Information For New Year 7 Parents and Carers

In 2020 we are having to find new ways of doing all sorts of things, and transition from primary school to secondary school is certainly one of those.

The page below provides you with the information that we normally put in our welcome packs for the parents of our new Year 7.

In addition, we are also producing Transition Editions of our High Notes publication which are emailed to the addresses we have for families.

Copies of these Transition Editions can be downloaded from the links below:

High Notes Transition Edition Issue 1 – 12th May 2020

High Notes Transition Edition Issue 2 – 27th May 2020

High Notes Transition Edition Issue 3 – 12th June 2020

High Notes Transition Edition Issue 4 – 26th June 2020

High Notes Transition Edition – Issue 5 – 10th July 2020

High Notes Transition Edition – Issue 6 – 21 July 2020

Year 6 Transition Pack 2020

Return to School Guide for Students and Parents – 21st August 2020

Letter – Parents and Carers – Year 7 – update for start of term – Sept 2020 – published 26 August

However, we would love to respond to any particular things that are on your mind. So if you have questions you want answering or ideas for articles please email transition@wilmslowhigh.com

The ‘Whole Curriculum’ Model

What makes up our ‘Whole Curriculum’?

The Whole Curriculum at Wilmslow High School provides a broad, rich and deep education that develops the powerful knowledge, skills and qualities needed to flourish in life, learning and work. The Whole Curriculum includes: The Wilmslow Way, The Formal Curriculum and The Wider Curriculum.

The Formal Curriculum

This includes all of the teaching and learning which takes place in core and option lessons. It empowers our students to develop powerful knowledge, subject-specific skills and a spirit of enquiry. Read more…

The following Curriculum Pages contain all of the Units of Work and Knowledge Organisers (as downloadable PDFs) that your child will be studying in Year 7.

PRIDE: The Wilmslow Way

This is sometimes referred to as the hidden curriculum as it can be defined as the lessons that are taught informally, and usually unintentionally, through conversations and social time, to develop values, good behaviours, attitudes and perspectives. It also includes the various Wider and character based activities that take place during Tutor Time at the start and the end of the day. The Wilmslow Way is central in enabling our students to develop as Young People of Character, who can participate fully and perform with PRIDE across our Formal and Wider Curriculum. The 5 strands of PRIDE are character values students are encouraged to every aspect of their life, in and outside of school.

The Wilmslow Way forms the basis of our rewards and sanctions policy for more information follow this link

PRIDE stands for:
Professionalism	High standards in all that we do
Respect	Showing consideration for yourself and others
Integrity	Just doing the right thing
Determination	Not giving up and aiming for your personal best
Empathy	Thinking about and helping others

The Wider Curriculum

(including Xtra curricular programmes)

This includes all of the additional activities, events and visits that we encourage students to take part in outside of lessons, as well as PHSCE related learning about staying safe and preparing for life in modern Britain, all which are grouped under 8 headings: Wellbeing, Community, Aspirations, REspect, X-tra, Expedition, Leadership and Service and Communication and Enquiry. This includes important enriching opportunities that enhance our students’ personal development, encouraging them to perform with PRIDE in the pursuit of excellence. Read more…

Uniform

See High Notes Transition Edition Issue 2 for full details on uniform and PE kit.

School uniform can be ordered through Express Uniform and school PE Kit can be purchased in school from our ‘PrintWorks’ shop in school.

Getting ready for September

It is our current intention that Express Uniform will operate a Pop up Shop during the summer holidays in school on selected dates. We will publish these once they are confirmed.

Firefly

(homework and online learning platform)

Once your child has started at school, you will be able to activate your parent portal. Information on how to activate your account, how to access the parent app and what you can see in firefly can be found on this page.

We use an online learning platform to set our homework. Students will receive their homework including any supporting materials through ‘firefly tasks’. This is available through the web and as an app for any smartphone. There is also a parent portal where parents can quickly and easily find out the details of homework for their child.

Some of the other things you can use firefly for:

Teaching and Learning materials – a lot of teachers add their lesson resources to firefly pages
Achievement and Behaviour updates – you can see an overview of your child’s behaviour and achievement points
Noticeboards – The student noticeboard has details of events and activities taking place around school

In the first week of school, your child will be given log in details for firefly and the other school systems.

Calendar

Our school calendar is published and updated on the school website. Here you can find the term dates for next academic year. We will soon be adding the key events (such as parents evenings) to the same website section.

Communications

We use a range of methods to contact parents and it is important we always have up to date mailing addresses, email addresses, mobile and home phone numbers.

Weekly Newsletter – High Notes

Each week we issue a school newsletter called High Notes. This contains celebratory news from the week at school, key information for parents in the ‘notes’ section…

You can view all of our back issues here and we publish a new issue every Friday so please feel free to come back and view our final issues for the end of this school year.