We are delighted to announce that the school has recently ...smartfuse.s3.amazonaws.com/simonballe.herts.sch.uk/... · Young Minds is the UK’s leading charity committed to improving

Thursday 1st February

Although this is the second newsletter of this term, already it is almost half term! With an early Easter date (we break up on Maundy Thursday, 29th March) the next half term will equally race through. Schools are very busy places and we are always trying to jam so many things into a short time. We only have 190 days in the year for all of our activities which means that some weeks are particularly busy. However it is already noticeable that the evenings are getting lighter which has a profound effect upon the activities that can be offered particularly with regard to sport and trips. Indeed it appears that we are on the threshold of the “Trip Season 2018” with several residential trips occurring alongside day trips. What parents will not know is that every trip has to go before a committee which looks at costs, whether the same children benefit and spaces between trips. In addition we are concerned about educational outcomes as each trip takes hours to plan, demands a lot of organisation and also means that both children and staff are missing regular lessons. Thank you for all your support; I know the children value these opportunities highly.

Dates for your Diary

Monday 5th February - Y7 Maths trip to Bletchley Park Thursday 8th February - Non Uniform Day - Young Minds 9th-14th February -Football Tour to Valencia Friday 9th February-INSET Day 12th-16th February-Half Term Wednesday 21st February-Y10 Parents Evening Thursday 22nd - Friday 23rd February - Battlefields Trip 1st Group 25th - 28th February - French Trip Tuesday 27th February - Y10/12 Careers Fair Thursday 1st-2nd March - Battlefield Trip 2nd Group Friday 9th March - Big Band Evening Tuesday 27th March - Y13 Parents Evening

Careers Award- Level 3

We are delighted to announce that the school has recently been awarded The Quality in

Careers Standard. This is a national standard assessing careers education, advice and

guidance. It involved 3 stages and helped evaluate and revamp careers education at

Simon Balle All-through School. Providing the right advice and support of our students

in all year groups is of great importance in an ever changing employment and

educational world and it is nice to receive recognition. For more about what is going on

in careers please have a look at careers on the website under the Community SBAS

section.

Mr Brennan and Mr Moss

Year 9 Careers Day

Last week the Y9 Get Work Ready Day took place at Simon Balle All-through School.

The day was organised by ELSA who provided companies such as Waitrose, Leonardo,

Morrison Utility Company and many more. Students participated in a wide range of

tasks aimed at preparing them for entering the work place. Y9 students participated in

mock interviews, a wiring exercise, branding, app creation and how to sell themselves

and understand what their unique selling point (USP) is. These activities took place on

a carousel basis throughout the whole day, finishing in the hall for a debrief. Students

felt that the day included "lots of variety and was very interesting" - Sophie (9A). Sam

Palmer felt that he learned of the importance of being "open-minded, confident and

presenting yourself in a good way when going for an interview". A big thank you goes to

the parents who volunteered to support the day. Our next careers event is the annual

Y10/12 Careers fair which takes place on Tuesday 27th February in the school Hall

from 1pm onwards. Parents are welcome to attend from 3pm onwards.

Even our youngest children have been hearing about the different jobs people do, as

part of their study of “people who help us”. Reception children have enjoyed hearing

from some of the mums and dads about their work. These have included a Postman,

Dietician and Police Officer. They were also lucky enough to visit Hertford Fire Station

to learn about the important role the fire service has in the community.

Thank you all those parents who have volunteered to help us with our careers

education. Please continue to email in and we will get back to you.

Uniform reminders There seems to be a fashion for boys to wear white socks and ankle length trousers - boys socks MUST be BLACK. We continue to ask girls to unroll their skirts, and remind them of the correct length. Please support us with this. Thank you for your support with mobile phones which are to be kept in bags and on silent during the school day. Generally speaking this is working well. Makeup, jewellery (including rings, hooped-earrings and bracelets) and nail varnish particularly gel nails are not correct uniform. From time to time we have to remind the boys and their parents about correct haircuts and this is applicable for all male students including those in the Larch Centre. Heads must not be shaved; hair should not be too short and we do not allow any lines cut into the hair or longer hair on top. If boys hair reaches the shoulders or over the eyes it should be tied back. Many girls choose to tie hair up too. Vacancies At this time of year we are looking to recruit teachers and support staff. Although as yet we are not entirely sure what we will need and unfortunately, with tight budgets, we cannot create jobs or over-recruit. However, we will be looking for a primary teacher and teaching assistants to support our youngest children. We are very eager to hear from anyone who can teach A level Economics or Computer Science. We are also looking for a Spanish teacher. INSET Day The school will be closed to students on Friday 9

th February for staff training. School

resumes after the half term break on Monday 19 February Safeguarding In light of a recent tragic event in the news can you please ensure that we have at least two up to date contact details. It is important that you notify us of changes to mobile/landline telephone numbers and email addresses. To notify us of a change of address, you must complete the Change of Address form and return this to the office with evidence eg a solicitors letter or a tenancy agreement.

Safer Internet Day

This year Safer Internet Day is taking place on Tuesday 6th February. The theme for

this day is “Create, Connect & Share Respect.” There will be a number of different

activities happening that day which will cover all our students from primary to 6th Form.

School lunches

Please not that if you top up a student’s dinner card it takes 24 hours for it to appear on

the system – it is not instant.

Also if you child is unable to pay for lunch they will ALWAYS be offered either a meal of

the day or something from the pasta bar. They will not be allowed to choose anything

else or take a bottled drink—however, water is available in the dining room. The money

owed will be taken the following day.

Ball Park Parking

Can we remind parents NOT to use Balls Park for dropping off or collecting

students. This is private property and we must respect this.

Many thanks

Emails in Junk

We would like to advise parents to look in their junk inbox for school emails as we have

had reports of some Simon Balle emails being marked as junk or spam.

School Re-union

Four ex-pupils of Simon Balle School; Tina Shillito, Janice Taylor-Barton, Gavin North,

and Alan Slade are organising a 40th reunion for classmates of the 1973-1978 (80)

years in Hertford to be held on the evening of 24th February. The venue is Shades in

Parliament Square from 19.30-20.00 until late. If you belong to this class, and are

interested please visit the Simon Balle Friends Facebook page and contact Janice, or

email Alan directly at [email protected] for more details.

Non Uniform – Thursday 8th February YOUNG MINDS Young Minds is the UK’s leading charity committed to improving the wellbeing and mental health of children and young people. They champion children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing across the UK. Driven by their experience they create change so that children and young people can cope with life’s adversities, find help when needed and succeed in life. The charity has four key strategic aims: 1) Foster innovation to meet the needs of vulnerable and excluded children and young people. 2) Promote good mental health to more children and young people than ever before. 3) Champion the voices of young people and parents to influence mental health policy and practice. 4) Inspire excellence to achieve transformed, integrated services We would encourage students to bring a minimum of £2.00 to support this very worthwhile charity which affects so many young people. Students should dress sensibly and not wear anything which may be deemed inappropriate. Those who come to school dressed inappropriately may be sent home to change. Mike Moss Deputy Head

Food and Catering

Last term number of students have left various plastic containers in the Food room at

the end of lessons. If you are missing any plastic containers at home as a result please

could you ask your son / daughter to come to the Food room to collect them in the next

week

Biscuit or sweet/ chocolate tins

We would really appreciate any unwanted biscuit or sweet/ chocolate tins for use in

Food and Catering.

Many thanks

Linda Jones

£10 Note Circulation

Please be aware that the old £10 note will go out of circulation at the end of

February. From 1st March we will only be able to accept the new note in the canteen

and payments made to the school.

PE News

Hockey News - Unbeaten in U15 County League

The team which is made up of Year 9 and Year 10 girls have had a fantastic start in the

County League; undefeated after 3 games.

The first game saw the girls face Parmiters away. It took the group a while to get settled

into the new team with Madison Bailey making some excellent saves in goal. Good

teamwork throughout the middle of the pitch led to Simon Balle putting the pressure on

the Parmiters defence. Elsa Barnfather showed composure in front of goal, placing 3

shots in a row past the keeper. Kathryn Rollins scored from a short corner set piece to

put the final score at 4-1.

Following a strong first game, the girls started their second League game with

confidence. St Francis School sided a tough opposition, challenging captain Emily

Palmer to get the team working together across the pitch. The build up of Simon Balle

pressure led to a perfectly finished goal by Niamh Hartnett. A breakaway goal by St

Francis School equalised the score line and put the pressure back on. In the second

half, Simon Balle successfully found Niamh Hartnett in a similar position to take the final

score to 2-1.

Last week saw the girls play Sir John Lawes in a home fixture. The team showed some

excellent linking throughout the pitch and within the first 5 minutes had scored twice.

From here the girls picked up momentum and continued to find gaps in the Sir John

Lawes defence. The final score ended at 9-0 with 1 goal from Emily Palmer, Elsa

Barnfather, Emily Rollins and 6 goals from Niamh Hartnett.

The team are looking forward to playing Dame Alice Owen after half term and the

rearranged game against Beaumont where they hope to continue their winning streak.

Y7 Hockey

On Wednesday 10th January the Yr 7 Girls Hockey Team had a successful win against

John Warner. They played exceptionally well as a team and they have shown massive

improvements in their ability through dedication to training throughout the year and this

paid off. An excellent performance by all, and the girls look forward to more games.

Sports Hall Athletics

The Sports hall Athletics league is now in full swing with Round 2 completed on Wednesday. This is a competition which we are hosting as a school and a big thank you must go out to the all the Simon Balle leaders involved which ensured that the competition ran smoothly. Simon Balle Y7 Girls and Y8 Boys competed in the latest round and performed very well with both teams winnings the 4 x 2 lap relays along with many more fantastic performances. Our County athletes Alex Greaves and Tyrese Davis both won their respective events. The final round takes place next Wednesday with the top 4 teams going through to the District final at the end of February. Our next athletics competition takes place on Saturday where we have a number of athletes participating in the Herts Schools Cross Country Championships, good luck to all athletes competing. Also well done to Trixie Wraith who recently ran 2.16 for the 800m in a club indoor competition.

Football Report

Saturday football season has started! It is great to see over 60 pupils representing the school from year 7-10 every Saturday. This includes 3 year 11 students (Joel P, Ben T and Nathan C) who have been the match officials for the home games.

On Saturday 20th Jan the boys had their first game against Verulam, a tough opponent, however winning all four fixtures. A big well done to the year 8 boys who won their game beating a Verulam side who are into the last 16 in the national cup! On Saturday 27th January we had our 'El Hertfordo' derby games against Richard Hale, which was very competitive throughout all years with some very tight scorelines. Our next fixtures coming up are Sandringham 3rd Feb, Samuel Ryder 3rd March and Roundwood Park 10th March.

The Year 7 boys play their District cup games against Chauncy on Thursday and St Mary’s on Monday, both games at Simon Balle. Next Wednesday the Year 7 B squad play JWS in their first District cup game. Good luck to both teams.

Basketball

All years have been in basketball action over the last few months with the Senior and Yr9 teams playing in the county league. Up against schools from around the county such as Queens, St. Columba's College and Parmiters, the boys have produced some excellent displays, getting some victories too.

The Y8 Boys had a good win over JWS on Monday winning 30-10.

The Y11 Boys were recently beaten by a very good Chauncy team and now play JWS next Thursday.

Year 7 Basketball took to the court for the first time against Robert Barclay. The organisation and precision from the Year 7 team proved too much for the opposition. We won 42-8 and all students involved were a credit to the school. Well done.

Rugby

The Year 10 Rugby team have made it to the County Shield final for the second successive year after beating St. Mary's in a dominant display in the semi-final. The boys were runners up last year and will be looking to go one better and become County Champions! With many boys going on to play for club teams outside of school since joining Simon Balle they have made great progress and it showed in a great team performance.

The Year 9 boys played JFK on Friday in the quarter final stage of the County Shield, losing out to a very strong JFK team.

The 1st XV lost in a closely fought contest against a strong Knights Templar team, in the County Shield Semi-Final. Simon Balle took the lead early on in the first half with an interception and a length of the pitch try from Fin Cattermole. We soaked a lot of pressure up in the first half and struggled to get a hold on the game, going into half time 12-7 down. We came out the stronger side in the second half and a penalty from the outstanding Dan Heald put us within 2 points. At 12-10 down we had our chances to win the game, with Paddy Hobson going close but spilling the ball over the line. The final score was 19-12. I would like to thank all of the boys for their commitment this season as they have set the tone for the younger years coming through.