School Nursing Team
Please see below the Winter Term newsletters from the School Nursing Team.
High Oaks, St. Albans, Hertfordshire, AL3 6DR | Tel: 01727 853047 | Email: admin@townsend.herts.sch.uk
Enrichment Afternoon – Tuesday 13th Feb
On Tuesday next week, we have our second enrichment afternoon of the year. Periods 3-5 will be off timetable, and instead the students will be working in their year groups to develop and enrich their learning. It is always an exciting and successful afternoon, so we are looking forward to the creative work the students will be completing.
The following list outlines the planned activities led by the year group teams:
Year 7: RSE – Yr7 students will have Herts Young Homeless in to deliver sessions which will be covering a number of topics to do with relationships, such as ‘Celebrating difference: the power of acceptance’.
Students will consider the terms inclusion, exclusion, segregation and integration and will explore the idea of unconscious bias. In a session called ‘Refugees Welcome’ students will explore how language can enforce and encourage negative views and stigma towards refugees and asylum seekers.
Year 8: Careers – Yr8 students will be carrying out a range of activities linked to their futures, further qualifications and career options.
Year 9: Spiritual Reflection – STEP will be coming into school to work with year 9 and carrying out workshops and activities based around the topic of personal spiritual reflection.
Year 10: Careers – A large number of employers will be visiting and carrying out careers workshops with the students all afternoon. It is a very informative and supportive session and is always very popular with the students who have very thoughtful and interesting questions about the world of work.
Year 11: Spiritual Reflection – Love thy Neighbour / The Good Samaritan. Coppafeel will be coming in to deliver workshops and talks and STEP will be delivering a ‘Staying Safe On a Saturday night’ workshop. This will cover, Basic First Aid, drink spiking and 999 protocols.
Year 12&13: RSE – The sixth form have external providers coming in to speak to them and to hold workshops entitled ‘everyone’s invited’ and ‘The big leap’. These are linked to many things but include starting university and becoming independent, personal safety when pubbing and clubbing, toxic behaviour, laws of sexual offences and much more.
With such a wide variety of activities and organisations, we know this will be a brilliant afternoon for everyone.
Mrs Buckland
Assistant Headteacher
A-Level Lessons
Here are some of our A-Level Health and Social Care and Physical Education students in action!
See below our Health and Social care students on their work experience placements, where they are completing up to 100hrs of work within a health/social care setting.
Our PE A-Level students can be seen using their practical skills to learn about testing methods in sport, they’ve been recently completing their multi stage fitness tests and learning how to perform PNF stretching on one another.
Mr Tominey
Head of Sixth Form
Year 10 Geography
In Year 10 Geography we have been getting creative!
We have been completing “Do Now” tasks with playdough! Our year 10 students have been using playdough to create different models to show the coastal processes that make caves, arches, stacks and stumps!
Mrs Buckland
Assistant Headteacher
Sixth Form Leadership Conference
On Thursday some of our Sixth Form students had the opportunity to join a leadership conference that was run by Step.
There were 6 different schools based in Hertfordshire that were able to take part in the day. The Leadership Conference took them through three different workshops, led by Jon and Andrea Taylor Cummings from The4Habits, Helena Croft from Streetlight and Trevor Withers from Network Church. There was also great food, a bingo quiz with prizes and lots more. The day finished with a keynote speech from Ruth Robb from Azalea.
Big thank you to the Step team who organised the whole day, our sixth form students had a great time!
Mr Tominey
Head of Sixth Form
Townsend’s Got Talent!
We are excited to inform you of this years ‘Townsend’s Got Talent Show’.
It will be taking place this year on Friday 22nd March from 7.00pm in our school hall.
A range of our students from year 7 – 13 will be showing off their talents through singing, dancing, playing musical instruments, gymnastic performances, poetry, acting, including a sneak preview of what’s to come in this summer’s school show!
If you would like to purchase tickets, here is how you purchase them:
Tickets are £5 per adult and £3 per child and can be purchased on School Gateway (please do not send cash to school). On School Gateway, please calculate the correct amount for the number of adult and child tickets you require. For example, if you require three adult tickets please pay £15 in the adult section, if you require two child tickets please pay £6 in the child section. The numbers are limited to 250 spaces and will be sold on a first come, first served basis. To gain entry upon arrival on the performance night, your name will be checked against our master payment list.
Please do not hesitate to contact the PE department at school if you have any questions.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Mrs Aubrey
Head of PE
Updated Co-Curricular Clubs
Please see below our updated co-curricular clubs list.
Kind Regards,
Mrs Brooks
Assistant Headteacher
Live Degree Apprenticeship session
The University of Hertfordshire are running a live Degree Apprenticeship online session to kick off National Apprenticeship week.
It’s an opportunity to find how apprenticeships work, how they compare to the traditional route of full-time university, and how to start looking for one. There will also be an opportunity to ask questions. The sessions will be taking place on Monday 5 February from 4:30pm – 5:15pm.
If you are interested in booking onto this online session, please use the link below.
Thank you,
University of Hertfordshire
Parent/Carer views on Assessment and Progress Reports
We are currently conducting a review on how we measure student progress and what we report to parents and carers.
We would very much like to hear your views as part of the review to help inform our future actions. Please complete by Tuesday 7th February. It will take 30 seconds. https://forms.gle/kRiVHsXrG9yQifNh6
Many thanks,
Mrs Line
Deputy Headteacher
Abbey Service – 14th February 2024
We will be attending the cathedral for an Ash Wednesday service on Wednesday 14th February at 2pm.
Parents/carers are welcome to attend. Please let the office know you would like to reserve a seat via admin@ townsend.herts.sch.uk
All students will be attending, travelling from school to the cathedral by coach. For the next service in May, we will be walking to the abbey.
As per usual, students will be going home straight from the cathedral. There will be no Barnetts or Motts buses that afternoon.
There will, though, be transport for students, who need to be collected from school. If your child requires being brought back to school, please contact admin@townsend.herts.sch.uk by Friday 9th February to arrange a space. We cannot guarantee a space on a minibus if notified after this date.
For this service, we will be collecting donations for Stop the Traffik, a UK-founded international charity that works to prevent human trafficking and ensuring fair working conditions around the world, for example, in the chocolate industry. Donations can be made via School Gateway or in cash at school during form time collections or in the service. Further information on Stop the Traffik! can be found on this YouTube link, which will also be shown to students next week https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le-yQRUu9xc.
Supporting this charity further demonstrates our Bible-based vision of ‘love your neighbour’, linked to the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)
Kindest regards,
Mrs Line
Deputy Headteacher