Friday 12th January 2024

Dear Parents/Carers

Happy New Year to you all!

We have started 2024 with preparing for a busy schedule ahead. Progress Review Day is upon us, and we look forward to seeing many of you on Wednesday 17th January. Good luck to all those who are taking external vocational exams this half term. Year 8 will shortly commence the Key Stage 4 Options process. The History department have planned trips to Berlin and Dublin. These are just a taster of activities ahead!

SNS Additional Resource Provision

As part of our commitment to young people with special educational needs, particularly those with social, emotional and mental health needs, we presented an expression of interest to Hackney Council to create an additional resource provision (ARP) for 30 students. I am pleased to say we were successful in our application and Hackney Council has started the consultation process with key stakeholders within the community. The consultation opened on Thursday 11th January and will run until until Wednesday 7th February 2024. You can find the consultation documents using this link. Should you have any questions, please contact schoolplaceplanning@hackney.gov.uk.

Progress Review Day – Wednesday 17th January 2024

This is an opportunity for you to meet with Form Tutors to review your child’s progress so far in the academic year. It is a time to celebrate what has gone well and set targets to make further strides in their learning. The school will be closed to students for the day to allow meetings to take place. If you have not already booked a meeting, please see a reminder of the booking link here.

Year 10 Parents’ Evening – Wednesday 31st January 2024 4.00pm – 6.30pm

Our Year 10 Parents’ evening will take place on site on Wednesday 31st January. Further information was sent to parents, with a section including how to book appointments with your child’s teachers. If you have any difficulties in doing so, please contact your child’s form tutor in the first instance.

Year 11 Afterschool Interventions

The Year 11 after-school interventions will resume next week from Monday 15th January. The link to the intervention timetable can be found here. Attendance to these interventions is essential. If your child has been selected to attend, please can you support with ensuring they engage with their session/s.

Club Donations

As you will know, all clubs at SNS are currently free (apart from cooking club which carries a nominal fee), and we would love to keep it this way! If you feel willing and able to donate towards our ‘Enrichment Fund’ it would be greatly appreciated. This can be done by logging onto ParentPay and selecting ‘Enrichment Donation’.

Hackney Music Gala – Tuesday 30th January 2024

Thank you to everyone who supported our incredible musical production last term; Annie was a roaring success, and we are so proud of all our wonderful students who took part! We are delighted to announce that we have been given a slot in the Hackney Music Service Gala taking place at the Empire Theatre on Tuesday 30th January. We have decided to perform the show stopping numbers: ‘Hard Knock Life’ and ‘Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow’, so our awesome Orphan Chorus will have the chance to relive some ‘Annie’ magic in a professional theatre. Tickets can be bought via the Hackney Empire Box Office, come along to see our young people in action on a professional stage. Any questions feel free to contact the Head of Music, Ms Amy Foden at Amy.Fod@sns.hackney.sch.uk.

Virtual Workshop on Understanding and Managing Anxiety – Thursday 1st February 2024

On Thursday 1st February 2024, from 10am – 11am, the City & Hackney Mental Health Support Team (MHST) are delivering a free online workshop aimed at helping parents, carers and professionals understand and manage children and young people's anxiety. Anxiety is a normal feeling that is experienced by all of us differently. For children and young people, anxiety can impact their relationships, academic achievement and self-esteem. If you would like more information about managing your young person's anxiety. If you wish to attend the workshop, you can reserve your free space via Eventbrite using this link.

SNS Language of the Month

Selected by students in 7O, the language of the month is Arabic. All suggestions from students and parents of Arab heritage, introducing our SNS community to Arabic language and culture are most welcome. Please email to community.languages@sns.hackney.sch.uk and encourage your children to send us creative and informative posters and presentations (via email or tutor). This is not limited to Arabic speakers only and materials prepared by all students are welcome.

Correct PE kit reminder

Please ensure your child has their full PE kit for every PE lesson. Correct PE kit is a red school PE T-shirt or red school PE sweatshirt, black shorts or black tracksuit bottoms (other colour shorts or tracksuits are not acceptable) and appropriate trainers or boots for the activity they are completing. In cold and wet weather pupils may still be required to go outside for their PE lessons so we encourage them to bring base layers or mid layers to wear under their red t-shirt or fleece. Pupils are not allowed to wear their school coats for PE lessons as this is unhygienic and does not allow them to participate in their PE lesson fully. If you have any questions regarding PE kit, please contact Mr Fahy (Head of PE) at eam.fah@sns.hackney.sch.uk

Resources for Breakfast Club

If you have any old board games or comics, please could you donate them to SNS Breakfast Club. They can be left in Reception for the attention of Lois Gillie.

Key dates, Cultural Events and Opportunities in the Community

Please see a link to our key dates here for this term on our school calendar that include Information Evenings, Forums, and Parents’ Evenings.

You can also find local cultural events taking place this month using this link as well as opportunities in the community that your child may want to sign up to using this link.

Our daily Thought for the Day are now led by our fantastic students who are doing a brilliant job. I will end my first letter of 2024 with a quote read by our Year 8 students yesterday ‘Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.’ By Nelson Mandela

Have a wonderful, healthy and successful year ahead.

With best wishes

Zehra Jaffer