Welcome to the weekly Newsletter for parents and carers of students attending John Hanson Community School.
Inspire - Care - Succeed
‘HEAD’ Lines
What is education for?
Is it to ensure our young people pass tests? Leave with high GCSE grades? No! Well maybe. But what it really is, is to prepare our young people for the world of adulthood.
Here at John Hanson we are proud of our extensive and constantly evolving Careers Education.
Recently, the government have suggested using the Eight Gatsby Benchmarks as an audit for careers education in schools. On doing this audit at John Hanson, the results are overwhelming! Not only are we well above the National Average for all but one of the areas, we are moving forward on a weekly basis with our constantly developing careers curriculum.
Students at John Hanson don’t just have access to one or two local colleges and a handful of employers as recommended by the government. They have visits from all of the colleges in the area including Andover, Sparsholt, QMC, BCOT, Peter Symonds and more.
We work with universities such as Winchester, Southampton, Bournemouth, Chichester, Bath and even Oxford. We continue to expand the subject and career areas we cover in order to ensure our students leave us fully prepared for and aware of the world of work beyond school.
We are currently in the throes of organising Andover’s third Annual Careers Fair for all Andover Secondary Schools, held at John Hanson. An event attended by over 2000 young people in the last few years.
We are also currently going through the process of applying for a Careers Award, as we believe we are the leading secondary school in the area for Careers Education and want to celebrate that with you: our staff, our students and our parents.
Enjoy the weekend with your children.
Regards
Russell Stevens
Headteacher
GCSE Business students visit Longleat
On Monday 23rd April, Year 10 Business Studies students took a trip to Longleat Safari Park. As part of the day, students received an educational talk from Sally; a member of their Marketing team.
As well as the history behind Longleat House and its grounds, Sally also talked about working at Longleat. She covered topics such as recruitment and retention. With over 400 employees and a team of just 5 people working in the HR department – this is a busy area for them. Retention is all about keeping employees happy and motivated so that they continue to strive to achieve Longleats missions and aims.
She then went on to discuss the strategy used by the business for their marketing communications and why it is so important to use a variety of methods to capture different audiences. As this was a topic we have recently covered, students were able to join in to discuss the differences between digital and traditional communications and the advantages and disadvantages of both.
The talk was fantastic and allowed the students to transfer theory from the classroom into a real business situation.
As well as this talk, students were able to enjoy the attractions of the park. This included a boat trip to see the sea lions, hippos and gorillas, getting lost in a giant maze, holding snakes, feeding the birds, the drive through safari and much much more.
All in all, a wonderful day!
Mrs Bailey
Teacher of Business Studies
Y10 PE and BTEC Sport students trip to Bath University
This week the Y10 PE and BTEC Sport students went to Bath University.
During the day the students went on a tour around the university, sat in a lecture by one of the Sport Science Lecturers, had a go at some field testing, and got to experience some fitness tests in the sports laboratory.
It was a brilliant day, mostly down to the impeccable behaviour and enthusiasm of the students, but made even better by meeting Lizzie Yarnold (twice Winter Olympic gold medalist in the skeleton), Leon Reid (Commonwealth Games 2018 bronze medalist in the 200m) and Theo from Love Island!
All those students who were in the top ten of Year 7 for attitude to learning met together this week to celebrate with hot chocolate and biscuits.
Mr Stevens congratulated them all on their dedication and hard work, and the excellent foundations for success that they were putting into place. They must continue to work hard though, as there are plenty of others who are snapping at their heels to take their top ten spot for lolly ices in the sun at the end of Term 6.
John Hanson Community School are hosting a Big Write, writing competition titled ‘Community’ in the summer term.
This competition will involve all students submitting an entry for one of the following genres:
journalism
non-fiction
descriptive narrative
This five week writing initiative, to take place during tutor time, will culminate in a prize giving extravaganza on Monday 9th July where a panel of guest judges and VIPs will read through the entries and select their winners.
The purpose of the event is to build excitement for writing, so to help celebrate students’ success we’d like to offer prizes to the winners too.
For example: Second tier prize: £5 gift voucher or book; First tier prizes: £10 gift voucher; Gold tier prizes: Kindle HD fire
If you’re able to make a donation towards these it would be much appreciated.
If you feel you are able to offer any support with acquiring some of these prizes please contact Jo or myself by Monday 4th June so that we can include you in all of our marketing and publicity for the event.
Anna Hall
Assistant Headteacher
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Performing Arts in 2018 - Music and Drama
Our rehearsals will continue as detailed below:
Music and Drama Evening in July (dated announced soon)
P6 Music Technology (Yr 10) and Music Tech Club - Monday/Tuesdays 3-4pm
School Choir Wednesdays 3-4pm
Drama Club Thursdays 3-4pm
7th May 2018
School closed – Public Holiday
All Day
17th May 2018
Parents'Evening Yr 7 focus
1600-1845
28th May to 1st June 2018
Half Term
3rd July 2018
Yr 6 Induction Day
Yr 6 Transition Fair
All Day
1615-1845
Whole School
6th July 2018
School closed for Staff Training
All Day
10th and 11th July 2018
Yr 5 Taster Days
20th July 2018
End of Term
3rd September 2018
School closed for Staff Training
All Day
4th September 2018
1st Day of attendance for all students
Dates for forthcoming Parents' Evenings
Thursday 17th May Parents' Evening 5 (Year 7 focus)
Champions of the Andover and District netball league!
Last week saw both year 7 and year 8 netball teams crowned champions of the Andover and District netball league! Both teams are unbeaten this season, with impressive wins against all other schools. In year 7 no other team scored more than 7 goals against them, when they have been scoring upwards of 20 goals (in fact in their last game they scored 48 in 40 mins!). The Year 8’s have now won 2 seasons in Andover.
The England netball team gold medals at the Commonwealth Games at the weekend have not only inspired the girls to play at their best, it has also shown them how to celebrate their win!
Mrs Vant
Sport at Liddington
35 netballers and 15 footballers left John Hanson after school last Friday heading for a fun filled weekend of sport at Liddington.
The netballers took part in a 2 day netball tournament which saw them playing teams from as far a field as Wales, Cheltenham and Gloucester.
All players made so much progress with both their individual and team performances.
The Year 7 and the Y9A teams both made it through to the semi-finals which John Hanson have never managed to achieve before. Both teams came away with well-deserved bronze medals.
The footballers spent their time in football skills workshops on passing, shooting and control. We then finished our football tour with a session on games. Thank you to Our coaches (Tom Sr, Tom Jr and Polly) who were very inspirational and made our football sessions fun and competitive.
All 50 students got to spend plenty of downtime enjoying the PGL activities such as the Zipwire, Giant Swing, Aeroball and Ambush.
The medals were presented by Alice Travis a Superleague netballer who plays for the Mavericks.
