Aylsham High School Parent Portal - AHS weekly communication digest

Road Safety weekly message

Car sharing. Do you and a lot of other parents from your road/village make a school run? Consider getting together and organising a car share – not only is this great for the environment, it would free up time for each parent across a rota when you’re not doing the school run.

Norfolk County council Grant obtained

We have managed to obtain a grant from the County Council and Active Travel England to improve road safety and active travel in school. We will be using this money throughout the year to promote road safety in and around school as well as encouraging students to be more active in their travel to and from school. Some initiatives have already been launched, such as a competition to win a new bike by designing some new banners and posters to be used around school. We are also launching two new initiatives:

Win some gift vouchers!

We want to encourage parents to use our rear car park to ease congestion at the front of the school and Sir Williams Lane. Over the course of the next week, we will be giving students and parents the opportunity to win gift vouchers by using our rear car park or by biking/scootering to school. We will be handing out flyers in the rear car park and the bike shed with a QR code on – if you scan this QR code and enter your details, you will be in the draw to win some gift vouchers. Lots of vouchers are available but the top prize is a voucher for £100!

Bike Loan Scheme

We are considering purchasing a fleet of student friendly bikes that could be on long-term loan to students that want to start biking to school. The bikes will be provided by school along with helmets, lights and a bike lock. Students will be able to use the bikes all year, for getting to and from school as well as during weekends and school holidays. Exact details are yet to be finalised, but we are likely to ask for a small deposit (refunded at the end of the loan period) as well as a small contribution towards the maintenance of the bikes. At this very early stage, we are looking at expressions of interest from parents that would like to be considered for this scheme. If you would like to be considered, please enter your details in the google form below:

https://forms.gle/Fh9XABf8DUMwwRfo8

We only have a very short amount of time to spend the grant money – so the deadline for his form is Wednesday 20^th November 2024

If you have any questions or queries, please contact Mr Bradshaw by emailing him at dbradshaw@aylshamhigh.norfolk.sch.uk

Check out our Instagram page

Aylsham High School Instagram page

SIMS Student

Students have access to SIMS Student using their school alf.education email address.

To get support with SIMS Student, students can see their computing teacher or Mrs Cooke in the STAR office at break or lunch time.

For more information about SIMS Student, please see the SIMS Student page on the school website under the students tab.

https://www.aylshamhigh.com/ahssimsstudent

SIMS Parent

All parents/carers with parental responsibilty are able to access SIMS Parent once registered.

To get support with SIMS Parent, parents/carers can email simsparent@aylshamhigh.norfolk.sch.uk.

For more information about SIMS Parent including guidance on how to register, access SIMS Parent and about the information being shared with you, please see the SIMS Parent page on the school website under the parents & carers tab.

https://www.aylshamhigh.com/ahssimsparent

Calling all tree surgeons/lumberjacks/landscapers/carpenters/woodworkers – can you help!

We are in desperate need of wood that is suitable for burning on campfires and stoves. Part of our provision at Aylsham High School involves our ICE course where students work on skills designed to improve their independence, confidence and employability. We use bushcraft and outdoor cooking as a way of teaching students that skills are transferrable, and if they can excel in one area they can excel in many. Students get a great deal out of this course and it is remarkable to see the change in them from the start to the end of the course.

Unfortunately, due to continuous reductions to school funding in real terms, and the increased costs, we are at a real risk of not being able to run the course this year simply because we can’t afford the wood we need to make the campfires and outdoor cooking. Do you have readily available wood or logs that can be donated to the school to help keep this course going? We do have facilities in school to store wood that needs seasoning if you’ve recently felled a tree!

As part of the course, we also look after a very successful school allotment where students get to understand the entire growing and harvesting process of crops – we’ve been really successful in our crop growing and have even branched out to exotics such as aubergines, melons and Cucamelons! We want to improve our allotment site so we can keep working on it all year round, but the often wet and wintery weather turns our allotment into a muddy bog. Are you able to donate some wood chippings to give us some stable paths to walk on?

If you are able to help with either of the above appeals – please get in touch with our Lead Teacher for ICE, Mr Bradshaw on dbradshaw@aylshamhigh.norfolk.sch.uk

Activities week will take place on 14 July to 18 July 2025

Welcome to the activities for summer of 2025. Activities week will take place this year during the last week of the summer term. We aim to end the academic year with a fun and exciting range of events designed to enable your child to:

Spend an extended period of time on an activity of their choice
Undertake a residential experience if they wish
Try something completely different
Progress further with existing skills
Work with students from different year groups
Develop the skills needed to be enterprising and utilise key skills in new situations

All students are expected to take part in an activity

The school is unable to authorise absence during activities week, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

We expect cost to be an important factor; activities that have a price associated with them are unable to run unless we can cover the full cost through your contributions. There is, as usual, a range of free and low cost activities to ensure that every child can take part during the week.

There will be a non-refundable deposit required by Friday 22 November 2024; this will be available to pay via ParentPay on Wednesday 13 November 2024. The deadline for full non-refundable payment for all activities is Monday 31 March 2025. Please make payments via ParentPay. If you need assistance with ParentPay, please contact the finance department on ext. 153/107 or finance@aylshamhigh.norfolk.sch.uk. If you would like to discuss payment options including instalments, please contact the activity leader once the activity has been confirmed.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT ACTIVITIES WEEK NOMINATIONS

As I am sure you can appreciate, matching every student to their favourite choice of activities will never be possible, as many activities have a maximum group size and cannot be exceeded for safety reasons. The first form submission of submitted choices will be the one that will be used, so any duplicated submissions will be void.

It is for this reason we ask students to nominate 3 different activities that they would be happy to participate in, either 2 residential's and 1 non-residential, 1 residential and 2 non-residential's or 3 non-residential activities (Please DO NOT pick 3 residential activities).

Whilst we appreciate that your child may have a preference in their choice, the 3 activities they choose are weighted the same in preference and your child must be happy to do any. Please note that if you insert a preference, this will not be taken into consideration.

Once the activities have been allocated to your child you will receive notification on Monday 4 November at 4:30pm, there will only be a 4-day cooling-off period in which any changes to an activity choice will be considered. If, in exceptional circumstances, we are unable to assign a place to your child for either of their chosen activities, we will contact you at the end of the cooling-off period. Please note that once your child's place is confirmed for an activity, you are committed to paying for the full cost.

Overall, I hope you agree with us that the staff are providing an extensive range of activities, which includes something for everyone.

As in previous years, it will be a week packed with enjoyment and learning to bring to an end a hard-working and successful year for all of us.

Mrs T Wiseman

twiseman@aylshamhigh.norfolk.sch.uk

Item	Payment Deadline
Year 7 and 8 Christmas Disco	payment available on ParentPay
Year 8 Science Museum, London	deadline for consent and payment is Friday 29^th November.
Italy Ski 2025	the payment option is now available on ParentPay.
Bay of Naples 2024	the payment option is now available on ParentPay.
Contributions for new GCSE courses	available to pay for on ParentPay.