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Hope Valley College

Headteacher's update 13 September 2024

Published on 13/09/24

Dear Parents and Carers

It has been a successful first full week in school. Year 7 have settled incredibly well and are full of positivity about their learning this week so we would like to thank Year 7 parents and carers for helping them to come to school ready to learn and ready to enjoy every opportunity. For all other year groups, it has been a productive week with students engaging with their work and wanting to be the best version of themselves. We are seeing the benefit of this in our school attendance.  We have spent time this week talking to students about investing in their future selves and attending school is the best way for them to do this. 

Parents and carers can monitor live attendance data in the parent app.  Please notify us if you identify any errors so that we can update our registers.  Attendance continues to be a priority nationally and the guidance that we have to follow has been changed accordingly.  Our message to students has been clear that if they want to be successful and enjoy everything that school has to offer, they need to attend as often as they can - 'turn up' and 'take part'.  Please contact us if you need support with your young person's attendance.

We are currently very close to the national average for overall attendance, and I am looking forward to seeing this improve over the coming weeks as students attend school every day.

We can also see students responding positively to our request around mobile phones being in bags.  Please continue to talk to your young person about this as it is a small gesture but sends a powerful message that our young people are focused in the moment and on their learning. We are in the process of finalising a short survey for parents and carers that will help us to understand how we can best support students to focus in the moment, avoiding the distractions of a mobile phone.

Finally, thank you for your support this week at the start of the new academic year - our staff value this positive working relationship. 

Arbor Parent App

We have now had a full week using our new behaviour and attendance recording system in Arbor and we know that many of you will have received emails celebrating good behaviour, attendance and punctuality.  The Arbor parent portal provides live access to all of this information as well as student timetables and homework.  Students are recording homework and behaviour points in their planner.  Please note that we cannot share the 'narrative' around behaviour points on the parent portal as this functionality is currently not in place.

Homework

This week, students have been learning how to use their planners to keep themselves organised and manage homework deadlines. Students are getting used to the new way of working and ticking off tasks in the planner. This supports students moving away from using phones during the day in school.

We know that parents and carers are keen to support students with homework and getting organised. Please look through the planner with your young person to see what tasks they have coming up. 

At the moment, our students have not got access to their own version of Arbor. The company have not yet released a student version of their app. Currently, our students can’t see or ‘tick off’ their assignments on Arbor. We are keen to ensure students focus instead on keeping track of their work in their planners. Unfortunately, this means that they may have competed a task and submitted it to their teacher, but it will show as ‘Waiting for Submission’ or ‘Overdue’ in Arbor. Please ignore the fact that past deadlines are showing as ‘overdue’. Teachers will issue a negative to students who have actually missed a deadline without good reason. If students are not receiving homework negatives and are ticking off the tasks in the planner, you can assume all is well!

To give an idea of how many homework tasks to expect week by week for years 7-9, we have created a homework timetable which is on our website:  https://www.hopevalley.chorustrust.org/homeworkcalendar. This covers next week until October half term. We will publish a new homework timetable after half term.

PTFA

Our first meeting of the new academic year with the Hope Valley College PTFA took place this week. They are very active in support of the school and already busy planning fundraising events for the year including a new comedy night which will start in November. Any funds raised directly benefit our students and they have already committed to funding additional counselling services in school and music tech. Anyone from our community who wants to support the school is welcome to get involved – the PTFA would love to hear from you – to find out more please contact them on ptfahv@hopevalley.chorustrust.org

School Games Gold Award

Hope Valley College has been awarded the School Games Gold Award  for 2023/4 academic year.  This is an amazing achievement, and we would like to thank all the students, staff, parents and volunteers that help ensure healthy and active opportunities are provided to our students. This is a national scheme that recognises opportunities provided in sport for different student groups and encouraging excellence in every activity area. HVC is committed to supporting all students to be healthy and active, and using the School Games guidance we strive to improve the offer we provide students for the coming year!

Dates for Your Diary

Thursday 26 September – Y6 Open Evening

Friday 27 September – INSET day for all students

Tuesday 1 October – KS4 Information Evening

Wednesday 9 October – Y7 Information Evening

Friday 25 October – Break for Half Term

Monday 4 November – INSET day

Tuesday 5 November – all students back in school.

 

Thank you for reading our communication. Here are some helpful email addresses, should you need to contact us:

 

Kind regards

Debbie Petts

Headteacher, Hope Valley College
T: 01433 620555

 

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