Kingston and Richmond and some examples of the types of information and services that can be found on the website. We have based the leaflets on the "New to SEND" section of the local offer and also included services and support that we know parents are often not aware of.

Printed copies will be available to pick up at SEND Futures if you are attending.

Richmond Dyslexia Coffee Morning

Fellow parents of Dyslexic children meet to discuss our experiences, ideas, and tips etc on how to raise competent, confident children and help them manage life at school, home, etc.

The next coffee morning is Friday, November 25, from 9:30 to 11:00, outside (so dress warmly) at the Tide Table Cafe under the arches of Richmond Bridge. TW9 1TH. Contact Kim Pryde for more details.

Richmond Parent Carer Forum

Richmond PCF Newsletter October 2022.pdf

Fear-Less Parenting: supporting children with anxiety

The Positive Parenting Project are running an online webinar for parents of children with anxiety: practical tools to help you support your child (for parents of children aged 6-14yrs).

When children have anxiety, it impacts the whole family. It can be incredibly hard for parents to know what to say and how to help. And, without support, children’s anxiety often escalates or becomes entrenched. It’s normal for parents to feel frustrated, worried or distressed when children are struggling – but there are parenting strategies you can learn that will make a real difference to your child’s anxiety.

This specialised Triple P® Fear-Less parenting seminar has been specifically developed to help parents cope with the challenges of parenting a child with anxiety. It will help you understand what causes anxiety and take you step-by-step through concrete strategies you can use to help reduce your child’s anxiety.

Know what to do when your child is anxious or upset.
Help your child develop a toolkit of coping skills to overcome anxiety.
Break the cycle of anxiety and avoidance.

The webinar will be delivered by international parenting expert Anita Cleare (MA Adv.Dip) and is relevant for parents of children aged 6-14yrs.

Click on the link here to take you to the EventBrite booking page.

Education Wellbeing Service

Secondary Parent Webinars Poster 2022.23. Education Wellbeing Service (2).pdf

JUMBLE POSTER.pdf

Term Dates 2022-2023

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

Autumn Term 1: Friday 02 September-Friday 21 October 2022
Autumn Half-Term: Monday 24 October-Friday 04 November 2022
Autumn Term 2: Monday 07 November-Friday 16 December 2022

Parents' Calendar

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