Our final newsletter of 2020.
We’ll all be happy to reach the end of this year. It has been a strange and challenging year, but we’re so grateful and proud of how our community came together and how you’ve all contributed to making it possible.
We’re so impressed at how our students adapted and managed through this term’s bubble closures and the extra precautions at school. We would like to thank all our students who have had to work remotely. We've heard nothing but good things from your teachers, WELL DONE!
Although we’re not able to hold our usual festive events, our students have been spreading festive cheer through Christmas decorations, fairs in Ryburn Sixth and making cards for members of our community. What a wonderful way to spread joy and make someone smile.
There will be an update to follow soon regarding the arrangements for our first week back in January, which will involve a staggered start and mass testing of students. Please look out for that, as a response will be required regarding voluntary consent for testing your child.
Our 2020 Christmas carD
Time to spruce things up
Think tinsel, baubles and lights! Wanting to spread joy and bring some positivity to their corridor, our Year 7 Student Council decided to launch a Christmas Tree decorating competition. Forms decorated their class rooms and trees in an effort be the most festive form.
A huge thank you to Yorkshire Christmas Trees, New Coley Nurseries and Tesco, Sowerby Bridge for donating the Christmas trees for our students to use. We were so impressed by how jolly the whole place looked. Don’t they look great?
Well done to our winners 7.3 and 7.9 for going all out and putting this fabulous tree together. According to them it’s all about team work!
RSE consultation
At Ryburn Valley High School we promote personal wellbeing and development through our Identity programme. We believe this approach gives our students the knowledge, understanding, attitudes and practical skills to live safe, healthy, productive lives and meet their full potential. As part of this curriculum students learn about Relationships and Sex Education. We are currently conducting a consultation to find out what our parents think about how our students learn about this topic.
Have your say
We are currently consulting with Parents and Carers to help inform and improve our RSE provision. We’d be grateful if you took the time to respond to our survey.
Young Community Champion
Looking after our mental health has never been more important than in our current situation of lockdowns and restrictions. Gwynneth in Year 7 knows this more than anyone as she has been volunteering with Healthy Minds to raise awareness for their ‘Time Out’ Programme.
She cut off her hair raising over £1,000 in the process for Healthy Minds and provided the hair to the Little Princess Trust who creates wigs for teenage cancer patients. Because of all her charitable and voluntary work Gwynneth was nominated for “Young Community Champion” at the 2020 Calderdale Community Spirit Awards and just narrowingly missed out on the trophy. Well done Gwynneth for all your efforts!
Online Safety Newsletter
All you need to know about TikTok, the latest lip-syncing, dancing and video sharing app. This month's issue provided by Knowsley City Learning Centres features information on Twitch, the game stream platform, parent controls and WhatsApp’s new feature. This document also provides you with great tips on how to report someone or something your child sees online as well as how to monitor what apps your child uses.
Ryburn Sixth Christmas Extravaganza
What is more Christmassy than a good market?
That’s what the fundraising committee thought about when thinking about ways to raise money during this Christmas period. Bringing this idea to life, our Ryburn Sixth students have transformed their common room into their own version of the German markets. With Covid-safe stalls, students sold Christmas cake, decorations and cards to raise money for Save the Children.
So far this term our Ryburn Sixth fundraising committee have raised an amazing £500+ for a variety of charities, what brilliant work!
Library overdue books
Ready for a spring clean? Why not have a scavenger hunt at home and see if you have any school library books lurking about ready to be returned to school. We currently have 1,229 library books overdue and it would be great to see them all back in the New Year. Thank you.
Suspended Bedrock
Recently it has become increasingly difficult for us to be able to provide our students with the computer time to complete Bedrock. Therefore we have made a decision to suspend our Bedrock Vocabulary programme for the rest of the academic school year. This means your child will not be expected to complete their Bedrock homework.
Because of this, vocabulary will have an even bigger focus during their lessons across all year groups in all lessons, and we are working on other ways to implement this effectively for this school year.
A very merry Christmas from Year 8
Miss Downes and her team of Christmas helpers launched a Christmas card photo competition open to the Year 8 forms to help bring some festive Christmas cheer. We had some great responses and there were some great merry and bright entries, like this human advent calendar.
It’s best to be prepared
To support our students with their revision, we have created online revision hubs. Here students will find great resources for all topics covered in English and Maths. New resources will be frequently added to help students with their revision. It is crucial that our students develop a good routine with their revision, to hopefully ease the pressure as those exams become more imminent.
Vocational Skills students in the garden
Our students have been busy being green fingered and preparing their new vegetable patch ready for the new year.
Thank you Marshalls in Elland for donating some flagstones and Mr Yardley for helping our students plan their vision and helping it come to life. Our garden will be getting lots more use when the weather isn’t as cold, and our students are so excited to see the fruits of their labour.
Spreading Christmas cheer through art
Year 7 spread some Christmas cheer in the form of some joyous cards ready to bring a smile to members of our community as part of the ‘Send a smile’ project. This project was created to bridge the gap between the young and those in isolation. These cards have now been sent to groups around Calderdale such as Riverside Dementia group, Barkisland Active group, the Tuesday Club, Bryan Wood Care Home and our neighbours at Flowerbank.
Inspired by local architecture and the Piece Hall Year 8 students have been creating work inspired by Op Art and Friedensreich Hundertwasser. How wonderful and bright are these.
Our Year 9 students have created festive hearts and birds as part of the Light Up Sowerby Bridge festival. through different window displays. You can catch our students work at Gimbals restaurant and Calderdale Chiropractic.
Key Dates
Fri 18 Dec - INSET DAY
Mon 21 Dec - Sun 03 Jan - CHRISTMAS BREAK
Mon 4 Jan - STAFF TRAINING DAY
*From Tue 5 Jan - Start of term. Y11 & Y13 in school. Other year groups online learning
*Mon 11 Jan - All year groups back in school
Thu 21 Jan - Y11 Parents’ Evening
Mon 25 Jan - Y9 Options Evening
Wed 03 Feb - Y12 Parents’ Evening
Wed 10 Feb - Y9 Parents’ Evening
Mon 15 - Fri 19 Feb - HALF TERM
* Further information to follow on our start of term plans.
(All events subject to change or cancellation)
If you have any feedback or suggestions for this newsletter, please feel free to email publish@rvhschool.co.uk.
You can also keep an eye on our social media channels for more frequent updates and stories.