Welcome to the weekly Newsletter for parents and carers of students attending John Hanson Community School.
Inspire - Care - Succeed
‘HEAD’ Lines
'Our School'
Dear Parents/Carers
As we continue to find our paths through these challenging times, we must not forget that whilst the majority of your children are not currently attending the school in a physical sense, John Hanson remains ‘Their School’. As such I have put together (well, borrowed!) some words that I would ask that you share with your children:
OUR SCHOOL
Is not just a building
Is not just 9-3
Is not just a place for exams
Our school is…
A community
A team
A place to learn
A place to grow
And become adults
Our school is not just a building
We are in our homes
But we are still a school
Not one building
But a campus of 1000 homes
Still connected
Still a community
Still growing and learning
You in your homes
Us in ours
Working together
Trying together
Overcoming the challenges
Open to the opportunities
You might feel stuck in your home
But you belong to a campus of 1000 homes
You belong to ‘OUR SCHOOL’
This week we had the pleasure of having members of the St Giles Trust charity delivering a virtual Knife Crime and County lines session to all our year 9 & 10 students. The facilitators who delivered the session had direct life experience in Knife crime, gang involvement and county lines, which had a huge impact on students. The aim of today’s session was to debunk myths and stereotypes around crime, weapons, gangs, county lines and related issues, challenging the messages in social media and popular culture, de-glamourising the lifestyle and exposing the realities of negative choices such as carrying a weapon. Also, to Equip young people with practical tools and strategies that they can use to build resilience to risks, such as negative peer pressure and grooming, giving them real knowledge and insights that will help them to make positive choices;
In light of the current situation and students being online more, we as a school we felt that students needed to be provided with this information. Students were engaged throughout the whole session and asked some really sensible questions to help improve their knowledge.
We hope to run more virtual events for students to ensure our PSHE curriculum is fully covered.
Sinead Woodley
Please encourage your son/daughter to use their SCHOOL EMAIL for work rather than their own private email. This is important for safeguarding and also some of our messages for students are being sent to school email addresses.
Sparsholt College have their next Live Online Open Event on Saturday 6th February. This exciting live event to give you a chance to meet their expert teaching teams, support staff, and student ambassadors to find out more about subject areas, and have your questions answered.
As well as these live sessions including Q&A, chatrooms will also be running throughout the day to answer any queries that arise. Anyone wishing to attend will need to register before the event by visiting the link below:
Andover College have their next Live Online Open Event on Thursday 11th February, 4pm – 8pm. This event will have a full programme of live online talks each followed by Q&A sessions and subject specific chat rooms.
Anyone wishing to attend will need to register before the event by visiting Open Events - Andover College | Hampshire. Further details regarding the event including the sessions that are taking place and the subject specific chatrooms that we are offering are also available through this link.
Word of the Week:
Please see below for the ‘Word of the Week’. These words have specifically been chosen as they are both useful and sophisticated whilst encouraging challenge and extended vocabulary use. Please challenge your child (and yourself!) to use this week’s word as much as possible at home, in conversations, and in their work!
Mrs Woodley and Miss Underwood
Free virtual Library
We are pleased to inform you that The Oak National Academy has launched a free virtual Library. Each week students will have access to new books from different authors; this week’s author is Jacqueline Wilson, who is the author of the Tracy Beaker series of books. Please click on the below link and scroll down to access this week’s book.
We will be posting updated information on the school website and via ParentMail.
Please see the other useful links.
Think you know – Activity Packs relating to online safety Who’s watching yours? – 17% increase in children livestreaming since lockdown (Advice to help parents/carers minimise risk to children online) Mental health – How to look after your family’s mental health when stuck indoors Houseparty – Everything you need to know.
John Hanson Computing Department
Music NEWS
Music Mark
The school are pleased to announce that we have been nominated by Hampshire Music Service to become a Music Mark school for the 2020/21 academic year.
For students who have instrumental lessons at school . . .
Dear Parent
I'm delighted to let you know that all our instrumental/vocal teaching will continue during lockdown this half term. Hampshire Music Service has developed a very workable online offer and we have confirmed with HMS that our teaching will move to this system from 11 January, until teaching can resume in school at the end of lockdown.
We request that you take advantage of this opportunity, so that your children can continue their musical learning. They have put so much effort into practising since September and I'm sure you're as keen as we are that the impetus continues this term.
The system is straightforward to use and you will be able to request a weekly online music lesson by logging on via the link below, using the following username and password. You will be directed to your child's instrumental teacher email, so you can liaise direct about the process for accessing lessons each week:
We will continue to collect your contributions as usual this term and I can confirm that any adjustment necessary will be made at the end of the academic year.
Thank you for supporting your child's musical learning online alongside our wider curriculum offer. Music is a real strength at our school and I know our pupils enjoy their lessons, so I'm really pleased that there will be no disruption to that at this time.
Mike Adams - mike.adams@jhanson.hants.sch.uk
Vacancies for Guitar Lessons and Drum lessons -
contact Mr Adams for details
If your child would like to start to learn playing an instrument please email for details to mike.adams@jhanson.hants.sch.uk
Music lesson days
Earphones / Headphones will be needed in class Music lessons
A reminder that students in Years 7-9 will require earphones in order to play keyboards and use the computers during class music lessons. The plug needs to be the standard 3.5mm plug.
These can be purchased from the LRC for 70p
EMTAS – Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement Service
