Blog 16.10.20 - Milford Haven School

We have had a wonderful start to the academic year and I thank you, as always, for your ongoing support and care. We appreciate that our whole school family have had to quickly adapt to a new normal, and we are very grateful for all of the efforts our families have made to underpin a positive return to school for our learners.

Thank you to everyone that has ensured their children attend school in proper school uniform. It is important that pupils wear the correct clothing as our uniform helps to put all young people on an equal footing, supports the safeguarding of your children and creates a sense of school community. If you are having issues with sourcing school uniform please be aware that there is a grant available from PCC for those that qualify, and we also have a small amount of uniform stock at school for emergencies. Details of our school uniform can be found on our school website, along with a copy of the dress code policy.

There have been lots of new rules and tweaks to our school systems over the last few weeks to ensure that we are doing everything possible to keep our whole school community safe, and these will all remain in place when school returns after our October half term break. Some of our new strategies implemented include a one way system, almost 100 additional hand sanitising stations around school, and all staff and pupils have been provided with face masks. As adults we all check for the basics before we leave home- keys, wallet, phone.

MHS pupils we need you all to check before leaving home that you have – a face mask, a drink of water, your own set of stationery.

We at MHS are doing everything we can to support the safety of our whole school community, but it is vital we all play our part.

After today Milford Haven School will be closed for a two week period, reopening on Monday November 2nd 2020. If any parents or pupils seek a test over the half term period and the outcome of that test is positive this needs to be reported to education.coronavirus@pembrokeshire.gov.uk . If you do not have an email address or access to email, please contact the Call Centre on 01437 764551 and ask the Call Centre to email education.coronavirus@pembrokeshire.gov.uk.

Numeracy is vitally important to young people, and here at Milford Haven School we work hard to ensure that the skills our pupils learn in the classroom can be translated to real-life situations. Numeracy plays a critical part in our everyday lives, and having strong numeracy skills is one of ‘the best protection against unemployment, low wages and poor health’ (Andreas Schleicher, OECD, 2013).

All pupils in Years 7 & 8 at Milford Haven School are participating in ‘Numeracy Ninjas’, this means that once a week they have 5 minutes to complete 30 numeracy questions focused on what has been covered in lessons. This calculation time focused task is going back to traditional methods of allowing pupils to practise their basic arithmetic regularly, such as their times tables and basic mental maths strategies. Time has now been allocated every week to allow pupils to practise these skills with a fun and competitive twist. Unfortunately some KS3 students have gaps in their mental calculation strategies and their times tables recall, which can become barriers to their learning. The weekly ‘Numeracy Ninja’ sessions help to give pupils fluency-building practise opportunities in their lessons, to improve their overall confidence and application of the knowledge they are acquiring.

The pupils taking part in ‘Numeracy Ninjas’ are competing against themselves each week, trying to better their score and achieving ‘Ninja belts’ along the way- with the ultimate aim to become a ‘GrandMaster’. Each class has weekly ‘Class Masters’ and as this evolves, we aim to have year group competitions in the summer term. In every ‘Numeracy Ninja’ session any questions that pupils did not get correct or understand, the teacher will go over at the end. We can already see the positive impact ‘Numeracy Ninjas’ is having, and below are some quotes from pupils showing how much they are enjoying taking part.

Quotes from pupils:

Skye Stannett – Year 7

The best thing about numeracy ninjas is that it helps us learn thing we’ve never done before and if we get things wrong we can learn from our mistakes

Cailan Williams – Year 7

The best thing about Numeracy Ninjas is that we get to learn more stuff and when we make a mistake we get to learn the way to do it correctly.

Megan Lees – Year 8

The best thing about numeracy ninjas is that you can track your progress throughout the weekly sessions and see what areas of maths you need to work on.

All parents and carers in all year groups have been issued login codes for our school app WEDUC, this is one of the easiest ways to keep in touch with us and stay up to date with school life.

Please contact us if you need any support getting started with the app, or have any trouble logging in, so we can help you get connected.

It may seem a long way off, but after half term Children in Need will be almost here. Our sixth form senior prefect team are already working hard behind the scenes to ensure that this year will be a celebration involving the whole school community.

One of the many events being planned is an online silent auction. If you are a local business, and are in a position to make a donation that can be auctioned off to raise funds for this fantastic cause, please get in touch .

You can either email the prefect team on admin@milfordhavenschool.co.uk or telephone us on 01646 690021. The sixth form senior prefect team also have an Instagram page which you can use to link with them.

Thank you in advance for all of your support, every year you amaze us with you generosity.

As per our school calendar Year 11 and 13 progress reports are being sent out today.

*If you requested a copy via email they have been sent this morning, please check your spam and junk email just in case.

*If you requested a hard copy these will be posted out to you at the end of the day.

*If you did not respond to the communications questionnaire about how you wished to receive your report then a hard copy will be posted to you at the end of the day.

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