End of Term Newsletter March 2015

Challenge Partners Review In our desire to be Outstanding in Every Respect and as part of our drive for constant school improvement, we were one of the founding members of Challenge Partners. This is an organisation committed to schools working together to lead improvements locally and nationally. One strand of this work is an annual review of the school. A team of five experienced senior leaders from partner schools across the country, which includes Ofsted and HMI Inspectors, spent two days in school at the end of February. They observed 21 lessons, met with staff and students and reviewed school data. The Quality Assurance Review found the school to be at the top of the Good grade as judged by Ofsted and working towards outstanding. Some of the verbal feedback from the reviewers included:

The students are engaged and happy learners; The leadership team is outward-working and very aware of the schools strengths and weaknesses; Students work in a purposeful environment where there is good challenge and high expectations.

The written report is designed to reflect the current strengths of the school and comment on the schools own developmental areas. The report states:

The senior and middle leadership of the school is a strength; Strategic plans for school improvement and evaluation show that the leadership team know what they need to do to improve

further; Pupil achievement is above national average (significantly above national average for boys) and represents a good

achievement in the light of national changes; Value-added progress is exceptional in Science and has been for the last three years; Lessons are planned with appropriately high levels of challenge and expectations of what the students can do; Teachers have very good subject knowledge and their enthusiasm for their subject is evident; A strength of the teaching is the relationships formed between teachers and students, ensuring that students want to learn

and respond well to teacher advice and encouragement.

This Newsletter contains:

News in brief News of offers for the Sixth Form News on developments at school Important dates for the term ahead.

NEWS & INFORMATION IN BRIEF

SIXTH FORM NEWS

Sixth Form Applications A record number of applications have been received for a place in the Sixth Form for September, both from our current Year 11 students and from external students. All the applicants have now been interviewed by Mr Doyle (Assistant Headteacher Sixth Form Leader) and his team. Offer letters have now been dispatched to successful candidates. Of course, Year 11 students should be working hard in the final push to GCSE and vocational examinations, in order to maximise their chances of taking up a place.

ALPS Top 10% again! We received news this half-term that the Sixth Form has, yet again, been rated in the top 10% of schools nationally for the progress of Year 11 students. The Advanced Level Performance System (ALPS) is an Ofsted-recognised system of scoring Sixth Forms, and shows how well we are doing compared to schools across the country. We have been graded in the top 10% of schools for over a decade now, reflecting our position as one of the best Sixth Forms in the area.

University Entrance We have already celebrated the offers of places at Oxford University to Anietie Ekanem and Finn McQueen (both Year 13), but students across Hounslow are also out-performing students across the country in gaining access to university. 62% of Hounslow Sixth Formers gain a place at university compared to the national figure of 56% and just over a quarter (26%) gain a place at one of the top-third universities in the country, compared to the national figure of 23%. It is also a well-established fact that students from Hounslows comprehensive Sixth Forms have a better chance of gaining a place at a top university, and comfortably out-perform students from grammar and independent schools in degree outcomes.

Medics Club This year, Miss Stead has organised a Medics Club, for students in Year 12 who are interested in studying Medicine at university. This club, running for its inaugural year, has been very successful, with ten selected students taking part in some after-school activities in school, as well as various trips. These have included: a trip to the opticians to discuss what an ophthalmologist looks for during an eye examination; a visit to a Victorian operating theatre in London; and several trips to museums. Overall, the club has been a fantastic experience for our Year 12 boys as they consider their future career options.

TEDx Youth Event On Wednesday 25th February, Ahmad Elmouniery (Year 13) was invited to take part in a TEDx Youth Event at West Thames College, speaking for seven minutes on the value of languages. He was composed and eloquent throughout his excellent speech, which received an excellent response. There were younger students from school in attendance, and all seemed to be engaged with and inspired by Ahmads talk. Well done to him!

Film Shoot This week we received notice that Louis Kelly (Year 12) had a won a screen-writing competition, organised by the local SPARK! organisation. Louis wrote a fantastic script, which was picked as the winner! His script begins shooting during next week. Congratulations to Louis; we look forward to seeing the finished result.

EU Proposal This month, Khalil Abdul-Latif submitted an idea for Talking to EU, a European Parliament project which asks young people how they would like to be involved in the European Union. The original question was: How can the EU get younger influence? Khalils response was deemed good enough to be included within a Government white paper on the subject; he will go to London on Monday 20th April to formally present his discussion. A huge well done to Khalil!

Staff v Year 13 Leavers On Wednesday 25th March, we hosted our annual football match between the Year 13 Leavers and the Staff, taking place on the school astroturf. The Staff have won for several successive years, and the Sixth Formers were determined to turn the tide. After a hard-fought battle, the Leavers emerged as 5-3 winners. There were excellent performances from the whole team, but special mention must go to Josh Norris, Daanyaal Khan and goalkeeper Andy Brown, for their tireless efforts. Congratulations to the Leavers.

NOTICES

Feedback and Marking Parents/carers should be aware that high-quality oral feedback and written marking is a priority within lessons, across all subjects. This means a number of things. Firstly, your childs books should be marked by the class teacher on a regular basis. Parents/carers should see evidence within exercise books that some of the marking by the teacher allows students to either re-draft work and/or feedback to

the comments provided by the teacher. This process of feedback after feedback is crucial to students making faster than expected progress. Secondly, questioning is a vital element within all lessons. Hence, teachers have been asked to increasingly vary how they correct, clarify, connect, and extract information from students. With this in mind, please challenge your child as to whether he is answering sufficient questions or, better still, asking questions, as well as building on the answers of others. Finally, we are striving to make all students completers or finishers, so all classwork within your childs books should be complete. Work should be tidy and organised; there should be no gaps, no unfinished work, and no loose paper. Please make every effort to reinforce this with your child and, where necessary, ask them to complete their work.

Basic Equipment It is a simple and clear expectation that students bring basic school equipment to school on a daily basis, thus enabling them to be ready for learning. Equipment includes pens, pencil, ruler, a scientific calculator, specialist Mathematics equipment and a water bottle. All of these items should be organised within a suitably sized school bag, which should also contain a reading book. Please ensure that your son/ward organises his school bag the evening before a school day and is therefore ready to learn.

Home-Learning Students must attempt to complete home-learning or homework. Our evidence shows that there are still students who continually fail to attempt their homework. Given that home-learning is usually work linked to, either, consolidating learning from the lesson, or preparation for a future lesson, it is essential that students allocate time to make the required effort. National research shows that when home-learning is regularly completed, students improve by an additional six months on top of their normal annual progress. Please check your childs diary for homework activity. If a quiet learning space is not available at home, encourage your son/ward to use the school library, which is open before school as well as until 5.30pm every evening.

Appearance Policy Start of Term Checks It is still concerning that a number of boys are being sent home for ignoring our Appearance Policy, in particular for breaches of expectation with regard to hairstyles. Our policy is clear and long-standing, and all of our students are aware of the requirements through repeated reminders in assemblies and in tutor time. The rules, as stated in their student planners, are as follows:

Hair should be conventional in style and in length (above the collar and no shorter than a blade 2) and should not be artificially coloured, spiked or contain styling products. Excessively shaven hair (below a blade 2/where skin on head is visible), shaved eyebrows or any shaven step/lines/patterns/fashion trims/ high-tops/low-tops are not acceptable.

Examples of inappropriate hairstyles can be seen below.

Hair is too short (below blade 2)

Hair is too long (beyond collar)

Hair shaven and faded to skin

Products in the hair

Shaven parting

Patterns

Also note that coats and socks should be plain and dark coloured and remember that the Senior Leadership Team of the school are the final arbiters of the Appearance Code.

IMPORTANT DATES SUMMER TERM 2015 April Monday 13 Inset Day 4 Tuesday 14 Start of Summer Term Thursday 23 Year 7 Parents Evening (4.30 - 7.00pm) Tuesday 28 PTA Meeting (7.15pm Library) Thursday 30 UKMT Junior Mathematics Challenge May Monday 4 Bank Holiday Tue 5 Fri 15 Year 9 Core & Pathway Examinations Thursday 21 Year 8 Parents Evening (4.30 - 7.00pm) Mon 25 Fri 29 Half Term June Mon 15 Fri 26 Year 7 & 8 Examinations Wednesday 17 Cricket: 1st XI v MCC (Isleworthians) Mon 22 Fri 3 July Year 10 Examinations Wednesday 24 Cricket: Staff v Year 13 Leavers Thursday 25 Year 11 Prom tbc Tuesday 30 PTA Meeting (7.15pm Library) July Thursday 2 School Council Meeting (11.00am) Summer Arts & Technology Evening (7.00pm) Friday 3 School Track & Field Championships (Osterley Track) Mon 6 Fri 10 Wider Learning Week (Years 7-9 & 12) Mon 6 Fri 17 Year 10 Work Related Learning Tuesday 14 Key Stage 3 Awards (5.30-7.00pm) Friday 17 Last Day of Term (students depart - 12.30pm) August Thursday 13 Advanced Level Results Issued Year 13 (9.00am) Advanced Level Results Issued Year 12 (10.30am) Year 13 Enrolment (11.00am) Thursday 20 GCSE Results Issued Year 11 (9.00am) GCSE Results Issued for all other years (10.30am)

School Communications Please do get used to using our new forms of communication, listed here. They are the best way to keep up-to-date with the daily life of the school. It is also far more efficient to access information via the website or Twitter account, rather than by telephone.

Website: www.isleworthsyon.org Email: school@isleworthsyon.org Twitter: @IsleworthSyon Tel: 020 8568 5791 Facebook: www.facebook.com/IsleworthSyon Fax: 020 8568 1939 Parent Portal: parent.isleworthsyon.com