Headteacher's Newsletter

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you all enjoyed a restful half-term break. As we begin the second half of the Autumn Term, I want to reflect on our wonderful start to the academic year. Our students have shown remarkable enthusiasm and dedication to their studies, and it’s been inspiring to see them settle so well. I am immensely proud of the standards they are upholding and the positive learning environment they are helping to create at West Hatch.

This term has already been filled with exciting events and significant achievements. Our Open Evening in October was a highlight, with so many families visiting to experience first-hand the vibrant community and extensive opportunities we offer here at West Hatch. Thank you to all the students who represented us so proudly, demonstrating the best of our school to prospective families.

October also brought a celebration of Black History Month, with activities across all year groups that enriched students’ understanding and respect for diverse perspectives. The culmination of this, a day of inspiring presentations, created powerful moments of learning.

Our House System has started the year positively – making a difference to young people in, and beyond, West Hatch. I am thrilled to announce that, thanks to our recent non-uniform day, we raised approximately £1,150 for YoungMinds, a charity dedicated to supporting young people’s mental health. Additionally, our House Spooky Bakes competition was a fantastic success, with an incredible array of creative bakes. Moments like these reflect what West Hatch is all about—community spirit, creativity, and collaboration.

I hope you enjoy reading about these and other positive updates in the Newsletter! I am particularly excited about our upcoming parental engagement opportunities.

Victoria Schaefer

Headteacher

As we look towards the busy weeks ahead, I want to wish our Year 11 and Year 13 students the best of luck as they prepare for their PPEs (mock exams). These assessments are a vital step in their academic journey, and I am confident their hard work and resilience will serve them well. Year 11 have key decisions to make about their futures this year.

We are preparing to welcome prospective families to our Sixth Form Open Evening on Tuesday, 28th November, from 5 to 8 pm, with presentations at 6 and 7 pm. This will be a wonderful opportunity for families to learn more about our successful Sixth Form offerings and hear directly from our staff and students.

If you haven’t yet had the chance, I encourage you to log into our DPR (Dynamic Progress Reporting) platform. DPR offers live updates on your child’s progress and allows you to stay engaged with their learning journey. Monitoring their progress in real time helps reinforce the goals we set together for academic growth and achievement. There’s lots of information about DPR on our school website which can be found by clicking on the link below.

DPR - West Hatch High School

Parental partnership is incredibly important to us, and I look forward to connecting with more of you in the weeks to come. This term, we will be introducing new opportunities for parental voice, inviting you to share your insights on key matters affecting our school.

Please see below for dates:

Are you interested in becoming part of a Year 7 Parents Association helping us to raise much needed funds for the school? Come along on Thursday 21st November at 6pm to find out more! Please email my PA, Louise Chittock on lchittock@westhatch.net to confirm if you are able to attend.

Parent Voice for all will be on Thursday 30th January 2025 at 6pm. Please email parentvoice@westhatch.net if you are interested in attending.

We are consulting parents about mobile phone use in school, come along and hear our plans and be part of shaping them on Thursday 16th January 2025 at 6pm. Again please email my PA on lchittock@westhatch.net if you are able to attend. Once we have had this meeting, we will send out our plans for further comments so anyone unable to make the meeting will be able to make representations.

As we start a new chapter at West Hatch, it would be wonderful to hear as many voices as possible. If you cannot meet us in person, please use the attached link to feedback your thoughts which will be vital for our future planning: https://forms.office.com/e/v5AEgn6ZXm. This questionnaire has 15 questions (multiple choice) and a section for feedback if you wish to add further comments. The deadline is Friday 29th November.

Well done to all the Year 7s who brought in their fabulous "The Me You Can't See" projects that they had worked on during the summer holidays. We had some fantastic creations and it made our choice of choosing House Winners very difficult. Congratulations to the following;

Austen Winner - Zayd Quasim

Brunel Winner – Sephara Runglall

Fiennes Winner – Denis Sabou

Newton Winner – Poppy Gove

Roddick Winner – Pennie Patterson

Overall House Winner for the project

Zayd Quasim

Our Spooky Bakes House Competition was a great success and we were overwhelmed, not only by the amount of entries, but by the effort our students had gone to in creating their spooky bakes! We had some incredibly inventive creations, which made it especially difficult for our judges to pick a winner!

The winner of the competition was Sana Afini from Newton House, who won 50 House points for Newton and a £25 Amazon Gift Card voucher and our runners up were:

• Shaan Kalyan (9R1)
• Charlie Troullis (8A2) and Harry Reilly (8A2)
• Aneeqah Haq (8F2)

Each of these students won 25 House Points for their houses, and £10 amazon voucher. Photos of our winners and their spooky bakes are below.

We also awarded House Points to each House based on how many entries that each house had.

• Fiennes had over 40 entries and received 100 House Points
• Brunel had 38 entries, and received 80 House Points
• Austen had 34 entries and received 60 House Points
• Newton had 31 entries and received 40 House Points
• Roddick had 23 entries and received 20 House Points.

It was a truly special event that felt like a family gathering – with actual family members taking part! A heartfelt thank you to Mrs Titus and Miss George for making it possible to hear such powerful voices and stories from their family’s.

Our student, Kaira-Rose Ramdial in Year 10, who did a phenomenal job as compere, was an outstanding ambassador and role model for others. I have been told her passion and leadership has already galvanized interest and action for Culture Week 2025! I’d also like to extend a huge thank you to Ms Lord and Mrs Steadman for organising the assembly and our month-long programme in coordination with the Diversity Team. It was a shining example of what makes West Hatch so special. Some pictures of the day are below.

I am eagerly anticipating our upcoming school performance of Matilda in December. Students have been working tirelessly in rehearsals, and I can’t wait to see them bring this production to life. It’s a testament to the passion and commitment of our students and staff alike, our Performing Arts subjects have much to be proud of!

A reminder of our extra curricular clubs for this term are below.

Our Target Team Students have had a busy start to the school year and they have been lucky enough to be invited to various sporting events.

Panathlon Bowling

Two teams of Year 8 and 9 competed against 18 other teams from Essex at the bowling panathlon. Miss Pearce, our LSA in charge of the Target Team was bowled over with the students consideration for fellow team mates, their strategy planning and their good communication skills. They really supported each other and it was incredibly proud to see. One of our teams brought home the bronze award so there were celebrations all round!

Panathlon Football Skills Event

Our students were invited to take part in a Panathlon Football skills event at Shooters in North Weald in October. This event gave them a chance to practice some key football drills such as passing, shooting, kicking and dribbling whilst working as a team to try an achieve the highest number of points in each game for their school!

Panathlon Swimming Gala- Olympic Park Stratford

The Panathlon Swimming Gala took place at the prestigious Olympic Park swimming pool. Miss Pearce enjoyed telling the students about the history of the pool and the Olympic Park and the journey of the Olympic games from when she worked at the Olympics! Our students took part in various swimming challenges throughout the day, some individual races and some team efforts involving large floats and retrial of sinking toys at the bottom of the pool, the race was on to beat the other schools that took part! Amazingly our team bought home another bronze award for West Hatch.

We thank the Panathlon Challenge Charity for organising these great events that our Target Team students really benefit from.

Boccia Leaders Event- Alderton Primary School

Essex Sports Partnership invited a group of our sports leaders to help run and referee a Boccia event at a local primary school. A group of our Boccia specialists were on hand to help the young pupils compete against each other. They showed them how to play the game, aiming to get their colour ball nearest to the white ball to score the most points. This event was great for our students to work on their communication skills with younger students and gave them a chance to officiate the game and to make sure rules were being followed. They were all a positive representation of how our West Hatch students should conduct themselves at an event.

Marissa Higgs-Smith (Yr.9) Sophia Parker (Yr.9) Toby Taylor (Yr.9) Sammy Geist (Yr.10) and Lucas Freedman (Yr.10) are all part of the Woodford Green Athletes Team that made the National final in Manchester. The team overall came 3rd in the country. Some highlights; Marissa came 2nd in the pole vault, Sophia ran the 1500m and came 6th. Toby competed in the high jump, hurdles and the 4x300metres and came 2nd, 5th and 2nd respectively. Lucas came 2nd in the 800m and went onto the National Relays in Birmingham. Sammy earned a gold medal for the 4x100m relay. Congratulations to all the team.

In October, Chloe Cale (Yr.8), Grace Shobbrook (Yr.8), Amelia Vanner (Yr.8) and Sophie Fenton (Yr.7) took part in the Gymnastique Magique dance competition at Disneyland Paris with their gymnastics club, Casablanca. This was an intense competition over 2 days where the girls competed in a series of categories and performed a solo dance, duet and up to 4 group dances. They had been training every week and worked hard for the last 18 months to learn some challenging dance and gymnastic / tumbling based choreography and lifts. They also got to take part in the Disneyland Parade as part of the experience.

The girls and the team did amazingly well and came away with 5 Golds, 2 Silvers and a Bronze! Well done girls.

With increased traffic during school drop-off and pick-up times, I urge all parents and carers to drive and park responsibly outside our school grounds. Please do not block driveways or park on pavements, as this obstructs pedestrians, especially our students, who may accidentally knock into cars and cause unintended damage. A reminder too, that parents should not be driving onsite to drop off or collect their child unless they have prior approval from the school. Parents should also not use Chigwell Nursery as a collection point.

The safety of our students and respect for our neighbours are of utmost importance, so please support our community by being mindful of where you park and how you drive outside the school gates. Our students have been reminded about their conduct as pedestrians, and your cooperation will greatly help us maintain a safe and respectful environment for everyone.

Parent Events

Thursday 21st November - Launch of Yr.7 Parent Association

Thursday 21st November and Friday 22nd November - Yr. 7 Aspirations Days (by appointments)

Thursday 5th December - Yr.11 Parents Evening (by appointments)

Other Events

Thursday 28th November - Sixth Form Open Evening (5-8pm)

Tuesday 10th December to Thursday 12th December - Matilda the Musical

Closures and early/late starts

Monday 18th November Inset day - school closed to students

Thursday 28th November - Early finish at lunchtime to enable set up for the Sixth Form Open Evening

Friday 20th December - early finish at lunchtime for the winter break

Monday 6th January 2025 - Inset Day - school closed to students

Winter half term

Monday 23rd December to Monday 6th January 2025 (Spring Term for students start on Tuesday 7th January 2025)

Thank you for your ongoing support. Together, we continue to build a strong and nurturing environment where our students can truly thrive. I look forward to a productive and enjoyable second half of the term as we head towards the festive season.