Welcome to the final newsletter of 2020. 

What a year this has been and how school life has changed from this time last year. As always, our students, staff and parents have shown great resilience and support for all the changes that have been faced. We have still ensured that we ended the year with our normal festivities - our Christmas lunch, festive jumpers and our staff Christmas craft competition. 

Although we have had to change the way we work, as you will see from the updates below, the school is still very busy whilst ensuring learning and safety is a the forefront of our minds.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our students, families and staff for all their hard work this term and look forward to welcoming everyone back on Monday 4th January 2021.

Click to view our gallery from the last day of term

Student Leaders

Our students leadership teams were announce this term. They would love to hear any ideas for competitions, fundraising or how we can continue to strive for excellence in all areas. They can be contacted through the school email or their House Managers.

Top Achievers

We love to celebrate achievement and success at Manor High. Below are the top students in each year group, based on their overall conduct. Well done to all and keep up the good work!

Bradgate House

Here we are at the end of the first term of the year, and what a unique term it has been! I am very proud of all Bradgate students for their hard work and achievements this term. We might be sitting in third position over all, with regards to house points but it is very close and I know we can get back up in to the top spot!

Our New House Leadership Team: Zayna Tutla, Ehrum Karim, Sheniya Patel and Otto Davis, are all very excited to come up with some creative ways to raise money for our House Charity this year. This is particularly challenging this year due to the current situation we are in with bubbles. They have recently launched a design your own Christmas Decoration competition. This has been sent electronically so all students can enter by leaving their designs at reception. The entries will be judged on the last day of term.

I would just like to take this opportunity to with you all a relaxing holiday, I hope you all enjoy spending time with your loved ones.

Stay safe and Happy Christmas!

Miss Booth

Clarendon House

Hello and welcome to the December Clarendon update.

Well done to the many students who are maintaining 100% attendance and impeccable conduct. Congratulations to C5 for continuing to hold on to the form cup; come on let’s see if the other forms can achieve the accolade of 'Form of the month'.

The house cup competition continues to be very close this year, let’s keep pushing for Clarendon to achieve what you truly deserve: to be the top of the leader board. Follow the core values and the Manor Highway and we will.

I would like to introduce you to our fabulous student leadership team. The House Captains Martha Hulme and Haleemah Member, Deputy Captain Lucy Ross and our Sports Captain James Askew. I am looking forward to working with them in the new year to help Clarendon achieve their full potential.

Thank you to the many parents who share their thanks and praise to the school for the hard work that is completed to ensure continued education during these uncertain times.

I wish you all a peaceful time during this festive period. Stay safe, and I look forward to seeing you all return in the New Year.

Finally, remember to expect the best of yourself and you will achieve your best.

Mrs Wale

Knighton House

It’s lovely to end the term celebrating the fantastic effort of our student leadership team. Thank you to Riya, Megan and Ciaran and all those who have supported in fundraising for the British Heart Foundation.

I am proud that all of you in Knighton House have worked so hard to ensure that we have remained in top position on the leader board for the majority of the autumn term. Maintaining excellent conduct, attendance and enthusiasm for learning has not only enabled personal development, it has also contributed to the house’s success. Well done again, enjoy your break and have a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

Mrs Ghani

Message from the House Captains

As House Captains during a pandemic, we have had to adapt and change our way of connecting with students and teachers alike.

For example, we ran the Dechox in November where members of different Houses participated in giving up chocolate for a month. Despite the impact Covid-19 has had on our lives, we managed to unite in these uncertain times to help raise money for the British Heart Foundation. We would like to thank everyone who took part in the Dechox and all the students, teachers, parents and friends who helped to make it possible.

As House Captains we have big plans for great fundraisers and competitions so look out for them soon. Thank you for donating food for the food bank. Christmas jumper day was on December 17^th and these looked great! Thank you to everyone who donated a pound for this.

Overall, we have had a great start to the year and hope to do as many competitions and fundraising as we can in this hard time. If you have any questions or ideas for Knighton, you can always tell us- Riya Choudhury and Megan Jones (in a safe way without leaving bubbles) or Mrs Ghani. Remember to continue to enter as many competitions as possible to keep the House Points coming in! Thank you! Have a Merry and safe Christmas!

Riya Choudhury and Megan Jones

Watermead House

As this year comes to an end and we are just getting set for the holiday period, I feel that this is a good time to share some reflections on what has been a very challenging year in education.

I am really proud of my Watermead students whom have just carried on regardless in the face of ever-changing rules and procedures. We have all had to learn to be adaptable and resilient to everything that has been thrown at us this year so I am pleased to announce that we have managed to work our way back to second place in the house cup competition. This is great position to be in going into the new year so we can really push on and challenge for the top spot.  

This term our student leadership has been put into place after making some really difficult decisions on whom to choose. We have some extraordinary talented students in Watermead so the process was highly competitive and rewarding.

Our House Captains are Darcy Featherby (W2) and Mariyah Patel (W3), and our deputy House captain is Samuel Schalch (W2). This year we have our first ever Sports captain, Rebecca Betts (W3). A big well done to all of you, I am looking forward to working with this year.

It would be amazing if our Watermead students really get behind our student leadership team and support them with upcoming projects in the new year. 

Finally, I would like to wish all of our stakeholders a Happy Christmas and positive start to the new year. 2020 has been a year of personal growth for all of us in one way or another, but a year that I’m sure that we are happy to leave behind. We have gone through a period of adjustment and have had to adopt new approaches to a lot of things that we have taken for granted, but we got through it and I am sure we have come out stronger.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Mr L A King

Duke of Edinburgh Award

2019/20 Cohort

On 29th October, all 28 Bronze students took part in half-day expedition training walks around Wistow and Kilby. These training walks are designed to give the students an experience of navigating and working as a team in preparation for future expeditions. Their final expedition dates will be confirmed after Christmas, and will be dependent upon Covid restrictions at that time.

On 29th and 30th November, all Silver students took part in a practice expedition around South Leicestershire, finishing on the last day at Foxton Locks. Despite Covid restrictions all students were able to practice their navigation, teamwork and cooking skills. Their final expedition dates will be confirmed after Christmas, and will be dependent upon Covid restrictions at that time.

2020/21 Cohort

All Year 9 / 10 students were invited to apply for the Bronze / Silver Award via Survey Monkey. Mr Handley then shortlisted the applications with colleagues and the successful students will now attend a virtual parents’ information evening with Mr Handley and the regional Duke of Edinburgh representative.

Over 50% of the Silver students are direct entrants to the Award, which is fantastic as they will get to experience DofE for the first time at the Silver level.

Both Bronze and Silver students will start their sections, apart from the expedition which will be reviewed after Christmas in line with Covid restrictions.

Exams

PPEs

Year 11 Pre-Public Examinations (PPEs) have now been completed. It has been a difficult time for the students especially with all of the uncertainty surrounding the GCSE examinations in June 2021. Thank you to all Year 11 students for their cooperation and resilience throughout the PPE period. The results will be sent out in due course.

The next set of Year 11 PPEs will take place in March 2021 and more information regarding these will be sent out after the Christmas holiday.

GCSE Exams June 2021

It has been confirmed by the government that the GCSE exams will go ahead in June 2021 as planned. The dates of these examinations are between 24th May 2021 to 2nd July 2021.

Contingency dates are yet to be confirmed but are expected to take place between 28th June and 16th July 2021.

Please ensure your child is available to take an exam, should they need to, up to and including 16th July 2021.

Further information surrounding these examinations will be sent out in due course.

Parents’ Evenings

The coronavirus situation has given us many challenges to overcome this year, not least of which has been how to enable teachers and parents to come together to discuss students’ progress.

Ordinarily, we would invite parents into the school hall to meet with teachers face to face which isn’t possible at the moment. However, as is so often the case, challenges give rise to innovation and by being adaptable, forward thinking and responsive, we have found a solution.

Over the course of the term we have sourced and tested a new platform called Schoolcloud, which enables virtual parents’ evenings to take place via video call.

We have successfully held two parents’ evenings for Years 9 and 11 and there will be evenings for the other year groups during the remainder of the academic year.

The Year 10 evenings will be on 14th and 19th January, with further details on how to book coming out at the start of the new term.

The Friends of Manor High is the Manor High School’s Parent Teacher Association and they held their Annual General Meeting on Monday 14^th December online via MS Teams.  At the meeting, the following were elected for the forthcoming year:

• Chair – Cathy
• Secretary – Shenaaz
• Treasurer – Pip
• Vice Chair – Fozia
• Assistant Secretary - Tamadr

Maddy stood down as Chair, having been involved with FOMH since its inception a few years ago.  We wish to thank Maddy, whose experience and knowledge with FOMH has proved invaluable in helping to steer the group forward.

Fundraising plans

Having had a successful few months of fund raising prior to the onset of Covid, FOMH must now think outside the box and come up with new and innovative ways to fund raise online. 

With this in mind, our next two fund raising events will be:

• an online cookery tutorial evening in February 2021 (see photo for an example of the sort of things you could learn to make) and
• an online Easter Raffle. 

Please look out for our advertising and further details of these events in the New Year, and get involved. 

Tickets for the cookery tutorial will be available on School Gateway and we will be looking for donations of prizes from local businesses for the Easter Raffle.  All funds raised will go towards the planned new Sports Hall, benefiting not only Manor High students but the wider community.

Next meeting

Our next meeting, which is open to everyone, will be held on Wednesday 13th January 2021 via MS Teams, when we will be planning the above events.  If you can help in any way, please email Pip (Treasurer) at johnandpip65@homemail7.plus.com.

We wish all our members and supporters a safe and happy festive season.

English Update

Throughout the autumn/winter term, students have demonstrated key skills whilst studying a number of texts and topics across KS3/4:

• Year 7: Percy Jackson and Greek Mythology/A Monster Calls
• Year 8: The Woman in Black and the Gothic Genre
• Year 9: A Christmas Carol
• Year 10: Macbeth/transactional writing/power and conflict poetry
• Year 11: Language and literature PPEs

A special mention goes to...

We have been overwhelmingly impressed by students’ commitment to their learning, both online and in school, and their continuous promotion of excellence, inspiration, resilience and respect regardless of challenging circumstances. The following students have been selected by teachers across the English department for their resilience, work ethic and dedication to their learning:

• Year 7: Izzy Stephenson, Khalid Patel, Jack Dixon, Reeya Yadav and Amelia Chaudhry
• Year 8: Mashal Nadeem, Sophie Rees, Aryan Gupta and Josh Davis
• Year 9: Kareem Patel, Sianna Patel, Carter Ricketts, Charlotte King, Phoebe Ellis and Megan Jones
• Year 10: Aryan Sonpal
• Year 11: Shania Thakrar

Well done to you all and keep up the good work heading into the spring term.

BHM Competition Result

A special congratulations to the winner of October’s creative writing competition in honour of Black History Month 2020. Well done to Teresha Hossan (Year 7), for her moving poem: Being Black in the Back

Accelerated Reader

The following students have taken, and passed, the highest numbers of Accelerated Reader quizzes across Key Stage 3 throughout the term:

Year 7: Teresha Hossan, Faisal Mulla, Muhammad Osman

Year 8: Mariam Qureshi, Yusuf Wobi, Abi Dolan

Year 9: Zaynah Chohan, Aisha Farah, Hammad Kamran

Well done to all and keep reading!

Word of the Week

Mrs Dawes has launched the ‘Word of the Week’ initiative this term in order to develop student’s familiarity with key academic vocabulary. Students are challenged to extend their vocabulary through learning and using a specific word each week in all lessons across the school.

Students are introduced to a selected word each Monday morning and are expected to learn the spelling, definitions, synonyms and etymology of the word to use throughout the rest of the week. These words are cross-curricular in that they have been recommended by teachers across all subjects.

We are challenging our students to use the key words of the term in discussion throughout the holidays at home:

Sustainability - Component - Pensive - Abstraction - Obliterate - Adamant - Lacuna - Exhilarating - Solitude - Tedious

Up For Debate

As part of our aspirational work, Manor High School hosted The Learning South Leicestershire British Parliamentary Debate recently.

This was the first time this event was in an online format. Four schools signed up for this event: Manor High, The Kibworth School, Lutterworth High and Welland Park. Four KS3 pupils per school were given specific roles and responsibilities. These included the members of government and the opposition to the government. Each paired school was given a motion to debate that began with “The house believes that...”.

They faced thought-provoking motions and offered inspiring arguments for the replacement of teachers by computers (!) and how fame can be used at a local level to promote change and progress.

The paired schools had 15 minutes to prepare their arguments and counter arguments. The pupils did themselves proud with convincing and articulate speeches as well as points of information (counter arguments) within a 4-minute time frame.

Every team was praised for their endeavours as, for many, it was the first time they had debated. Special congratulations to Megan, Zehra, Kareem and Charlotte in Year 9 for their resilience and effort. 

We are looking forward to the next online debate. Many thanks to Mr Howes at Welland Park for leading the debate and Miss Jordan for preparing our Year 9 pupil parliamentarians.

If you are interested in public speaking and debating our 'Up For Debate' club will be making a return in the new year- please see Miss Jordan for more details. 

Online Learning

We continue to be impressed by the commitment of our students to online learning. There have been a few bubbles sent home this half term, and they have surprised and entertained us with some incredible performances. A huge well done to everyone maintaining those high standards.

Year 8 Drama classes have created their own silent comedy movies at home showing their exaggerated gestures and facial expressions. 

Year 10 GCSE music worked on their solo performances at home and sent in some stunning recordings and videos. This is one example of Fabio and his piano recital.

Socially Distanced Orchestra

Last week we were able to hold a Christmas Music workshop for members of our school orchestra. It was so wonderful to finally hear our musicians playing together.

Our Year 11 students have played in the orchestra since they were in Year 6, and this is their last Christmas with us.

Well done to our three new Year 7 violinists who managed to keep up with the rest of the orchestra even though it was their first rehearsal.

Our students have had a great term, working hard and dealing with the challenges faced brilliantly. Below is a quick chance to see what they have been up to this year.

Keep up the great work!

Online Learning

The Modern Languages department would like to thank KS3 parents who have supported us as we launched the online learning platform in French and Spanish this term.

Student engagement in this new resource has been extremely high, and we appreciate parents helping their children to access this platform for the first time. We have already seen the benefits in class and students who use the platform regularly are demonstrating a sounder knowledge of French and Spanish core grammar and greater retention of vocabulary.

Students in both KS3 and 4 will continue to receive regular homework via this learning platform which, in particular enables students to develop their reading and listening skills.

Key Stage 4

Students in KS4 have been working hard to prepare for the PPE assessments and teachers in the department are now using results to inform future planning and reinforce key grammar and learning points.

Year 11 Spanish students have enjoyed practising their listening skills through the medium of song this month, and have been inspired to find new Spanish artists to listen to in order to improve their listening skills.

Year 10 French students have been broadening their cultural horizons through study of French cinema and have been exploring the work of Danny Boon through Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis.

After Christmas, Year 11 French students will begin a study of the Bafta nominated  by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano.

The department is keen to encourage students across both key stages to develop their love of French and Spanish language and culture and the mediums of music and cinema are a perfect way to do this. We would love to hear about any French or Spanish films that students have watched over the Christmas break! 

Christmas Challenges

As the term comes to a close, students in Y9 have been using Christmas vocabulary to practise their use of the future tense and have produced some excellent paragraphs about their plans for the holidays. 

In addition, the MFL department has set students an Advent challenge to count down to Christmas whilst learning some essential key French and Spanish phrases at the same time! Students who would like to show their MFL teacher after the holiday that they have learned the phrases will be rewarded with achievement points for their house! 

Professional Football Coaching Session

We were pleased to welcome football coaches from FDS/West Bromwich Albion into school to do training sessions with our Year 7 students.

This gave our students the unique chance to working with Football academy level specialist coaches, our students loved it and were very grateful for the opportunity.

The coaches were fantastic and made the sessions fun for our students. They worked on dribbling the ball and even tried out some advanced skills like the Neymar Flick!

They are looking forward to working with the OAK trust primary schools next!

Indoor Athletics House Competition

The PE department have recently organised an Indoor Athletics House Competition.  This is open to all KS3 pupils and to ensure that bubbles do not mix will be completed during PE lessons. 

Year 7 kicked started the competition, with Year 8 following suit and all classes have now completed all of their challenges to a very high standard.  In addition to individuals winning points for their houses, there were also individual prizes given for the 'highest performer' and the 'spirit of the game'.  

Results were calculated and the following prizes awarded:

• Year 8 winners: Em, Veer, Alisha and Aedan (pictured above).
• Year 7 winners: Esther, Kiana, Arthur (pictured below) and Jaeden.

Year 9 will be following in their footsteps after Christmas and results will be shared with the whole school. This could have a huge impact on the house system so Year 9 have it all to play for.  Good luck!

Our Curriculum Under Covid-19 restrictions

This has certainly been a term like no other before with students making a seamless transition to both online learning and new methods of classroom-based learning.

Staff within the department have worked creatively apply the guidance issued by CLEAPPS, an advisory service providing support in science and technology to schools, ensuring all are safe within this largely practical area of the school curriculum.

The department has made adaptations to all Schemes of Learning to ensure that students are able to access the full curriculum when working from home.
This has included working in cardboard to create prototype architectural models and automatas.

We have enabled students to continue undertaking practical work within strict parameters, some of which includes the following measures:

• Introduction of safety screens in the workshop
• Masks worn at all times during practical sessions
• Use of cameras to project practical demonstrations
• Quarantining of books and equipment for 72 hours
• Daily sanitising regime of all tools and resources
• Rotating students between practical and theory work

The whole day lesson structure has been successfully applied within this department with the day being divided into five distinct phases enabling clear and rapid progress to be made. Due to the project nature of the topics being delivered, students have been set a variety of activities and challenges to complete within the day. This has enabled good levels of engagement and concentrated levels of focus.

Thank you to all students for adapting positively during this first term and to parents/carers for your ongoing support and assistance.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Please find below updates for each year group in Science this term.