William Ellis School Parent Portal - NEWS AT WES

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Autumn Term - 27th September 2024

Welcome to our latest news update, including the beginning of sports fixtures and internal competitions, and information about this week's Open Events.

Visiting lessons this week, I have seen students exercising their creativity, imagination and problem-solving skills. This has included Year 10 students exploring characterisation in An Inspector Calls and Year 9 students finding messages of morality in Animal Farm, and Year 8 students solving problems by estimating in Maths. Year 11 students in some of their subjects have already begun exam or coursework intervention and will have feedback to act on from their Year 10 exams, in preparation for December mocks. Useful preparation can be found at https://www.williamellis.camden.sch.uk/student-and-family-information/year-11

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For all year groups, our curriculum overview map can be found at https://www.williamellis.camden.sch.uk/learning-and-curriculum with more detail on department pages.

Homework support

A reminder that students can stay to do their homework after 3.10pm in the Library. Students with a Library pass are also able to use the library at break and lunch times for independent study.

Year 9 students may additionally use Room L02 after school to complete study reading, research, and career research as they prepare to choose their GCSE options later in the year.

Attendance and Behaviour Updates

Congratulations this week to 11W, 10L, 9B, 8L and 7F who have each have the best attendance in their year groups - a particular congratulations to 7F, whose attendance average is 98%. We know that attendance to school is critical for students' academic learning and their wellbeing, through strong routines and friendships.

Our Attendance Newsletter for this month can be found here, and our attendance guide for parents can be found here.

Year 6/7 transition events

Last night we welcomed families and prospective students to our Open Evening, to give them a chance to hear and see what makes William Ellis so distinctive and the value of attending a school for boys. We are also running Open Mornings in the coming weeks: 30th September, 4th and 7th October. More information and how to book can be found at https://www.williamellis.camden.sch.uk/secondary-transition - please do pass this on to family and friends who you think may be interested in becoming part of our special school community. Thank you to the WESPA volunteers who came to support us during Open Evening and who are doing the same for our Open Mornings.

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Student Leadership and Personal Development

Congratulations to 9B, who last term won the William Ellis Quiz Cup for 2023/24. The cup will reside in their form for a term, and we hope to add a picture to the next newsletter.

PE & Sport News

Mr Levitt writes:

At the start of the year, every student in the school was gifted a book to read called '50 Ways Into Football'; a collection of interviews and information about 50 different jobs in the world of football, such as lawyers, private security and hairdressers.

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Earlier this month, the author of the book (and former William Ellis student), Daniel Geey, came into school to talk to students about the book and how he became a football lawyer and author. In his talk he shared some helpful study tips with KS4 students, like how he used his knowledge of football to help him navigate some difficult topics whilst studying GCSE Business Studies, helping him better understand difficult concepts and terminology. He talked the students through his long journey from failing some exams at university, to working in agricultural law before finally getting his dream job in football.

His story told of consistency and resilience, two character traits he lives by, and that many of the footballers he works with live by, to become successful. It was a true reflection of how the William Ellis 5 R's are used in real life and and inspiration for them to become successful students. The football fans in the room were transfixed by the inside knowledge Daniel had on the transfers they read about in the news and talk about in the playground.

The students finished with a question and answer session and a book signing.

“Whatever path you decide to take, if you work hard, believe in yourself and don’t give up then you’ll be successful” - Declan Rice

Thank you to a former student

The PE department would like to say a big thank you to Norik Goshi who was awarded money for the school through the Jack Petchey Award last year. He chose to donate that money to the PE Department.
Norik represented the school football team from Year 7 - 11 and was part of the team that won the Camden and Islington Cup in Year 9.

In his honour we have used the money to buy a new football kit for the school. Pictured alongside Mr Levitt as he was presented with the kit adorned with the message "Thank you Norik" on one sleeve and the 5 R's, which he so regularly demonstrated, on the other.

Norik has left his mark on the school for many years to come. Thank you Norik.

Finally, I would like to say thank you to the many parents from the WESPA community who supported the family of Raymi Saldana Rojas on Monday, when his funeral took place. There were many Year 10 students who attended, and I would like to commend them for the maturity, respect, responsibility they demonstrated throughout the day, even when they found it difficult. I was very proud to see the way that they supported each other and the seriousness with which they took the rituals of the day. We will be contacting Year 10 parents separately about the provision of ongoing support.

With best wishes for the weekend.

Yours faithfully,

Izzy Jones

Headteacher

This Week's WESPA Round-Up:

Dear families,

Lovely to see some of you at our first meeting of the year and see some new faces too. Thank you very much for the ideas and input - all these inform the direction of WESPA, our scope and what we can do. The more parents who contribute, the more we can support our boys.

This meeting we have agreed on funds to buy handball nets for the PE department, event plans for the term (including a social coming up soon), discussed our strategy for the upcoming government sustainability plans for schools and how our eco group can help and we also had a really interesting discussion on mobile phone use and technology. Lots more packed in and all will be written up in the minutes which are sent out to everybody on the WESPA Mailing list.

https://docs.google.com/forms/u/3/d/e/1FAIpQLSdxiObAJ6mo7X2XbQ1nU0FbUYdf5yAg8rGNt1mxmqRaPmbVXA/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0

Thank you also to the parents who represented WESPA at the open evening last night. Advice and information from a parent perspective is such a valuable contribution to these events and I hear that the biscuits were very popular too!

Fun Run 2024

To all the families of years 7-9, please give your boys a huge WELL DONE for running for the school today. Thank you to the parents who so kindly gave up their time to help and especially to Y8 and Y11 mum Mirzeta for organising us all.

Thank you so much to the 54 parents and friends who have donated. At the time of writing you have raised £1270! For anybody else who would like to contribute, there is still time to donate and here is the link:

https://www.givey.com/williamellisschoolfunrun2024

Raymi Willka Saldaña Rojas

This week many parents and students attended the funeral of Y9 student Raymi. I wanted to take a moment to express our gratitude to all the staff at school for the sensitivity, compassion and support they have given and continue to give our boys and parents, and particularly to the head of year 10 Jeremy Pratt and our headteacher Izzy Jones. I cannot express how deeply this is felt and appreciated. To Jeanette and Kanti, you are at the heart of our WESPA community, you are always welcome, and all our love is with you. ¡Raymi Willka por Siempre!

Best wishes

Chair WESPA