December 2023 

Star Student: Nominated by their Head of Year 

Year 7: Kayden E

This term’s Year 7 Star Student is Kayden. Kayden has had a wonderful start to his journey at Henley Bank. He welcomes every lesson with enthusiasm and shows brilliant amount of Confidence in his participation in activities. His work has shown high amounts of Ambition, as he continues to set himself high expectations. He shows Confidence and Creativity daily. Kayden’s hard work and dedication has led to him being one of the top Praise Point earners in Year 7, which is a true testament to his Character. It has been a pleasure welcoming Kayden to Henley Bank, and I look forward to seeing his continued growth and development here.

Year 8: Lexi K

This term’s Year 8 Star Student is Lexi. Lexi had made an excellent start to Year 8. She greets each day with a smile, showing immense amounts of Respect in her help getting Roll Call ready and her conversations with staff. Lexi continues to stretch herself in lessons, showing great Creativity in her problem solving, and Confidence in her learning. She takes ownership of herself, pushing herself to continue her improvement and learning. It is a pleasure to start my mornings talking with Lexi. I cannot wait to see how she continues to grow and thrive at Henley Bank.

Year 9: Reece C

The Year 9 star of this term is Reece. Reece showcases so many of our Henley Bank values every single day with a smile on his face. He’s always respectful and willing to go the extra mile in and out of lessons earning himself an ambition award in our Year 9 legacy award assembly. Well done Reece you’ve absolutely smashed this term, keep it up! 

Year 10: Charlotte A

This term's Year 10 Star Student is awarded to Holst's Charlotte. This year, in addition to having excellent attendance, and 100% completion of homework, Charlotte was the first student this year to achieve at least one praise point for each of the 5 character values.  This demonstrates a great attitude to her learning and recognises the effort she is putting in to developing her character also.  Well done Charlotte.

Year 11: Rosie L

Rosie has worked tirelessly all year, and is incredibly focused on achieving as much as possible this year to support her ambition to go to sixth form and university in the future. Rosie has shown such maturity this year, and dedication to her future self. Rosie exemplifies all of the values of Henley Bank High School, and many many more. We are all super proud of you Rosie! Keep it up

Messages from our Heads of Year:

Year 7

The second term has been an incredible term for Year 7, including their first trip! Year 7 have continued to settle into Henley Bank this term. It has been wonderful to see how they have transitioned into secondary school, being well adjusted and taking new challenges in their stride. They have continued to grow in Confidence, making new friends, trying new activities, and stretching themselves in lessons. Some of our Year 7 girls represented us so well in the English Schools’ Football Association, coming in the top 64 of 520 schools. We are incredibly proud of them. Some of our Year 7s also showed great Confidence in performing at a carol service in Cirencester. I look forward to seeing their contributions to the school production in the upcoming terms.
A sure highlight of this term was the trip to the Pantomime. Year 7 have experienced their first school trip at Henley Bank, where they represented the school incredibly well, particularly with the excitement of being in the front rows. The Pantomime was highly entertaining, a memory I am sure will stay with many of our Year 7s. 
Year 7, I hope you all have a restful and wonderful Christmas, and I look forward to welcoming you back in the New Year.

Year 8

This term has been a brilliant term for Year 8. Year 8 have settled into their role as roll models to the Year 7s well, helping support and care for some of them. They have continued to work on our school value of Respect, and it has been great to see their growth in Confidence and the Determination many of them have shown in earning Praise Points. 
This term has had many highlights for Year 8. Some of our Year 8 girls represented us so well in the English Schools’ Football Association, coming in the top 64 of 520 schools. We are incredibly proud of them. In addition to this, a group of Year 8 girls were able to attend the Cynam Empower trip, where they engaged in a range of activities to do with cyber security, learning new skills and trying different challenges. It has been wonderful to see how well the Year 8s have represented Henley Bank, and I cannot wait to see what the future holds.
Year 8, I hope you have an excellent Christmas, and I look forward to seeing you again in the New Year.

Year 9

Year 9 are adjusting very well to being at the top of Key Stage 3. Taking all new challenges head on and utilising all of the opportunities that have presented thus far. The Duke of Edinburgh is well underway and it's fantastic to see students volunteering in a wide range of industries, building on the fantastic progress being made in school so far. This term has also added to the prior success of this year group in sport and exercise. Netball and District Cross-Country have seen Year 9 success as well as some students showcasing a brilliant level of skill throughout fitness stages of the Ten Tors Challenge. Science students were given the opportunity to travel to Dean Close School alongside a selection of local schools to listen to two high quality lectures including some amazing speakers, a great learning experience. Overall it's amazing to see Year 9 pushing their capabilities and broadening their horizons in preparation for selecting their options and mapping out their GCSE journey. 

Year 10

It's been another very long term for the students (and staff!), but once again I am very proud of the Year 10s and how well they are adapting to the additional expectations and pressures of starting the GCSE and BTEC courses. As we move into the assessment period next term, they will begin to see the value of establishing the habits of good and prompt attendance and homework completion and we look forward to sharing their achievements with them.  This term we have enjoyed a visit from a school from Japan, where some of our students were able to host tours around the school, and our head students were able to formally welcome them to Henley Bank.  Club participation has continued to go well and it's good to see how many are getting involved in the school production - always a highlight of the year!  I was pleased to go and support the Ten Tors fitness test a few weekends ago and all of the Year 10 students who participated should be very proud of their achievements - the weather certainly wasn't kind.  Looking forward into 2024, we will soon enter a World of Work week where careers and next steps will be high on the agenda.  Mrs Dobson, Mr Watson and Mrs Benfield have been doing a great job in putting an amazing programme together and I look forward to having discussions with the students around their future plans.  As I sign off this update, I'd like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and New Year.  Enjoy the rest and I look forward to seeing the students back again in the new year.

Year 11

In a term marked by unwavering determination and resilience, our Year 11 students have truly shone as they have engaged in every part of the Year 11 offer. From a strive for excellence, to confidently navigating their way through the challenges of Pre-Public Examinations, their commitment has been nothing short of inspiring. The cohesive culture within the year group has reached new heights, with students not only pushing themselves to attain remarkable accomplishments but also rallying together to support their peers on their journey. We take immense pride in the positive start our Year 11 students have made in this demanding academic year, and their collective efforts give us utmost confidence that they will achieve their best results yet.

Henley Bank Sixth Form

We were incredibly excited to see so many internal and external candidates at the Sixth Form Open Evening on Thursday 7th December. As a school, we know the Sixth Form will be a huge success and it is fantastic to see the eagerness and support from the community. Next year, we look forward to welcoming many of the students in attendance at the Open Evening to our Sixth Form. These students will truly be trailblazers for the rest of the school and the local community.

If you require any further information about the Sixth Form, please visit the website, where you can see the courses studied, learn about the building and sign up! Please also watch this introductory video at https://www.henleybankhighschool.co.uk/sixthform
explaining what our Sixth Form will offer and highlighting just how excited we are as a school. 

Mr Derbyshire, Assistant Headteacher

Parental/Carer Support Offer

This term, I have been hugely proud of my team, who have co-presented two workshops 'Supporting your anxious child' and 'Supporting a dyslexic learner',  Both of which will be repeated in Spring.

Next half term, we're excited to offer another two new sessions.  

• Thursday 11th January- Mr Robb will lead a session for parents on supporting your child with their homework
• Thursday 25th January - Mr Powell and Ms Williams will lead a session 'ADHD - supporting through boundaries'

All workshops are in our learning hub, next to reception and run between 5.30pm and 6.30pm

If you have any other areas that you would like to learn more about, please don't hesitate to contact us through our SEND@henleybankhighschool.co.uk email

Ms Williams, Inclusion Lead
 

Character Education Update

We have had a brilliant term with Legacy as we have focused on introducing some more healthy competition to our College System. Now that our Praise Points are up and running, we have enjoyed sharing with students the league table for Colleges each week and it has almost taken on a life of it's own. I have never seen so many students running around at break and lunch trying to find teachers and other students in their College to check if they have had Praise Points that day and the number of different students and Colleges that have been awarded highest Praise Point skip the queue tokens is testament to that.

One way that we have been running our competitions is through Fun Friday. Mrs Cuke has put on a variety of activities including football, quizzes, origami and a spelling bee. It has become so competitive that we have even introduced a Fun Friday College Cup to award Colleges after each competition. The current College colours on this cup are gleaming red so well done to Dowty.

It really has been a term of dominance though for one particular College and that is Jenner, who received their College prize of a Christmas buffet on Wednesday 12th December. A huge thank you to our wonderful catering staff for putting this on for Jenner, even though you aren’t all in the College.

Our Legacy Ladder has also started well this term. Students from every year group in Years 7-10 have had an opportunity to take part in:

Year 7- Pantomime
Year 8- Walking History Tour of Gloucester
Year 9- Japanese School Visit
Year 10- Bank of England Talk

We are looking forward to next term where we will be putting on another set of exciting trips and visits, including our Careers Week for Year 10 in January. In this week all of Year 10 will have the opportunity to attend at least 1 trip free of charge whilst also hosting different employers from around Gloucestershire. We are also hoping to invite speakers from the world of MFL and the Royal Institute of Science to work with our students.

Our Student Leadership programme also continues to go from strength to strength with 23 students currently enrolled. Each week we invite a different leader from Greenshaw Learning Trust to come and work with the students who will begin working on a project to present to the Senior Leadership Team. The Team is now led by our Head Students, Riley and Seren who were successfully appointed at the beginning of this term.    

Mrs Benfield, Assistant Headteacher

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