Dear Parents and Carers
It has been lovely to welcome our Chinese visitors this week who will be with us for the next three weeks. Thank you to the buddies, host families and our whole community for making them welcome and Kerry Irwin for organising and overseeing their visit.
Thank you for your understanding with the incident earlier in the week with a visitor’s car. As always, our priority is the safety of our young people and site and our follow up will focus on what we can do to prevent this from happening again.
As you are aware it is Shayne Hambakachere’s funeral this afternoon, which many of us will be attending. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Shayne and send our thoughts to his family and friends. Thanks to your generosity on our memorial day and as requested by his friends, a bench is now overlooking the courts in his memory.
Thank you for your support as we ensure that our high expectations with uniform remain as we begin the summer term. Shirts should be tucked in, skirts of an appropriate length and ties on . If the weather becomes extreme, I will communicate with you and the young people any adaptations to our expectations.
Please find attached details of our Hardenhuish50 Summer Open Day on 11 July. Please share this with anyone that you think might like to attend as it will be lovely to end our celebrations with as many people as possible.
Have a restful weekend.
Lisa Percy
Headteacher
Focus on… end of year arrangements
As we approach the end of the academic year, please find below confirmation of our arrangements for the end of term.
· Transition Day for the new Year 7 and 12 takes place on Friday 10th July and no other young people are expected in school.
· Our last day of school is Friday 17th July when we have Activities Day for Years 7, 8 and 9. Year 10 and 12 are on Work Experience all week.
A reminder that our first day back for new Year 7 and 12 is Wednesday 2nd September and the rest of the school start back on Thursday 3rd September.
Resource Centre news
The past term has seen borrowing levels continue to remain really high, with Carnegie titles certainly dominating the most-borrowed at the moment as our shadowing group get ready for the big awards day on 23 June. Hardenhuish Book Group have also been reading a range of novels, with ‘The House In The Cerulean Sea’ by TJ Klune proving particularly popular last term – it was described by one Year 8 as being “amazingly awesome”. Meanwhile our summer reading challenge offers another way for you to earn rewards through trying a variety of different books, so there are lots of ways in which you can get involved in the weeks ahead and broaden your reading immensely.
If you’re a Manga fan, make sure you check out our brand-new expanded Manga section at some point this term! There will be lots more titles being added as we go through the next few weeks and into the 2026-2027 school year too. Huge thanks to the Hardenhuish Educational Trust for their generous support with this project and we know it will be a big hit with lots of our students for many years to come.
It’s always great to be able to showcase some of our students’ creative writing here in the library – we even have published poems written by pupils way back in 1991 on our catalogue! This term we were kindly donated a copy of ‘New Voices’, an anthology of creative writing written by Chippenham Museum’s Teen Writing group as part of the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of the birth of the local scientist and archaeologist John Aubrey. Featuring contributions from students across Chippenham, including Hardenhuishers, this is well worth a browse and please let Mr Southwood know if you would like more information about the scheme and Chippenham Museum itself.
After the huge success of our Book Fair back in March, there is one last chance this school year to snap up some bargains before we reach the summer holidays through the Scholastic online book club https://clubs.scholastic.co.uk/C-MGY8XXVX. Lots of the latest trending titles are available at discounted prices, including the long-awaited ‘Heartstopper Volume 6’ (published on 2 July) which is available for just £8.99, and you can get free delivery to the school. The closing date for any orders is Thursday 18th June and Mr Southwood will ensure any purchased items are delivered to tutors as soon as they arrive in school.
Health and Social Care
Year 10 Health and Social Care students have been undertaking a Qualsafe Level 2 Award in First Aid Essentials course. They have learnt about the roles and responsibilities of a First Aider, how to manage an unresponsive casualty who is not breathing, in shock or choking and the use of an AED and CPR . We have been so impressed by their maturity and enthusiasm and as well as helping to enhance their employability and life skills, this will be a valuable qualification alongside their OCR/Cambridge Health and Social Care one. Huge thanks to Miss Fox, our wonderful Health and First Aid Officer for all of her time and expertise in helping to making this happen! Without her this would never have been possible.