5th April

Volume 4, Issue 2

Whoever Strives

Will Succeed

Assalamu alaikum,

As we come to the end

of another term at LNS,

we take this opportuni-

ty to look back at some

of the highlights.

I’d like to thank all of those who have contrib-

uted and worked hard

to organize and carry

out these events and to

those who contributed

to the newsletter.

Next term we look for-

ward to Ramadhan and

our year 11’s will em-

bark upon their GCSE

exams. We pray they

achieve success in their

exams.

I wish you all a restful

break and we will meet

again in the new term

inshAllah.

Ust Sanam

Spring 2019

Newsletter

Heathrow Careers Fair

On 28th February year 11 were lucky enough to

visit the Heathrow Careers Fair. We set off by

bus accompanied by ustadha Sanam and ustadha

Aaminah. It was a short journey and when we

arrived at the event we saw many other schools

there too.

As we went in there were lots and lots of exhib-

itors, each one giving information about differ-

ent careers options and different paths into fur-

ther education.

We were able to ask lots of questions, meet

people from different industries and of course

pick up lots of

free pens, pencils

and sweets!!

Many of us came

back thinking of

new career ideas and taking a lot of

inspiration from

the people we

met there.

This term year 10 were lucky

enough to have a trip to visit the

world famous Westminster Abbey

in London. We met up on the 25th

March at 9 in the morning to take

the underground train into London.

Once we arrived we have a very in-

formative tour guide. She showed a

video and

then we

entered

the abbey.

As we

were

shown around we

asked

questions

and learnt

many now

interesting

things. As we

are studying

Christianity

for GCSE RE

this trip to

the abbey was even more useful.

We saw the chair the queen sat on

when she was crowned, we saw the

place William and Kate got married

and we saw the tombs of many fa-

mous kings of the past. We ended the day with lunch and

prayers.

A huge welcome to

all the new students:

Year 7’s: Maleekah

We would also like

to welcome Usta-

daha Madina as Eng-

lish teacher for KS3.

Sadly, we say good-

bye to Jannat (yr 7)

and Tasnim (yr 8).

We wish you both

success in the future.

Assalamu alaikum,

My name is Muna (head

girl). MashAllah a term

has already passed and

the countless activities and

opportunities have been

amazing. From the 5km

sponsored walk to the

compelling and amusing

Peter Pan theatre trip. This

term new students like

year 7 have found their

place at Lady Nafisa

School, they are now set-

tled and engaging with our

motto “Whoever strives

will succeed”

I hope you all have a

lovely winter holiday.

Wasalaam

Westminster Abbey

World Book Day

all wrote

the name

of our fa-

vourite

book and

author on

a tag and placed it

on the

reading tree.

The reading

tree is in the

school recep-

tion area.

This years world book day

took place on Thursday

7th March. As always we

had some fun activities to

celebrate the day and re-

mind us about the fun of

reading books. We had 2 competitions taking place.

One was called “Who is

reading it?” for this, us stu-

dents got the chance to

guess which of our teach-

ers were reading which

book from a list we were

shown. It was a test to see

how well we know our

teachers. NO ONE got

the answers all right!!

The second competition

was for years 7 and 8 and

was to turn a classic book

into a comic strip. There were lots of good entries

but the prize was given to

Sawdah (yr 7) and 2nd

place to Saffiyah (yr 8).

Year 7 and 8 were also

treated to a traditional

story telling on the day

and we all took part in a

school quiz during period

1. The JK Rowling team

won in the end!

As a school we also pro-

duced a reading tree. We

This term we had a new set of librarians appointed by

ustadha Tahira. Both Khadra and Fatima in year 9 have

been given the task of running the library. Marwa and

Marjaan from year 11 kindly agreed to organize and run

a fundraising cake sale. All proceeds would be used to

buy new books for the library.

As always, students volunteered to bake delicious cakes

and goodies and all sold out within a few minutes.

It was a very successful bake sale and over £50 was

raised towards new books.

Thankyou to all the bakers and buyers.

Page 2 Spring 2019

Library BAKE sale Above: Our school READING TREE.

The BIG 5 reminders

This half term we have been re-

minding ourselves of Lady Nafisa’s

core values.

Our big 5 are displayed in all of the

classrooms and now we have dis-

played one in each room above the

whiteboard.

Our BIG 5 are:

Cleanliness

Listening

Organisation

Respect

Perseverance

Each year group will be preparing a

presentation on one of the big 5 for upcoming assemblies. We look for-

ward to seeing these.

During the school residential, stu-

dents in school produced a new

display to show the BIG 5.

We hope all the students will re-

member these 5 during the school

day.

British Science Week

Yr 7 trip to Natural History Museum:

Year 7 were lucky enough this

year to have atrip to the Natural

History Museum in London.

Whilst many of us have been

there before this trip was really

good as we had informative

workshops.

The best part was the investi-

gate centre in the basement of

the museum. They have over

500 real specimens in there and

students are allowed to touch

them and look at them.

We chose something we were

interested in and examined it

more closely, making drawings

of our observations.

We got to feel like real scien-

tists! Thankyou to ustadha Kinza

and Sanaa for taking us.

Page 3

This year British Science

Week fell during 11-15th

March. Year 7-9 were lucky

enough to have fun activities

and challenges planned for

the Science lessons. We

stopped our normal lesson

for that week and were al-

lowed to do something differ-

ent. The challenges were

done in groups and there

were prizes of yummy choco-

lates to be won.

Year 7 were challenged to

make the tallest tower using

just a limited amount of spa-

ghetti and marshmallows. The

tower would have to hold a

chocolate egg at the top!

Year 8 were given limited ma-

terials and challenged to

make the strongest boat, that

would hold the most marbles.

We found, simple designs

worked the best!

Year 9 used their materials to

build a parachute for an egg.

We tested them by dropping

the egg from the top floor.

We learnt lots about design

and team work.

Left: entrance hall to museum

Below and right: year 7 in the investigate

centre

Left: year 9 parachuting eggs

Above: year 8 boat challenge

Below: year 7 spaghetti tower challenge

School RESIDENTIAL trip to Youlbury:

After a quick lunch and prayer

we were ready to gout and do

our first activity.

There were 8 different activities

we would do over the course of

the 3 days and each group was

doing a different activity.

The activities were run by for-

eign volunteers, they were all

really helpful, kind and encour-

aging. Our activities included

zip wire, rifle shooting, high all

aboard, sensory trail, Jacob’s

ladder, 3G swing and archery.

The activities needed real team

work, all of us working together

and encouraging each other. In some of the activities we had to

pull each other up or support

each other to the top. We all

had to face our fears and really

push ourselves.

Every student there went fur-

ther than they thought they

could. No one gave up, we all

encouraged one another to

reach the best we could.

At times we felt we could go no

further, or that we would fail or

fall but we kept pushing our-

selves. For those of us who

don’t like heights this was really

hard.

On this first day, we completed

2 activities but we felt exhaust-

ed and were all happy to hear it

was dinner time.

After dinner we had prayer and

then free time.

The teachers let us use our

phones for half an hour only!!

But we found things to do.

The ACTIVITIES:

Page 4 Spring 2019

The day finally arrived that we’d all

been waiting for … Monday 18th

March, the day of the school resi-

dential trip to Youlbury activity cen-

tre. We are used to residential trips

being in the summer term and were

surprised and excited to get this

opportunity to go earlier in the year.

36 of us lucky students had taken

the opportunity to go and arriving

at school that morning with our lug-

gage the excitement was mounting.

Some of us had been to the resi-

dential 2 years before and some of

us had never been away from home

before. For all of us this was equally

exciting. We would have the chance

to go away and stay with our

friends and to try lots of new activi-

ties we had never done before.

Ustadha Fouzia spoke to us all and

we assigned to our groups. There

would be 4 groups, each with one

of the teachers; ustadha Fouzia,

Tahira, Sanam and Taiba. The

groups were mixed with girls from

years 7-10.

Finally, the coach arrived at 10 am

and we started our journey. In just

over an hour we arrived and went

straight into “the Bears Den” where

we would spend the next 3 days.

Our host was Jan (from Germany)

he gave us a little talk and we were

then allowed to go and see our

rooms.

Top right: on the coach

Above: instructor Jan

Left: praying together

DAY 2:

DAY 3:

Most of us got very little sleep

that night and early the next

morning ustadha Tahira was

banging on the doors waking us

up for Fajr. We prayed together

and read surah Yasin. Most of

us then rushed back to bed be-

fore breakfast but some stayed

up and got ready

for the day

ahead. Day 2

was packed with

activities. We

enjoyed them

thoroughly but by the end of

the day every

single one of us

was exhausted.

We were only given a brief break

for lunch and prayers.

The evening was more relaxing,

the teachers made a bonfire and

we all toasted marshmallows. It

was a lovely evening sitting outside

under the stars.

By he morning of day 3, many of us

looked exhausted. It had been a

fun packed 2 days so far and we

were ending our stay with 2 final

activities.

We were back in our groups and

pushing ourselves again. We

cheered each other on!

Finally we came back to the den

and collected our belongings, as the

coach waited to take us back to

school.

It was an amazing experience, and

thoroughly enjoyable. Thank you to

the teachers who organized it and

came along with us for the 3 days.

We arrived back to school

by 2pm and made our way

home for some well deserved

rest!

Page 5 Spring 2019

The following students have

achieved GOLD (MERITS):

Yr 7 Fatuma Said

Hani Ahmed

Ramla Hassan

Sumaya Abdi

Sumeya Socdal

Zundus Abdi

Yr 8 Aliyah Mohamed

Hana Yasin

Mehreen Musa

Ruwayda Abdi

Tasnim Dahir

Youmna Khan

Yr 9 Aisha Ahmed

Lena Asse

Zahra Saeed

Yr 10 Amal Ali

Fatima Abdi

Khadeejah Beg

Muskan Aminullah

Ramla Noor

Rania Anwar

Ruqaya Qureshi

Tabasum Paeizi

The following students have

achieved PLANTINUM:

Yr 7 Aneesah Ghazi

Easha Khawaja

Maryama Ali

Rowda Abdi

Summayah Wali

Yr 8 Aishah Morris

Ruweyda Abdi

Safiyyah Choudhury

Wardah Jameel

Yr 9 Fatima Dhuhaa

Rayhana

Sara

Yr 10 Faarisah Nadir

Page 6

Maths Challenge:

In the first part of this term we

had the maths challenge and

ustadha Kalsoom chose a few stu-

dents from years 7-9 to take part.

We had 1 hour to work on these

challenging questions and see how

we would fair compared to the

rest of the country.

Some of us were nervous and

some of us were quite excited. It

was good to be given the oppor-

tunity to take part in such a com-

petition. Thanks to ustadha Kalsoom.

Work Experience:

Ferbruary is that time of year

again when the year 10 students

are given the opportunity to go

out into the world of work and

do their work experience place-

ments. Students have to do at

least 1 week but may do 2 if they

wish.

This year places included primary

schools, libraries, large retail out-

lets and an interior design compa-

ny. Everyone chose something they were interested in.

It was hard to wake up each

morning and do the long hours,

but it was also fun and a very

good experience. It gave us a

chance to see what personal skills

we need to develop.

Shaykh Van El: This term we have been very

lucky to have 2 visits from

Shaykh Sulayman Van El. Origi-

nally a revert from Belgium he is

now an imam at the masjid in

Ashford and Staines. His firs talk

was about the importance of the

Quran and there was not a per-

son in the hall that was not af-

fected by his words mashAllah.

Since then he has visited us again

and talked to us about the im-

portance of the month of Rajab.

We eagerly await the next talk.

Below and right: Shaykh Van El during

monthly talk with students

On Friday 29th March during Life

Skills we were visited by 2

representatives of the organization

Plogolution. They spoke to us

about the community work they

do, trying to protect the

environment.

As a school we have had a few

initiatives over the few years to try

to raise awareness about our

damage to the planet.

Most of us feel strongly that we

need to do something to change

this as young people and as

Muslims. It is out duty to look after

the Earth and that starts with the

place we live.

Ustadha Fouzia has joined with

Page 7

END SINGLE USE PLASTICS

(Watch this space)

Yr 11 trip to theatre MACBETH:

Macbeth is one of the texts that

year 11 study as part of the GCSE

English literature exam. We were

delighted when we realised that

Macbeth would be showing in our

local theatre in Richmond. Alt-

hough the showings were during

the school holidays it was too

good an opportunity to miss.

So we met up with ustadha Sanam

on Saturday morning and made

our way to the theatre. We were

keen, hoping watching the perfor-

mance would bring the text to life

for us and further enhance our

understanding.

We were pleasantly surprised at

the modern twist in the acting.

Although it was all in Shakespear-

ean English and followed the origi-

nal text, there was a modern

twist to the acting.

Overall it was an excellent experi-

ence.

Upcoming events next term

Sisters Evening Open evening Year 11 leavers

LNS talent show London zoo Student awards

Kew Gardens Gudwara trip Eid party

PLOGOLUTION: Above: sitting on the upper deck of

the theatre, looking down at the stage

Left: the space where all the acting

happened

Below: the assembly presentation by

Plogolution

Plogolution to do a local tidy

up. This has been scheduled

for the last day of term 4th

April 2019.

We hope this will be one of

many and that the Lady Nafisa

students will lead the way in

trying to make changes to how

we treat our environment.

As part of the school’s review

of behavior, the students sat

together during an extended

tutorial to brainstorm and

come up with some agreed

statements for the student part

of the LNS charter.

Once they were all collected

together and agreed we all

wrote up a copy and signed it.

We agree that these are things

we can and should do as stu-

dents of Lady Nafisa School.

Teachers have also formed the

school side of the charter.

Some of us who did not go to

the residential worked on a

display to showcase this.

Page 8

The LNS Charter:

Colouring Fun:

As an LNS student, I agree that I will…

Greet teachers and fellow students with salam

Come to school smartly dressed in full school uni-

form at all times

Be punctual to all lessons and have the correct

equipment

Pay attention to my teachers and not answer back or

argue

Treat everyone equally and speak to each other with

good adab regardless of any differences

Arrive to prayer in a respectful manner and pray sa-

lah with concentration

Respect the school equipment and property including

leaving classrooms litter free

Not push other students in corridors

Not use bad language or any swear words

Respect the school rules and uphold Islamic manners

outside of school

"Colouring definitely

has therapeutic po-

tential to reduce anxi-

ety, create focus or

bring about more

mindfulness," says

Berberian.

Ground-breaking re-

search in 2005 proved

anxiety levels dropped

when subjects col-

oured mandalas,

which are round

frames with geomet-

ric patterns inside.

(taken from CNN 2017)