Dear Parents and Carers
I am going to start off by wishing Hardenhuish a very Happy 50th Birthday! We have started our celebrations with a staff event last night (which was enjoyed by all), we have 1970s day today including trifle for lunch which I am really looking forward to and we have over 200 people booked in to come for our Open Morning on Saturday to have a look around and help us mark the occasion including many ex-pupils, parents and staff. Thank you to everyone involved in working hard to make this such a special occasion and celebration for our wonderful school! More details and photos to be included next week.
The Governing Body held an extra-ordinary meeting on Wednesday where Andrew Wilson was voted in as our new Chair of Governors. My Leadership Team and I look forward to working with Andrew and the wider Governing board over the coming months and years to make Hardenhuish even better. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Kirsty Martin, our outgoing Chair who has given so generously of her time and energy over many years as a Governor, Vice-Chair and more recently Chair and has led our Governing Board through a restructure as well as supporting us as a school through the many challenges we have faced in recent years. We thank Kirsty for all that she has done to support Hardenhuish.
I am looking forward to Open Week next week when we welcome prospective young people and their parents to come and look around on a normal school day. Thank you in advance for reminding your young people about their uniform and manners to help show off our school at its best for our visitors.
Focus on…..Attendance
Dear Parents and Carers,
My name is Pippa Lingard, and I am pleased to introduce myself as the Attendance Officer at Hardenhuish School. I liaise with the Year Teams, Tutors and parents on a daily basis to ensure our pupil records are accurate and up to date from an Attendance perspective.
As part of my responsibilities, I monitor daily attendance and follow up on any unexplained or frequent absences. I’d like to take this opportunity to remind all parents and carers of a few important points:
If your child is unwell and will not be attending school, please report your child’s absence by 08.30am clearly stating the reason for the absence. Please either call the school office on 01249 650693 or email Attendance attendance@hardenhuish.wilts.sch.uk. Each day of absence must be reported.
To request an absence for a Medical, Dental or for any other pre planned absence please complete the online absence request form found on the school website Absence Requests – Hardenhuish School. This should be completed a minimum of 2 working days of the planned absence where possible.
Holidays should not be taken in term time and if taken, may incur a fine.
Please ensure your child attends school every day on time. All pupils should be on site by 08.30am. The register closes at 9.00am.
If your emergency contact details change, please notify the school office promptly.
Please do read the School Attendance Policy to ensure you are aware of the expectations of the parent/carer, pupil and school with regards to striving for high attendance. Attendance is everyone’s responsibility.
Thank you for your continued support in helping to promote a culture of high attendance at Hardenhuish School.
Hardenhuish 50!
This week marked the start of our 50th anniversary celebrations. In tutor time, pupils took part in a series of quizzes on the history of Hardenhuish, sport, music, film, and TV in 1975, and tricky general knowledge questions about the last 50 years. Each tutor group made a pledge as part of our 50 Acts of Kindness challenge and pupils discovered all about a day in the life of a Hardenhuish pupil in 1975 from Mrs Sett who was a pupil here at the time!
On Tuesday, staff and students made an appearance on BBC Radio Wiltshire to discuss the Hardenhuish 50! events and on Thursday we held a celebratory staff event which featured an exhibition of Hardenhuish School artefacts and a historic tour of Hardenhuish House. Friday was our groovy 1970’s Day with staff and Sixth Form in 1970s fancy dress and years 7-11 in green & gold themed non-uniform, pupils experienced 1970’s themed lessons and lunch, which included trifle and Hardenhuish birthday cakes!
We are looking forward to welcoming in hundreds of visitors from the local community tomorrow for school tours, performances from our talented pupils, a time capsule event, an ice cream van, and much more!
Malaysia expedition 2025
Back in July, 3 teams of students across years 11, 12 and 13 were lucky enough to embark on a 3-week expedition to Malaysia, through Venture Force – who lead adventures and expeditions worldwide. We had a packed itinerary ranging from an intense 3-day jungle trek, sea turtle and terrapin conservation projects, working in a school for undocumented children, helping at a local crisis kitchen, learning about and replanting mangroves, a cultural exchange programme and many more amazing life-changing experiences. The groups stayed in varied accomodation throughout the trip, from the luxury of hotels and hostels to the jungle floor! As a group we all had roles as leaders, accountants, communications managers and more, to ensure that we as students were fully involved in the organisation of the group and activities, which made a huge difference to our experience. It is safe to say as students, we learnt many things about Malaysian culture, wildlife and cuisine and definitely a lot about ourselves! For many of us it was tougher than we could have ever imagined, mud-sliding to our campsite, chopping our path through the jungle and being eaten by leeches was not easy at the time but we wouldn’t have changed it as it has made us stronger people and has definitely encouraged us to appreciate what we have. I on behalf of all of the students would like to thank our amazing leaders from Venture Force, our local Malaysian guides and in-country agent, the teachers who accompanied us on the trip, our parents and carers for their support and those who were able to make this trip happen. I hope that Hardenhuish can run more expeditions like this in the coming years to give future students such an incredible opportunity to learn about cultures other than our own and to grow as individuals.
Resource Centre news
It has been an incredibly busy start to the term, particularly with our substantial involvement in the ongoing Hardenhuish50 celebrations. Mr Southwood has been trawling the archive for as many historic Hardenhuish items and photos of interest as possible for the events this week and we will make sure these are showcased and photographed for all to see.
As well as Hardenhuish50, the start of the new school year has now seen all our Year 7s embarking on their library induction lessons and it has been brilliant to see so many borrowing already and getting used to all the library routines.
Book Group also met for the first time this school year on Tuesday, with the focus this term being the fantasy genre. It was wonderful to see plenty of familiar faces from the older year groups and a few new Year 7s as well. If you missed out on the day but want to get involved this term, there are still several copies of each fantasy title available – just ask Mr Southwood.
The titles include some of the most popular fantasy novels of recent years, including ‘Nevermoor’ by Jessica Townsend, ‘Amari and the Night Brothers’ by B. B. Alston and ‘The School For Good and Evil’ by Soman Chainani. There’s also a more Sci-Fi title dealing with AI called ‘Our Sister Again’ by Sophie Cameron and one of the classics of the genre: ‘Sabriel’ by Garth Nix. Finally, for older readers, there’s ‘Shadow and Bone’ by Leigh Bardugo.
We will be meeting again at lunchtime on Tuesday 21st October to get your thoughts on all these books and give you the opportunity to chat to fellow literary fans about what you have been enjoying reading in recent weeks.
We will keep you updated on all the latest Resource Centre news through ‘Headlines’ at regular intervals during the year.
Sporting News
Last weekend Kaci went on a three day trial in Scotland and from this trial has been picked to be part of the Scottish team for the Northern Europeans championships. She is one of the youngest members to be selected and this is her biggest competition to date. – Congratulations Kaci!
