USH Newsletter 13th November 2020

One of our favourite events of the school year is the Grandparents' Remembrance Coffee Morning and you were very much in our thoughts on Wednesday.  It was not the same without you; we sincerely missed your presence and stories to mark Remembrance day.

Students took part in a tutor time activity and later in the morning, a two-minute silence was observed.  Thank you to Edward K who again this year, brought the two minute silence to a close with the playing of 'The Last Post' on the bugle. This could be heard throughout most of the school with the windows wide open and classes then viewed the short video filmed by our school Chaplain, Georgia Condell.  The link for this video was available on our Facebook page - did you view it?  

It seems some time ago now, although it was only the end of last month, and despite the restrictions being adhered to at this time we continued to hold the Student Leadership Election  - electronically!

All students were shown the candidates campaign video during tutor time at the start of the last week of term and then the link for voting was issued. 

After a well-fought campaign, the ten candidates were personally congratulated by Mr Woods for their contribution to the important democratic process and their positions within the Student Leadership Team were announced amongst a modest sprinkling of confetti.

We are delighted to announce our Head Boy and Girl for this academic year are Sam F and Abigail H.  Congratulations to our Deputy Head Boy and Girl - Jacob M and Jess F, our Assistant Head Boy and Girl – Luke
N and Kate T and the Senior Prefects - Zameer
A, Georgia G, Dawid S and Tomas B.

We are looking forward to the impact this team will have on
the school in the coming year.

The candidates certainly deserved a restful half-term to recuperate from the pressure and excitement of Campaign week.

Aviators -

It has been a very busy start to the term and our Covid-19 safety
precautions have obviously made the gathering of students in their houses a
tricky business, but despite this, the re-launched house system is starting to have
an impact throughout the school. The Exhibition Hall is now the home for the
display boards for each house and our weekly total of House Points is updated
each Friday. Up to today, Aviator students have earned a fantastic total of
4201 points, given for effort, outstanding work and a good attitude in lessons.
Well done to all.

The House Captains have been announced and I am delighted to welcome
Mali B as the student leader for Aviators. Mali will be getting involved
in helping to organise competitions and events as the year goes on.

In Aviators, we received some marvellous entries for both the logo and
the house-song competitions and I would like to thank everyone who entered. I
am pleased to announce that the winning logo for Aviators was a beautiful and
artistic design by Jaskirt K and Arnika A from Year 8. The winner of the
‘house-song’ competition was Dovydas V from Year 7, who deserves extra
credit for writing a complete set of inspirational lyrics for his entry. These
students will receive news of their prizes very soon.

Coming up later in the year, the Heads of Houses are planning a wide
variety of competitions to appeal to students with all sorts of talents,
interests and abilities. Watch this space!

Mr O’Farrell

Engineers –

Since the beginning of term, a
few exciting things have been happening; the relaunch of the Houses. Engineer
house revamped their house by changing the new house colour to purple
(coinciding with the purple in the USH logo!), as well as having an inter-school competition for students to design the logo for our house. Our logo has been designed by Miranda F.  We have had
the new launch of Houses discussed within tutor times and have had Year 11
students appointed as House Captains – Grace P has been appointed in this
role for Engineers. We are also working on putting together a timeline of
competitions for the students to take part in, winning themselves prizes and
achievement points for the house. When it comes to achievement points, Engineers have been in the lead every single week; keep it up! The achievement
points are displayed in the new house boards, situated in the Exhibition Hall - this is where the students can find all the latest information regarding the
House.

Miss Way

Venturers -

After a very competitive Student leadership campaign, I would like send
congratulations to the following Venturers on their new student leadership
roles - Jessie F as Deputy Head Girl and Kate T as Assistant Head Girl.

 I would also like to congratulate and welcome our House Captains;

Oren M - House Captain

Ananya N - Vice House Captain for Venturers and Mariners

and Dylan T for our new logo.

Now that we have settled into our new school routine it’s time to think
about how you can achieve house points and try to get Venturers to the top.
Lesson points count towards house points. With every lesson point, you are
making sure Venturers are competing for top spot in the house competition to
see which house is the best in school. 

These are the qualities that Venturers show…

• Make positive decisions about your work and social times.
• Take risks that challenge you. Put your hand up and answer a question
  in class. Push yourself to try something new.
• Be proud of your work and achievements, both in and out of school.
• Be enthusiastic in your learning.
• Be ambitious and push yourself to be the best.
• Trust each other and your teachers.

How much of a Venturer can you be?

Miss Suffling

Mariners - 

Welcome to the first Mariners House Report.
We've made a great start to the new year and there are some students who
require recognition for their efforts so far. 

The first is Hollie G who was elected
House Captain. Congratulations on beating the competition and we look forward
to hearing more about you in the next report. The next group of students are
those who are our top House point scorers for the first half- term:

Year 7 - Victoria D

Year 8 - Thomas G

Year 9 - Anna S

Year 10 - Pamela N

Year 11 -  Wyktoria R

So who will it be next term? Will your name be in that
table? 

And finally a massive congratulations to Ella
C in Year 10 for her Mariners Logo. A fantastic logo and an excellent
winner.

Remember Mariners, we need all the points we can
get and for every one of you to join in the events and make sure you support
your house. There are lots of events planned and we need you to participate.
Good luck! 

Mr C

Last month, USH celebrated World
Mental Health Day. 

Video workshops were provided by CAMHS and other
agencies across the city in place of the citywide event which was due to take
place at USH this year. 

KS3 students completed activities during tutor
time around how to understand and cope with anxiety and low mood.  These
sessions provided students with an opportunity to understand and discuss some
different mental health issues, but also be pointed in the direction of support
and strategies to cope. 

KS4 students completed sessions around relieving
anxiety and stress in their PE and PSHE lessons. 

Chair Yoga:

This was an interactive session where students could participate if they
wished. It focused on posture, stretching and really paying attention to your
breathing and the movements associated with it. This enables students to slow
down and take time to calm themselves and provides a practical strategy that
students can use discreetly to help them cope in stressful situations. 

Think
Ninja:

Students
were shown a PowerPoint presentation provided by the creators of ‘Think Ninja’, which explained what the app can be used for. The main aims of this app are to
provide support with dealing with stressful situations, organising and
understanding your thoughts, keeping good bedtime routines and reaching
personal goals. Students were then given time to download the app and explore
its features. It was great to hear that many of our students are already using
this app and thoroughly recommend it to others. 

Anxiety
workshop:

This
was a video workshop provided by Solent CAMHS where members of staff described
what anxiety is and the impacts/effects it can have. Time was spent explaining
how anxiety may feel and that it is a normal feeling. Students were also given
a very detailed explanation of where anxiety comes from and why we experience
it. They then demonstrated some breathing techniques and also how to use
resources such as bubbles, stress balls and fidget toys to ease the
feeling of anxiety.

Music
workshop:

This
session encouraged students to participate if they felt comfortable to do so
and many of our students thoroughly enjoyed this! The workshop was designed to
promote music/singing for wellbeing - that ‘feel good factor’! The session
began with a vocal warm-up and then guided students through the process of
singing a whole song as a group.  Many tutors and students have commented
that they would love to do some activities like this again in the future. 

Students enjoyed these
sessions and were very willing to engage and learn.  Please see your year
group newsletters for a reminder of support available to you.

There are currently 500 books that were borrowed by students
before lockdown which have not yet been returned.

Books borrowed during
February/March were automatically renewed until 11^th September, but
now we would really like them back!

Please encourage your sons and daughters to return
books by putting them in the box outside the Library. There will be no
consequences for late books, we will just be happy to see the books again!

If students have any problems tracking the books down,
please ask them to email Dr Mount, rosina.mount@ushschool.org

Thank you for your support.

Students misplace pieces of uniform - that can't be helped!  The admin team will happily look through lost property if
parents would like to email in with a description of items lost, adminsupport@ushschool.org

It is helpful if uniform (including PE kit), is named, as all items that have a student name written inside will be
returned to the students during tutor time. 

The school has limited storage, so items that have been
unclaimed at the end of each half-term will need to be removed to make room
for further lost items.  These items will be taken to a local charity shop once they re-open on 2nd December.

We aim to reunite all identifiable items of lost property to their rightful owners and appreciate your help in enabling us to do this.  Thank you. 

Can you help us? 

The cost of school uniform can
be a financial burden for some of our families, so we
are asking
families to donate USH uniform items so that
we can redistribute to those who need them. We are asking for donations of the
following items which are in good condition
and could be recycled:

• Blazer


• Tie


• PE kit

If you would like to kindly
donate any of these
items, please drop them at our school reception. To ensure the Covid-safety of
everyone, please drop off your clean and washed donated items in a tied carrier bag.

We have also been made aware of a site on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/699149093552866/?ref=share where people
regularly offer uniforms & advice on the page. 

Thank
you in advance for your kindness and generosity.

The USH Team