Dear Parents and Carers
As the rain continues (although as I send this, we have beautiful bright sunshine!), please can I ask you to ensure that your young people come to school with a suitable coat to ensure that they stay dry when moving around the site.
Congratulations to the PE Team who have once again been awarded the Girls Football in Schools Equal Access Award 2025. A great achievement and recognition for the hard work that goes into providing such a fantastic range of sporting opportunities for our young people. Please see the article below for further details.
Thank you to everyone who has been involved in our Hardenhuish50 events and fundraising so far this year. We have raised a significant sum of money, and the young people have enjoyed the celebrations so far – orders are currently being placed for the new school flag and the weather vane. Look out for further events and opportunities over the coming weeks and if you would like to buy a commemorative tea towel or donate to our fundraising, we would be very grateful.
Lisa Percy
Headteacher
News Items
Focus on… Activity Day
As you will be aware from our extensive range of trips and visits, we value and place a real importance on opportunities outside of the classroom and beyond the school site. For this reason, we like to end our year with an Activity Day for Years 7-9. This gives an opportunity for each year group to celebrate their year and have a positive end to the academic year, setting them up positively for the beginning of the next academic year. Our Learning Managers come up with activities which they think their year groups will enjoy being mindful of keeping the costs as manageable as possible. The trips will be launched in the near future, with Year 9 visiting Longleat, Year 8 visiting Chessington world of Adventures and Year 7 having a bushcraft day on the Badminton Estate. We would encourage all young people to participate in these whole year group trips but will be offering an alternative on-site activity for those young people not attending the off-site trips. If you have any questions regarding Activity Day, please direct these to Year Teams in the first instance.
It has been great to hear lots of pupils talking about the Zero Club this week and it is looking like there are going to be hundreds of members in Week 1!
Any pupils with the following will be members:
- Zero lates to school or lessons
- Zero behaviour points
- Zero conduct points
Next week all Zero Club members will get an email to celebrate their progress and there will be draws for prizes and the chance for pupils to build their Zero Club streak.
A big well done to everyone who qualifies this week – and even if things didn’t work out this week, there’s still another chance next week for everyone who shows the positive habits and consistency we are aiming for.
Keeping us Informed
It is important that pupil and student information is correct and up to date and we would therefore be grateful if parents/carers could notify us of any changes to our records, either via Arbor or by emailing the school on admin@hardenhuish.wilts.sch.uk.
The Arbor app has a variety of functions, such as signing pupils/students up for trips, events and clubs and checking attendance. It can also be used to update records including address, email and telephone number changes, dietary and medical information, and amending guardian information.
Resource Centre news
Welcome back to the start of a brand new year – one that has been designated nationwide as the ‘National Year of Reading’ in a bold aim to encourage reading for pleasure as widely as possible and change the nation’s reading culture for good. It’s time for the nation to ‘Go All In: If you’re into it, read into it’ – reconnecting reading with the things that already inspire us, from playlists and sports matches to films and food.
There are so many ways you can get involved and the school library is of course at the heart of all things literary here at Hardenhuish. To begin with, if you fancy a post-Christmas bargain, the latest Scholastic Book Club catalogue is available online here https://clubs.scholastic.co.uk/C-HPDL922G containing books from as little as £2.99. The closing date for orders this term will be Thursday 29th January and you can get free delivery through the school. We will also soon be getting ready for our annual Scholastic Book Fair in March – more details on that to come early in term 4!
Book Group is another excellent way to immerse yourself in quality literature, with a different theme every term and a range of books to select from. Last term we looked at murder mysteries, including some festive-themed whodunnits for over the holidays, and it was ‘You’d Better Watch Out’ by Sara Naughton which particularly proved popular as we got ready for Christmas – one Year 8 student describing it as “a very fun read for the festive break”.
This term we are moving onto real-life situations – six books that tackle everyday issues and challenges. They include light-hearted tales like ‘King of Nothing’ by Nathaniel Lessore and ‘Quiet Storm’ by Kimberley Whittam, along with more hard-hitting novels for young adults like ‘Glasgow Boys’ by Margaret MacDonald and ‘Play’ by our very own Mr Palmer. If you want to give any of these a read over the next few weeks, make sure you see Mr Southwood.
There will be lots more literary events and opportunities to come as we head through 2026. Look out for further details in future editions of Headlines.
Championing Equality in PE at Hardenhuish School
At Hardenhuish School, we are proud to lead the way in promoting equality between girls and boys in our Physical Education curriculum. In recent years, we have worked tirelessly to ensure that every student enjoys the same opportunities to participate, learn, and thrive in sport.
This commitment has been recognised nationally, with Hardenhuish becoming a Barclays Girls’ Football in Schools Equal Access School for 2025. This award reflects our dedication to providing equal opportunities for girls and boys to engage in football and beyond.
Equality at Hardenhuish goes further than football. Our PE curriculum offers identical lesson content for girls and boys, and we ensure equal access to extracurricular activities across all sports. By breaking down barriers and challenging stereotypes, we aim to create an inclusive environment where every student can develop confidence, social skills, teamwork, and can ultimately develop a lifelong love of physical activity.
We are incredibly proud of these achievements and remain committed to driving equality forward in everything we do.
Could you host an international pupil? We are looking for a few more families to host in June 2026
As the children are early secondary school age, we are ideally looking for families with children in Key Stage 3 who would be able to offer hospitality from the approx 1 – 21 June 2026 (dependent on flights). We would also be happy to hear from families with older children. You do not have to have a spare bedroom, just a spare bed and enough space to fit the student in comfortably during this time.
Our visitors will be shared equally between families from Hardenhuish and Malmesbury School, and will have three weeks in a school, following our curriculum and improving their ability to understand and speak English. They will then depart your home to visit places of historic and cultural interest for their final week in the UK before returning home.
Families will be recompensed towards costs of housing and feeding their Chinese pupil.
Please this form to register your interest by Monday 26th January.
We will then be in touch directly with further details about what’s involved when hosting a student and next steps.
Vacancies – Hardenhuish School