Welcome from the Co-Headteachers

Celebrating our young people

It has been hugely busy week in school for any number of reasons but, in particular, for the visit of our local MP, Ruth Cadbury, as well as Ofsted inspectors. As ever, we are incredibly proud of our school. It was a pleasure sharing and celebrating all our young people’s outstanding work with our guests.. As usual, visitors are always impressed with the academic work on display; the attitudes of students towards learning; the largely self-regulated behaviour of young people around the school; and students’ commitment to extra-curricular activities.

Within our outstanding House assemblies a number of important messages have been reinforced, namely about:

  • the health of men, in particular on mental health and testicular cancer during the month of Movember.
  • online safety – the school has profoundly strong monitoring and filtering systems and, where necessary, we challenge students about their online unsafe behaviour. We strongly encourage parents/carers to conduct random checks on all mobile devices at home and, if appropriate, apply consequences if and when students are unsafe.

Thank you to all parents/carers who have given us comments about this publication so far this year. It is really helpful! If you have any thoughts about how we can make this even better, leave them here. Please note that comments are anonymous and may be used in our marketing.

Simon Fisher and Jo Higginbottom

Exams Countdown

Not long to go – keep revising

Countdown Timer

The countdown to the December exams for Years 11-13 continues, and we hope that students are working hard to prepare for these important assessments.

In case you missed it, the exam timetables are available, as well as handy revision guidance for each subject.

We recommend making a daily revision timetable – our website has templates to help with this. 

Coming Soon!

Put these in your calendar

  • Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 November – Senior School Production
  • Thursday 30 November – Friday timetable
  • Friday 1 December – INSET Day
  • Monday 4 December – PPA Day
  • Thursday 7 December – Tuesday 19 December – Written December Exams (Years 11-13)
  • Friday 8 December – Year 7 Induction Assembly
  • Friday 15 December – Flu immunisations for those with consent
  • Monday 18 December – Senior Awards Evening
  • Thursday 21 December – End of Autumn Term (students dismissed at 12.30pm)
  • Monday 8 January 2024 – Start of Spring Term

The full calendar is available at this link.

Punctuality to School

Helping students achieve their potential

Our school average weekly attendance continues to be above the national average for all English secondary schools. However, we are continually looking to improve punctuality to school. Good punctuality at school is essential for students to achieve their full educational potential. It is also vital for students to form good habits for later life. Punctuality records form part of references passed onto employers as well as further and higher educational institutes. Given this:

  • Check INSIGHT to monitor the attendance and punctuality of your son/ward.
  • Ensure that their children get up in plenty of time to be ready and prepared for school.
  • Ensure your son/ward has organised their bag and equipment the night before so that this does not delay departure in the morning.
  • Discuss any issues of lateness to ensure this does not become a habit.

HomeStart Volunteers

Make a difference in the community, if you can

If you have some free time after the Christmas holidays, and you are a parent or grandparent (or have similar experience), you could help other families with pre-school children. 

Local charity Home-Start is offering a free course to train you to be a home-visiting volunteer, supporting families with difficulties such as post-natal illness, bereavement or disability. The course will run in Hounslow 9.45am-2.30pm, on Tuesdays from 30 January to 12 March (not half-term 13 Feb). After the course, you would visit a family for 2-3 hours a week. 

For more information, please contact Angie or Erin by email or 07884 536161. Registered charity no: 1108975.  

You can also view their flyer.

Senior School Production – ‘Lord of the Flies’

Get your tickets now for this fantastic show!

There is less than a week to go until our senior school production of ‘Lord of the Flies’, taking place on Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 November at 7.00pm.

Remember, this is our first-ever senior school production, with the cast made up entirely of students in Years 11-13. This means that the adaptation will feature some mature themes that may not be suitable for Year 9 and below.

Information about tickets can be found by clicking the banner below – just £5 for adults and £3 for students/children/concessions.

Safeguarding

Keeping children safe

Each year, the school makes sure our Child Protection & Safeguarding policies are in line with current national guidance. Recently, there has been an increased focus on Online Safety, meaning we have increased staff and student training on the four categories of risk:

  • Content – being exposed to illegal, inappropriate or harmful content 
  • Contact – being subjected to harmful online interaction with other users 
  • Conduct – personal online behaviour that increases the likelihood of, or causes, harm  
  • Commerce – risks such as online gambling, inappropriate advertising, phishing and/or financial scams.  

We safeguard our community against these risks in a number of ways including through our curriculum (PSHE and computing) as well as our procedures and policies. We have strong filtering and monitoring systems in school to keep us safe. These systems block many categories of website including adult content/imagery and other inappropriate content; thet also alert the safeguarding team to any use that is unsafe and not in line with our acceptable use policy.  

If you would like to know more about how to keep your child safe online, please see this guidance from the NSPCC.

If you have a concern about the safety or welfare of your child, please email the safeguarding team at safeguarding@isleworthsyon.org. If there is an emergency call 999 or, for non-urgent matters that require police attention, call 101.

Pride of House

Celebrating student success

Congratulations to the students who have won this week’s Pride of House award – one for each form group. Nominated by a house representative, these boys have made a great contribution to school life.

News

Outstanding opportunities for all – plus an Ofsted inspection

Ofsted Review

Ofsted visited the school for two days this Tuesday and Wednesday. We would like to thank all parents/carers who provided written feedback in support of the school. We are unable to disclose any outcomes but, as soon as the report is verified and published, we will share it with all stakeholders.

It goes without saying that all students, teaching staff and support staff stepped up during the inspection – it was definitely a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. As Co-HTs we would like to thank everyone for their efforts and, in particular, our extended Senior Team who selflessly went beyond the extra mile.

I&S Inspires – Dr Jamie Frost

On Tuesday, we hosted our second I&S Inspires event of the year. It was a pleasure to welcome Dr Jamie Frost into school for a fascinating 45-minute session.

Jamie is the creator of the popular online platform Dr Frost Maths – a tool used by students in our school! So it was especially interesting to hear him talk about his life. He was full of interesting anecdotes about his career so far and what is next for Dr Frost Maths. At the end of his talk, he opened the floor for questions – students were very insightful and sensible in their questioning! It was a great session which students described as “informative”, “inspirational” and “engaging”.

Hounslow Teen Read

As part of our whole school drive towards reading for pleasure, the library team have organised for us to be a part of the Hounslow Teen Read. This borough-wide competition involves students in Years 8 and 9 reading through a shortlist of six books over the course of this term. They will meet during the weekly Book Club to discuss each book before submitting their favourites to the judging panel.

The launch event took place at school yesterday (Thursday), with students able to meet the author Anthony MacGowan and learn more about the process of writing. Students can’t wait to get stuck into the shortlist and share their love of reading with each other and students from across the borough.

Sports Update – Rugby

By Joe Gilmour (First XV rugby captain)

On Wednesday 8 November, the First XV rugby team went to the Middlesex U18s rugby tournament at Grasshoppers. Our main aim in the tournament was to bring intent in all of our matches and put in good performances regardless of the scoreline, and we definitely stayed true to our goal. We finished with three wins and three losses, beating London Oratory and Twyford, while also securing a massive victory against particular rivals Fulham Boys. Our defeats came against UCS, Cardinal Vaughan, and Grey Court; although the latter two were only by the finest of margins – disallowed tries and a failed final pass respectively.

Given the awful weather, our defensive pressure was a source of success. We knew our season has started not as well as we would have liked, but our performance then, and on Saturday against Vaughan, was quality, and the lads were a pleasure to lead and captain.  

Year 11 Parents/Carers Evening

Thursday night saw our first Parents/Carers Evening of the school year, with Year 11 families invited into school for short meetings with teachers. Discussions were fruitful, looking at the progress made so far this year and how students can maximise their progress in the December examinations and beyond. Thank you to all the parents/carers who attended!

Remembrance Events

And finally this week – following on from last week’s poignant remembrance assemblies, our students have been involved in several local community events.

On Remembrance Sunday, a small group of I&S ambassadors represented us at the Isleworth 390 event (picture one above). Boys took part in a parade through the local streets, each wearing a sash with the name of an Isleworth resident who died during the First World War. It was a poignant day, remembering those who sacrificed their lives. Our thanks go to the students involved as well as the Sixth Form student leaders who ably supported.

On Monday, another small group of students went to the local Borough Road memorial service, led by St Mary’s Church reverend Elis Matthews. Max Manson (Year 11) played ‘The Last Post’ brilliantly during the ceremony while student laid a wreath (picture two above) After, students met local MP Ruth Cadbury (picture three above) over a cup of tea and a biscuit. All students behaved impeccably during this important series of events and were a credit to the school.