RTS Parents' Newsletter 22 October 2021

Head Teacher's Message

It would be an understatement if I said that this has been an extremely challenging first half-term to this academic year. We have experienced events that I have, thankfully, never been faced with before in my teaching career; and nor do I wish to go through them again. There are always learnings to be taken from every experience but I must express my gratitude to the overwhelming support that myself and my staff have received from the school community. We have continued to operate above and beyond during these past weeks; despite staff facing a number of challenges. Ensuring the welfare, safety and education of your children is our top priority; and I am thankful for an exceptional team of staff here at RTS.

The students themselves continue to impress me with their resilience and fortitude; and our Year 11 students are be congratulated for sitting their GCSE Mock Science exams with such maturity and, it has to be said, with enthusiasm. Congratulations to students in 8 Berners Lee who have achieved the highest number of merits of any tutor group in the school. They were rewarded with chocolates in school today! Mr Gaye and Mr Singh were on hand to celebrate with them!

Congratulations also go to the following students across the school who were in the top 10% for achievement merits in their year group. They will join me for an Afternoon Tea next term to celebrate their excellent attitude to learning.

  • Year 11: Isha, Muminah, Sapphire, Dominic, Michael, Thuy, Toni, Aldo, Annabelle, Tyler, Lauren W, Freya, Evie, Archie P, Ella;

  • Year 10: Fatma, Rishi, Nora, Jethro, Nil, Ivona, Charlie C, Charlie W, Freddie, Jakub, James, Arthur, Zaara, Maria-Andreea, Erisa;

  • Year 9: Rayan, Alexander, Harry, Alex, Leia, Abigail, Millicent, Izaan, Arsalan, Joel, Magdalena, Daniel, Velina, Joshua, Rishi;

  • Year 8: Isabelle, Justin, Holly, Chloe, Ali, Julia, Robert, Yuna, Thomas, Jasmin, Matilda, Evie, Jake, Lilly, Soraya; and

  • Year 7: Erika, Mollie-Rae, Nikolina, Sam, Omer, Kai, Ella, Caleb, Dylan, Henny, Soufiane, Wiktoria, Albert, Ioel, Timofiy

I wish you all a safe and restful half-term break - a time to recharge batteries and spend time with families and friends before we begin the half-term run up to Christmas. There is still so much to fit in!

Ms K Dooley

Dates for the diary

  • Monday 25 October-Friday 05 November

    • Half-Term Break

  • Wednesday 10 November

    • Year 11 Parent & Subject Teacher Consultation Evening (remote), 14:30-19:30 (booking link email sent today)

      • Reminder that school will close early at 14:00 for this event

  • Wednesday 17 November

    • Year 10 Parent & Subject Teacher Consultation Evening (remote), 14:30-19:30 (booking link email sent today)

      • Reminder that school will close early at 14:00 for this event

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

The Year 11s have extended their development on Natural Forms and Yayoi Kusama with lino prints. The students applied multiple layers of colour in their responses with wonderful effects. Ms Williams is also excited to share the hard work of one talented student, Isabella, who has created a short video to showcase her work.


My Movie 14.mov

Bebras Challenge

Students will be participating in the Bebras Challenge during their Computer Science lesson, straight after half term. This involves solving a set of logic puzzles within 45 minutes. Students have been practising solving such problems during their CS lessons. Students will be provided with additional practise-puzzles via their CS Google Classroom. We would encourage them to spend just 20-30 minutes on these every other day, during the half term break. Students who do particularly well go through to the next round of the challenge. All students taking part receive a certificate of participation. Bebras is an international initiative to improve the computational thinking skills of young people. In the UK, Bebras is supported by Oxford University and the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Fantastic Fixtures!

Over the course of this week over 110 boys have represented the school in the shadow of Twickenham stadium against Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School.

On Monday, in their first game of the season, the Year 10s played incredibly well. Unfortunately, after half-time and through a lack of match fitness and decision making, RTS lost the first game.

On Tuesday an injury ravaged Year 9 team lost out in the final moments of the game - which was disappointing, but a massive learning curve to the boys as this was their first loss of the year to date!

Parent and Tutor consultation evening on Wednesday sadly led to a postponement in our Year 11 game which will be rearranged for next half-term.

The Year 8s on Thursday were fantastic. We had over 28 boys out playing from the year group; and took away one win and a draw.

The Year 7s are due to play today (Friday), where once again we will be putting out approximately 30 boys, who I have every confidence will return with 3 wins, no injuries and smiling faces.

Once again, I'd like to thank you for all your support this half-term, we have managed to compete in over 32 competitive rugby fixtures which is a huge amount! Next half-term the borough sports shift towards basketball, rugby league and cross country.

Mr Roberts, Curriculum Leader, Boy's PE

I am delighted to share that the girl's netball teams played against Radnor House this week. A combined team of Year 10 and 11 girls worked exceptionally hard and showed great team-work and discipline to win 27-7. The Year 9 team played a much closer game, but managed to edge a 15-7 win. Well done to all of the girls who took part and thank you for your support.

Ms Chidlow, Curriculum Leader, Girl's PE

Year 7 Update

I wanted to share with you how fantastic all Year 7 students have been during their first half term. It has been a pleasure to welcome them into the school community; and I am very proud of how well they have settled in.

Transitioning from primary school to secondary school during a global pandemic has presented its challenges, but it's clear Year 7s have taken this in their stride, adapted along the way and risen to the challenge.

Moreover, it’s been great to see how students are demonstrating the school's values, engaging well in lessons and actively participating with enrichment activities on offer.

I cannot praise Year 7 enough for all of their efforts so far and would encourage you to take time in the half term to also praise your child's successes. I’m looking forward to seeing all Year 7 at the start of the new term and continue to build on the successes of the first term ensuring all students endeavour towards excellence.

Mr Burchett, Head of Year 7

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.

Test kits have been distributed this week so that students can continue with the testing programme over the half-term break.

With the slight increase in cases in the area; and with the school holidays where families are out and about and mixing more than usual; please ensure that students take a test on the Sunday before returning to school on Monday 08 November.

COVID-19 Vaccination Update

Richmond Council have provided an update for those parents/carers who wish for their child to have the COVID-19 vaccination (link to the full article can be found here):

Children under 16 in England will be able to book a vaccination against COVID-19 over the half-term break, the NHS has announced.

Over the past few weeks, the NHS has been visiting schools across the borough vaccinating 12–15 year olds. However, to ensure that this age group can be vaccinated as soon as possible, from this weekend (23 October) appointments can also be booked, outside of school, on the NHS booking service. This will enable young people to get a jab at a nearby vaccination centre in the same way as adults can.

The move is designed to ensure that those who have not had the opportunity to be vaccinated at their school can still find a jab elsewhere rather than having to wait.

Audition Announcement.pdf

FoRTS News

Car Park Working Bee – *tomorrow*

The working bee to tidy the school car park are meeting tomorrow, Saturday 23 October from 12pm onwards. If you can come along to help, please email to let us know, or just turn up with your tools! Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Shopping over Half Term? Help us win £500!

If you’re shopping online, remember that FoRTS receives donations from retailers when you shop through easyfundraising and AmazonSmile as a Friend of RTS. As an added bonus, if we can get 5 new supporters during October, FoRTS could win £500 to spend with any of easyfundraising’s 6,000 retailers!

FoRTS AGM

Thank you to everyone who attended the AGM yesterday evening. We will send out the minutes on Classlist soon. If you are not already signed up to Classlist, you can do so here.

Rugby Parking – Saturday 06 November

It’s going to be a busy day in the car park for the England v Tonga match, and that means a huge influx of funding to the school. We couldn’t do this without our brilliant volunteer marshals. If you can help out, please get in touch.


Have a great half-term, 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

Hampton & Richmond Borough FC

Hampton & Richmond Borough FC under 12 are currently seeking new players to trial, and potentially join, their team.

HRBYFC 2021 Recruitment U12 Colts Trials.jpg

Al Baraem Arabic School

The School offers Cultural Education for children and minors from 5 to 17 years, through structured curriculum lessons in subjects such as Arabic language, Islamic studies and Quran, alongside co-curricular activities.

The school is hosted at RTS and takes place on Saturdays. Please contact albaraem.uk@gmail.com for more information.

Museum of Richmond

The Museum of Richmond will be running workshops for families at the Museum throughout October half term.

They are also able to offer free places to local children who receive Pupil Premium - please contact RTS for separate details of how to book a space.

Here are the details of the workshops:

  • Ghosts of Richmond Palace – workshops at the Museum
    Tuesday 26 October to Friday 29 October, 10am to 12noon
    Discover the ghostly goings on in the remains of Richmond Palace. Make your own haunted palaces to help decorate your home this Halloween! Book     here

  • Ghosts of Richmond Palace – online workshops
    Tuesday 26 October to Friday 29 October, 1pm to 3pm
    Discover the ghostly goings on in the remains of Richmond Palace. Make your own haunted palaces to help decorate your home this Halloween! Book     here

Fencing

Inspion Sports are very excited to announce that we will be running a fencing club every Saturday from 6 November to 11 December at the German School, Douglas House, Petersham Road, Richmond TW10 7AH. Classes consist of an active warm-up, cardio and strength-building exercises, fencing related games, fencing footwork drills, development of technical fencing skills and sparring. Our team consists of Olympians, World, European, Commonwealth and African champions.

If you are interested in your child signing up, parents/carers will need to fill in this form at https://inspionsports.com/richmond-club/.

Heatham Halloween

Heatham House will be running a Halloween event on Wednesday 27 October from 18:30-21:00. Guys and ghouls aged 13-18 years old are invited are invited to Haunted Heatham House, for an evening of devilishly good music that will be loud enough to wake the dead and lift your spirits. Book your ticket here.

Trick or Treat 13+.pdf

Knight's Basketball

Knight's Basketball are running Basketball Camps during the half-term holiday.


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