RTS Parents' Newsletter

RTS Parents' Newsletter 24 February 2023

Head Teacher's Message

I hope that you all had a restful and relaxing half term break. This week has been exceptionally busy.

Staff completed two successful INSET days on Monday and Tuesday where our focus was on Quality of Education. I still find much to learn during these training days, and this week was no different; especially as Middle Leaders were leading the training rather than SLT. A different perspective is refreshing and it is wonderful to see all of the staff working together. We are a big team now and that sense of community is very special here at RTS.

This week also saw our Year 9 parents on site to meet with subject teachers face to face, with the main focus on GCSE options. We have had such positive feedback from parents and staff about the evening - so thank you. It was lovely to see so many familiar faces so soon after the Year 9 Options evening. We also hosted a KS4 revision and study skills focused Parent Forum on the same evening and were pleased to see a healthy turnout for that event.

Next week we will share a full report on our inaugural Year 11 Careers Conference that took place on Thursday but it was a fantastic success and there was real buzz around school.

Wishing you all a good weekend.

Ms K Dooley

Dates for the diary

Thursday 02 March
- Potential NEU Strike (email update to follow)
Monday 06- Friday 17 March
- Year 10 AP5 Formal Assessments
Monday 13-Friday 17 March
- Year 11 Mock GCSE Assessments
Friday 31 March
- End of Term, early finish at 12 noon

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.

RTS Community

Turkey-Syria Earthquake

A reminder that we have set up a payment option via ParentPay to which families can make a donation if they choose to - you may already have donated elsewhere, so this just provides an alternative.

We will leave this option up until the end of the month; and will update you after this time as to how much RTS has raised and where the money has been donated to.

Our thoughts continue to with our Turkish students and their families.

Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme

Year 10 DofE students have been setting out their route plans for the DofE practice walk in Richmond Park on 11 March.

Students will also need to be well prepared with the appropriate kit - especially footwear; and also keep an eye on the predicted weather forecast so that they can dress appropriately and be prepared for all weathers!

Relationships and Sex Education - Year 7 and 8

As you may already be aware, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE), along with Health Education, is now a part of the National Curriculum. As part of our school’s SRE policy 5.2 and wider Personal, Social and Health Education programme, your child will soon receive lessons on relationships, sexual health and personal safety. The programme will include topics such as: Topic: Intimate & ;Sexual Relationships, including Sexual Health. Schools are required to consult with parents when developing and reviewing their policies for Relationships Education and RSE, which will inform schools’ decisions on when and how certain content is covered.

The purpose of the upcoming curriculum is to provide knowledge and understanding of safe and healthy relationships based on respect. This is to encourage the development of safe and healthy relationships throughout life. The subject is designed to help children from all backgrounds build positive and safe relationships, and to thrive in modern Britain.

You do have a right to withdraw your child from sex education delivered as part of RSE in secondary schools which, unless there are exceptional circumstances, will be granted up to three terms before your child turns 16. At this point, if the child themselves wishes to receive sex education rather than be withdrawn, the school should make arrangements for this to happen in one of the three terms before the child turns 16 - the legal age of sexual consent.

There is no right to withdraw from Relationships Education at secondary level and we believe the content of these subjects – such as family, friendship, safety (including online safety) – are important for all children to be taught. However, we are confident you will share our enthusiasm for the successful implementation of the new PSHE curriculum, which we feel will benefit all of our students. We are looking forward to sharing further information in due course. If you wish to discuss the programme further, please contact Ms Tania, PRE and PSHE Lead, via the School Office (info@rts.richmond.sch.uk)

FORTS NEWS

Thank you Carey!

At the FoRTS meeting on Wednesday evening Carey sadly stepped down as the FoRTS Chair and has sent the following message:

“I'm really disappointed to be stepping down as Chair before my term ends, but I've recently changed jobs and need to avoid any potential conflict of interest. Huge thanks to Carmelle for stepping up as Chair; although this does mean she is taking on two roles, so if anyone can help out, the team would very much appreciate it. Being part of FoRTS is hugely rewarding and is by no means an onerous task. I wanted to thank everyone for their support and hard work which has made FoRTS the success it is, helping to enhance the learning for all of our children”.

We need you - anyone with secretary / administration or accounting skills

We need more RTS parents / carers to step up and help. At the moment, only a very small fraction of parents help out, which is just not fair.

FoRTS plays an invaluable part in building and enabling a positive community between parents/carers and the school, and raising important funds to support enrichment opportunities for all RTS pupils. We have raised over £65k since inception in September 2017, which is an amazing achievement with the limited number of helpers we have had. Without more helpers to build from the legacy of past parents, we will need to scale back our activities.

If you are able to spare some time we would really appreciate it. The Secretary role is currently vacant and the Treasurer role will be vacant in September (so now is an ideal time to express your interest and start to shadow the role).

Please reach out directly to forts@rts.richmond.sch.uk if you can help out. We look forward to hearing from you.

Quiz and Curry night - 24th March

We are currently finalising plans for our very popular quiz and curry night scheduled for Friday 24th March, 7.30-10.30pm. More information to come in next week’s newsletter. This will be an evening event for parents and school personnel.

Your FoRTS team,

Carmelle (Chair & Secretary), Mark (Treasurer)

General: forts@rts.richmond.sch.uk

Uniform: fortsuniform@rts.richmond.sch.uk

Parking: fortsparking@rts.richmond.sch.uk

Voluntary donations: Peoples Fundraising

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

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

Parent_and_Carers_Infographic.pdf

Term Dates 2022-2023

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

Spring Term 2: Monday 20 February-Friday 31 March

Parents' Calendar

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